Bigby Wolf

Bigby Wolf's first appearance is in Chapter One of the first story arc of Fables, titled "Old Tales Revisited", which has been collected in the trade paperback Fables: Legends in Exile. The story arc involves the mystery around Rose Red's apparent murder, where her boyfriend Jack Horner informs Bigby that she has been killed. Bigby informs Rose's sister, Snow White, and then proceeds to investigate the crime scene as the sheriff of Fabletown. In these early appearances, Bigby's well-muscled body, shaggy hair and habitual scowl on his face is similar to Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the Marvel Comics character Wolverine. and invited comparisons to Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry character, and to Humphrey Bogart's various private detective characters: Bigby is depicted as primarily a champion of what he believes is right, who has never taken the law too strictly as he has shown a willingness to bend his own rules. Bigby appears in the crossover comic Batman vs. Bigby! A Wolf in Gotham, which was published by DC Comics from September 2021 to February 2022. ==Fictional character biography==

Having reformed from his violent ways, Bigby became the cigarette-smoking, trench coat-clad sheriff of Fabletown. He is extremely cunning and resourceful, in addition to being an excellent detective. Due to Snow White's possession of a lycanthropy-stained knife, he is now a werewolf and can change between wolf form, human form and an intermediate "wolfman" stage at will. In "The Great Fables Crossover", it is revealed that Bigby's nature as one of the North Wind's sons allows him to change forms at will. He is the son of the North Wind, which is where his legendary "huff and puff" ability comes from as well as control over the lower-tier winds. Despite his reformation, he can still be vicious if he believes the situation calls for it. He develops feelings for Snow White and the two have a litter of seven children together. He quits his position as the sheriff due to the election of Prince Charming as Mayor, whom he despises, and leaves Fabletown. He has since returned and married Snow, and now lives with her and their cubs on a specially set-aside area of land up at the Farm. In "The Destiny Game", Bigby forces The Lady Of The Lake to change his fate: he will never grow old, but he will continue to grow in strength and power; fall in love with Snow White; father seven children who will become gods and monsters who will lay waste to worlds; and he will die seven times, outliving all of his cubs. So far, it is unknown how often Bigby has died. Bigby eventually meets his end at the hands of Prince Brandish, who turns him into a glass statue and then destroys it. While the 13th-floor residents try to piece him together in hopes of reviving him, Mrs. Sprat removes a part of his glass body. Bigby is seen in his personal Heaven, where he meets Boy Blue and his son. Boy Blue tells him that while he can return to the living world, it would be a daunting task. Blue states that Bigby was meant to be one of the great destroyers, but that his fate was altered due to his love for Snow White. Bigby is eventually revived, but in a feral state. In the final arc he kills several mundy officers, along with Ozma, Beast, and Thrushbread. It is unclear if this state is due to Mrs. Sprat's actions or the challenge Boy Blue spoke of, but Winter's narration suggests the former. He is restored when Conner stands up to him. He and Snow then live happily ever after and have many descendants. ==In other media==

in The Wolf Among Us. Bigby Wolf appears as the protagonist of The Wolf Among Us, a graphic adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Bigby is voiced by Adam Harrington, who also voices the Woodsman from Little Red Riding Hood, Bigby's longtime rival. Players control Bigby as he investigates the brutal murders of fairy tale characters and slowly unwinds the mystery of the Fabletown killer. When exploring an environment, Bigby can interact with objects and talk with non-player characters, many of whom are established series characters including Snow White, the Woodsman, and Beauty from Beauty and the Beast. Dialogue options chosen during conversations may have a positive or negative effect on how other characters view Bigby, and their perceptions have far-reaching consequences which influence future events in the narrative. Some scenes are more action-oriented, which subjects Bigby to a series of quick time event (QTE) prompts for players to respond to. The video game's branching narrative is adapted and streamlined into a single canon plotline as Fables: The Wolf Among Us, with its first issue released on December 10, 2014 and published by Vertigo Comics. It was written by Matthew Sturges and Dave Justus, and serves as a canon prequel story to the comic book series. The series concluded on November 3, 2015 and collected as Fables: The Wolf Among Us Vol. 1. Bigby is the main character of the upcoming sequel The Wolf Among Us 2, which will continue events after the first game, though it still serves as a prequel to the comic series. Harrington is set to reprise his role as the character. The game is developed by LCG Entertainment, doing business as Telltale Games, in association with AdHoc Studio which is composed of former Telltale Games staff. ==Reception==

Bigby Wolf has been positively received by critics. Some sources consider Bigby to be a protagonist of the Fables series (known for its large ensemble cast of characters) as a leading man due to the central role he plays throughout much of the narrative. Kannenberg found that Bigby's initial depiction as a trenchcoat-wearing cynical detective with a chainsmoking habit in his early appearances adds a convincing touch of noir to the story. David Hinkle from Engadget praised the game's "intoxicating" mingling of mature themes like penance and redemption with fairy tale magic and superstitions as part of Bigby's character arc. He noted that Bigby is neither truly benevolent or malevolent and that he exists somewhere in the middle in terms of morality, showing empathy one moment yet purposefully provocative in another moment. Josiah Harrist from Kill Screen found that Bigby "steals the spotlight as the seemingly irredeemable anti-hero craving redemption" and that it is ironic that "Fabletown's biggest, baddest monster happens to be the one keeping the peace". Ozzie Mejia from Shacknews called Bigby "an interesting, multi-dimensional character" who can be moulded into "a heartless pursuer of vengeance" or an individual with "a heart of gold underneath his gruff exterior" depending on player choice. For his work as Bigby Wolf, in 2014 Harrington received nominations from the BAFTA Games Awards for "Story and Performer" and from the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) awards for "Performance in a Drama, Lead". Following the initial announcement of a sequel to the Wolf Among Us in July 2017, Alex Walker from Kotaku expressed a preference for a story that revolves more around Bigby's desires, as opposed to Snow White or the political machinations of Fabletown which dominated the first game's narrative. Analysis In his essay "Negotiating Wartime Masculinity in Bill Willingham's Fables", Mark C. Hill described Bigby's characterization as "part hard-nosed detective, part soldier, part anti-hero", and that his role as the protector of Fabletown involved an eclectic cross between "small town sheriff and clandestine spy-master". He noted that Bigby's stereotypical Hollywood police detective persona is only one aspect of the disparate narratives and centuries of cultural ideologies that makes up the character's personal history. Hill linked Bigby to Joseph Campbell's hero myth pattern studies as an outsider marked with supernatural powers from birth, to the Beowulf legend with his ability to assume the alternate form of a werewolf-like creature, and to the politics of conflict and war that surround the creation of the Fables series with the character's service history and involvement in a counter-insurgency storyline. Hill argued that the character serves as a "liminal margin", a concept originally developed by Homi K. Bhabha, "where pedogogical, nationalistic and resistant narrative discourses construct, maneuver and negotiate identity". Gordon opined that Bigby's fatherly persona augments his function as a "purveyor of wartime masculinity", and that it is "unusually rich" when compared to conventional fairy tale and folklore fathers. G. Christopher Williams from PopMatters was amused by the possibility of Bigby (at the player's discretion) retaliating against non-player characters over their misogynistic misuse of the word "bitch", which literally means a female dog, as a form of insult. Williams argued that Bigby has the potential to become an "instructional tool for those who are concerned with casual misogyny" as well as "the kind of numbing effect that overused language has on its meanings and implications". ==References==