In July 2002, Bill Willingham released his first comic issue of DC Fables, a story about fairy tales of all origins to live in the human world. Then, almost a decade later, ABC’s Once Upon A Time aired its first episode in October 2011 with a story about Disney’s version of fairy tales living in the human world in a small town with no memory of who they were.
Why do these two intellectual properties share the same concept? Let’s take a look at Fables’ canceled show deals, show similarities to the comics, and how Once Upon A Time managed to change its story into a Disney fantasy drama.
DC Fables’ Canceled Deals with ABC and NBC
In 2008, ABC planned to develop DC Fables into a live-action series but was later dropped as NBC was putting their spin on the comics with Grimm, a story about Detective Nick and the Big Bad Wolf solving crimes between mankind and mythics. Except Grimm was based on the revival of a canceled CBS project called Brother Grimm by Stephen Carpenter due to the 2007-2008 writers’ strike.
Thankfully for ABC, they partnered with Disney since their Capital Cities/ABC and Walt Disney Co. Agreement in 1989. The production would later change DC Fables into Once Upon A Time. ABC hired Lost and Tron: Legacy writing team, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz to rewrite the show with Disney’s reimagined version of the fairy tales.
Kitsis and Horowitz transformed the fantasy crime thriller into a story of fairy tales with no memories of their former lives in the world they originally came from.
How Similar Are Once Upon A Time and DC Fables?
For this comparison, we will only compare DC Fables to Season 1 of Once Upon A Time to avoid major spoilers for the later seasons. So where do these similarities start?
Fairy Tales In the Human World
DC Fables: In the original comics, all of the fairy tale beings are called Fables. The Fables live in the Woodlands or the Woodlands Luxury Apartments on Bullfinch Street in 1986 New York. From the Bronx to Manhattan, they claimed territory as Fabletown under Mayor King Cole.
There are many Fables who are beasts and mythical creatures. A beast goes from dragons to talking animals. Mythical creatures vary by size such as giants, attracted to certain objects like shoes, or possess magical abilities.
There are also Fables who are humans or look human. For the past three hundred years, they developed the term for normal humans as Mundane or Mundies to differentiate the human fables from their own. All Fables are considered to be immortal as rarely anyone age.
If a beast or mythical creature wants to blend in and enjoy Mundy life, they will need to seek a witch that can provide them a Glamour spell at an expensive price. However, not all will provide a perfect camouflage so they need to choose wisely. If the beast or mythical creature cannot afford Glamour, they will be delivered to live at the Farm, a private estate for non-human Fables to live in.
Once Upon A Time: In 2011, fairy tales or Tales live in the Human World in the small town, Storybrooke on the outskirts of Maine. Every Tale including the mythical creatures has become mortal. Or so it seems.
Time acts differently in Storybrooke as no one notices that time hasn’t passed. While the world changes around them, there’s a clock that hasn’t moved. The Tales can’t remember anything about their formal lives but can sense they recognize them in some way.
The only proof about their formal lives is in the book that began as Once Upon A Time. The original owner of the book is Mary Margaret Blanchard, a school teacher who passes the book down to her student, Henry Mills.
Snow White Centric
DC Fables: Snow White has aggressive behavior for understandable reasons. When she was saved by Prince Charming with a kiss to cure an evil witch’s poison, they got married which sparked a long controversy with her sister, Rose Red.
After offering to live with them in their home, Snow caught Rose and Charming sleeping together once she asked the Magic Mirror where Charming could be. He responds with the lamest excuse, “The minx seduced me.”
Now living as a single woman, Snow acts as Deputy Mayor in the Woodlands’ Business Office. In their first case together, she was rather hard on Bigby when he gets tough with negotiations. She soon realized Bigby’s behavior pressures possible suspects and witnesses to leak information.
Once Upon A Time: Snow White is the formal queen of the Enchanted Forest. The Devil Queen ordered Snow’s death on sight, spreading lies of being wanted for treachery, murder, and treason. For years, she’s been robbing the Devil Queen’s coaches until she accidentally robbed Prince Charming’s.
They soon developed a relationship while tracking down Charming’s ring he kept from his mother. The ring is meant for the person he will wed by arranged marriage. Instead, he would use it to marry Snow after rescuing her from the Poison curse with true love’s kiss.
In Storybrooke, she works as a schoolteacher and voluntary nurse. Her human name is Mary Blanchard Margaret. She tutors Henry Mills’ class.
Forced to Move Worlds
DC Fables: The Adversary invaded the realm of the Homelands. With their armies of monsters, they attacked many kingdoms they could find and destroy to prevent their rebellion against them. King Cole gathered any surviving Fables to travel into the Human World.
Once Upon A Time: The Devil Queen cast the Dark Curse after sacrificing her father’s heart. She sends her henchman to destroy Snow White and Prince Charming. The curse prevented happy miracles to revive Prince Charming from being revived by Snow’s true love kiss.
The Dark Curse then transports the Tales to the Human World to prevent any magic from interfering with the Devil Queen’s plans and her path to happiness. The curse can only be broken by the child of Snow and Charming named Emma.
Main Differences Between Original and Recreation
While DC Fables and Once Upon A Time similarities hold ground, Kitsis and Horowitz did an incredible job of recreating the comics into an ABC fantasy drama of their own. The best changes they made for the story are character focus and socialism.
In DC Fables, the perspective is not on a single character. Readers will experience different Fables’ perspectives that are relevant to the main story or a side story. The two main Fables the comics focus on are Snow White and Sheriff Bigby Wolf, the human name of the Big Bad Wolf.
For Bigby, it mostly involves investigating homicide, ongoing murders, or acts of Fable Terrorism. Snow White’s perspective is facing the upcoming conflict between Fables. Snow wonders why Bigby took the job as Fabletown’s Sheriff. He answers it’s to start over and try to do some good.
There was once hierarchy and monarchy systems surrounding the Fables community in separate Homeland kingdoms. In the Mundy world, they act as democracy, allowing them to live and work as humans and mystical Fables. Yet there are still Fables who cannot live the everyday human life or the Farm.
In Once Upon A Time, you swap between the perspectives of Emma and the Tales. Emma’s perspective allows the viewer to see Storybrooke. The Tales’ perspectives will show their past life or what they are doing in their current life. When Henry gets his hand on the book, he can decipher which Tale they need to focus on to foil the Devil Queen’s or in this case, Mayor Regina Mills’ curse.
By having Emma stay in Storybrooke, the clock is slowly moving its hands each night. As the Tales have lost their memories, Regina seems to have managed to maintain them as she tries to actively get rid of Emma or prevent certain Tales from staying out of her way by driving fear into them.
The only Tale that manages to scare her is Rumpelstiltskin. In the Enchanted Forest, he tells the Devil Queen how the Dark Curse works and what it needs, “The heart from the one you truly love.” In exchange, she must obey every request he makes as long as he says please. In Storybrooke, he is known as Mr. Gold, the town’s tax collector.
How Willingham Handled the Uproar
When fans of DC Fables noticed the similarities, they attempted to boycott Once Upon A Time after the end of the first season. Willingham then addressed the community in an interview with CBR:
“There are plenty of such tales long before “Fables” came along. There will be scads of them long after “Once” has aired its final episodes and “Fables” shipped its final issue. If you start with the notion of fairy tale characters in the modern world, the next step of placing them in a secret community seems unquestionable.
[…] First of all, I am and always was on the outside of any deals between DC/Warner and any studio regarding a “Fables” adaptation. DC did not want me part of the deal-making and paid me handsomely not to be directly involved. So it was their baby all along.
I was never privy to the details of that supposed deal with ABC. I heard the same rumors you did, that the writers of the project weren’t supposed to have made a big announcement. […] I eventually got to read the pilot, and it was a far cry from anything to do with “Fables”.”
It’s quite rare to see a creator being lenient and off-hands on a project based on their intellectual property. Willingham coming out to calm the mobs helped ABC continued to produce Once Upon A Time with their next 6 seasons.
Luckily for Willingham, he would get involved with DC Fables with Telltale Games for the development of The Wolf Among Us. You can check out my article on it on Total Apex Gaming.
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