The Unwritten Vol. 11: Apocalypse
Mike Carey, writer; Peter Gross, artist
Vertigo Comics, 2015
There was an apocalypse promised in the final story line of The Unwritten, which was published as a twelve-issue maxi-series. It's right there in the title, so it would have been a horrible tease if nothing apocalyptic happened. There was arguably an apocalypse underway right from the beginning of the previous volume. Leviathan, the source of all stories, was wounded and dying, and reality had basically come unglued. Tom Taylor and his friends have to cope with a world where fantasy and reality have become intermingled. In the first arc "Sang" Taylor and his group (which now includes his father, Wilson Taylor) reenact an epic quest for the Holy Grail, which appears to offer the only solution to the crisis. There's a brief intermission for a story about The Inklings, the literary group at Oxford University that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. As usual the series finds a way to fit these writers into the hidden Unwritten narrative. The "Annals of Comparative Literature" arc concludes the series. It shows the two villains of the series (Pullman and Madame Rausch) finally collaborating to wipe mankind out of reality. But Tom and his father also come to an understanding, which leads to a surprise for the villains. And there's a nice little coda for all of the main characters. Nice ending.
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