If you like Westerns and if you like fairytales, these are for you!
Really, they should be everyone cuz comics are cool but that’d be too after-school special. However, I just found it amazing because the fairytale genre just doesn’t have a lot of western AUs. School or towns full of fairytale characters, yes. Erotic interpretations. Darker and edgier versions, but this is the only fairytale western and it is a rollicking good time.

The premise doesn’t divert too much from the original tales but it takes plenty of leeway in deepening the characters. In Rapunzel’s case, she was the indifferent child of Mother Gothel, desperate to see beyond the estate’s wall only to find out the true poverty that lays out in the New World colonies thanks to Gothel’s tyrannism. She also finds out her real mom works at the slave mines. With this shocking revelation, she pushes back at Mother Gothel for all her lies and gets suitably imprisoned in the middle of a swamp tree. The isolation doesn’t cow her to submission but gives her years train her long braids into lassos.

Oh, and she teams up with a morally bereft thief, where their time together helping the other citizens of the Wastelands and other New World colonies brings them closer and reminds the thief that money shouldn’t make the world go round but concern for fellow citizen.

And no, that thief isn’t Flynn Rider. It’s Jack of Beanstalk fame which is actually very clever as he fits the archtype perfectly. He is a thief because of his poor background and his stealing came from good intentions to uplift his mother’s station in life. Also the whole good-hearted yet somewhat unsocialized girl softens the cynical thief came before Tangled. Yep, this was published in 2007 so take that, Disney.

The Hales make a point in treating both as equals. Rapunzel is initially concerned that she is naieve about the world what with everyone’s concern about money over kindness before others. But then she decides it’s not naievity, it’s just the right thing to do. That certainty of doing what is right allows her to stand her ground against Gothel’s method of hardening her so she could take over her empire. Badass.

And Jack is great too with his improvised plans, and brief moments of care for others. Yes, he hides it under reluctance and eyerolls but when he gets into it, he is Rapunzel’s biggest supporter and throwing fire at coyotes, stealing guns of kidnappers and fighting sea serpents.

Of course, his own novel goes more in-depth, detailing his ostracisim, his former bad deeds, his adorkability in trying to admit his feelings to Rapunzel, and how he truly redeems himself with the wit and improvisation that he previously led him to believe that he is just a dumb luck naer’do well.

Nathan Hale’s art shine (no relation to the married writers) as usual, blending humor, grit and sincerity in equal measures. The detail is everywhere. You can see the dust amd the saloons, and lush green paradises. Also the world-building between the more rural New World colonies and the steampunk-esque city where Jack is from are completely different yet blend easily to the whole Western aesthetic.

Basically, it has everything. Action, humor, development and even betrayal and burgeoning romance. A very inventitive twist to some classic tales.