Imagine if the TV show Once Upon a Time went dark, in a Stranger Things sort of way. And then throw in a heaping helping of the Columbine tragedy. That’s what you have in Fables #8.

A divorced mom, trying to keep her teen-aged son safe and healthy; but when you work for a secret agency tasked with hunting down Fables – magical beings – safe just doesn’t enter into. Especially when he and his buddies find your secret stash of magical weapons. Hmm. What would a teenage boy do with such tools?

The set up is good, consistent with what I remember of high school, if perhaps a little clichéd. But such clichés exist for a reason (because teenagers are dumb and shallow). Travis Moore’s artwork has a basic, serviceable quality to it, but it adds to the malevolence of the story. Kind of like those movies when the short, middle-aged dork in the glasses and bowtie turns out to be a total badass.

I haven’t been following Fables, but #8 makes the perfect jumping on point for new readers. It offers a primer of some of the peripheral characters (at least, I think they’re peripheral). But they clearly play a key role, if not now, then in the future.