Carey’s resolution is unexpected. It’s sort of celebratory and life affirming (and shows he and Gross could easily spin-off titles from Unwritten) but it also has the series’s first big fight scene in a while.

And it’s a comic book fight scene.

While all the detours into literature (Dickens, Moby-Dick), one doesn’t often think of Unwritten as being cousin to capes and tights comics. Carey apparently felt the need to remind everyone this issue and it’s cool to see a reluctant wizard battle a Golden Age hero.

It’s Marvel-style, of course, so the two heroes team up afterwards. Except it’s not to fight a villain, it’s to have a really touching scene together.

The Creature shows up again this issue as a deus ex machina but he also gets to meet Lizzie and Savoy. There’s even the implication he might hang out a bit.

An excellent issue.

Carey brings the arc into port—sorry, couldn’t resist—and ends on a profound moment. Well, sort of.

Tom learns the source of his power and, since it makes so much sense, it’s not surprising. Carey and Gross don’t go crazy visualizing it, showing admirable restraint.

The real thing comes on the final page though, when it’s a flashback to Wilson explaining how fiction works to a young Tom. That moment, combined with the previous revelation, brings a lot more into question. Some of these questions are ones Moore raised with Promethea. He never could make the answers wholly satisfying, because the questions are asked somewhat passively. Hopefully Carey will be able to find a way around that roadblock.

There’s no Lizzie or Savoy this issue. Instead, it’s just Tom and his literary sidekicks, for better or worse.

They get a little tiring, but the ending makes up for them.

It’s sort of an action issue. I think it’s got to be the fastest read so far in Unwritten’s issues, maybe because Carey doesn’t do much with any of the subplots.

Tom calls the Monster (the Frankenstein Monster), who’s sort of his guide when he needs one, and figures a way out of the mess he made of Moby-Dick. He moves through a couple more stories before he gets the this issue’s soft cliffhanger, which is an amusing one.

Carey’s still moving through unfamiliar territory, but he’s starting to use more familiar faces. Gross and Locke give the book a different feel for each of the landscapes Tom visits. Not strikingly different, but distinct from one another.

Lizzie and Savoy, on the other hand, have a nonstarter with the doll maker lady. Though I’m wondering if it’s a doll man, not a doll lady. No one’s clear on it.

Carey more than makes up for the previous issue’s weak cliffhanger with this one’s sublime one. The issue, with Tom trying to deal with being stuck in Moby-Dick while Lizzie breaks some bad news to him and he can’t seem to figure out what his father’s doing there.

Meanwhile, Lizzie and Savoy meet up with the villain doll lady, who’s like a Ennis villain in a Carey book.

If the issue has any problems, it’s with the disconnect between the two periods. The Moby-Dick sequences are sort of transcendent, while the “reality” stuff is so ordinary. It doesn’t matter if Savoy’s a vampire or if the doll lady uses creative means to torture… there’s no wonderment there. It’s hard to get wonderment in a comic book, but Carey and Gross and Locke get it going for Tom’s pages.

It makes Carey coast over the “real” stuff a little.

I think Carey just had his first misstep. It might not work out as a misstep… but he ends this issue like it’s “Quantum Leap” or something. It’s a terrible, terrible cliffhanger. The rest of the issue is pretty strong too.

It opens with Tom and Lizzie, with Tom blathering on romantically and Lizzie sort of ignoring him. The scene doesn’t establish their new relationship, but it’s got a lot of charm. Gross has started drawing Tom a little differently lately; he’s a lot more mature.

Then Tom ends up in Moby-Dick, while Savoy and Lizzie go looking for him. And Savoy reveals his new status as a vampire, which leads to a very amusing scene with the pragmatic Lizzie. It’s all good and solid.

But then there’s Tom… stuck in Moby-Dick, which leads to the weak cliffhanger. I hope any further adventures in literature aren’t so rocky.