24: Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love (single issues 1-6), by Chris Roverson and Shawn McManus (2010 trade paperback)

Bill Willingham's Fables comic series is one of the first I began when I started my foray into comics and graphic novels.  A world in which familiar childhood characters--Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Prince Charming, and the Big Bad Wolf--have escaped the Fableland's evil ruler and live amongst mundanes (mere humans) in an enchanted section of New York City is understandably attractive to a life-long reader and English teacher.  Throughout the series, Willingham and a host of writers and artists develop a complex plot involving human and animal fables, war and love, fiction and reality, and good fun.  The number of characters is quite extensive, so we learn just a bit of each over the course of the 100-issues-and-counting series.  That's why I enjoy out-takes like Cinderella, where a single character is the focus of a 6-issue story arc.

I can't recall exactly when in the series readers learned that Cinderella was more than a shoe-shop owning, globe-trotting divorcée (her Prince Charming, after all, is the same Prince Charming of all the fables).  In fact, Cindy is a deep-cover super spy, serving at the behest of Sheriff Bigby Wolf--and later the Beast--in an effort to keep the world safe for (and sometimes from) Fables.  

In this six-issue collection, Cindy sets out to track down the evildoer who is introducing magical items into the mundane world--a extreme no-no, as it can draw attention to the Fables.  She unwillingly becomes teamed with Arabian Fable Alladin, who has been sent by his people for the same purpose.  I love this version of Cindy, who is no hearth-sweeping, downtrodden step-daughter, but rather a sassy, sexy, and sarcastic 007 (Get the book's subtitle now?).  Cindy always has a trick or a snide comment up her sleeve, and in two or three places in the story, I guffawed aloud: a genuine GOL versus a plain LOL.  This trade will, of course, appeal to fans of the main Fables story line, but it actually stands alone pretty well and may be a good introduction to those interested in checking out the series.