The last Unwritten issue that I reviewed for this site was #37, which I argued was a great issue because it removed us from the hard-and-fast continuinity of the main storyline and introduced some side characters that looked to be pretty big players in the rest of the narrative.

That looks to continue this month, as we're thrown right back into the "so crazy you have a hard time believing it" story, and introduced to a couple mythical elements that are going to make the next few issues quite interesting.

Some things I liked:

• The introduction of certain mythical beasts gives us some kind of indicator that the weird things that happen in this book actually happen. I know that seems weird, considering we have an established Vampire and some quasi-magic being thrown around, but it always seemed to be a "half in, half out" kind of deal. There's a unicorn now. There's no backing away from that.
• These two side-characters are winning me over because of the uniqueness of personality and the strong female lead. She knows what she's doing and she's not afraid to kick some ass: this reminds me a lot of Greg Rucka's Whiteout (which you should definitely be reading).

Some things I didn't:

• I know the whole point of the series is that these are analogues to the Harry Potter series of books, but in this issue it come across as really heavy-handed and frankly, quite boring. We've been hearing about the same "prophecies" since the start of the book, and having it brought up every couple pages really kills the momentum it has.

The Unwritten #36
Vertigo Comics
$2.99

The Verdict: Four unicorns out of five for being consistently good, if not a little heavy-handed at times. The plot is heavy and thick at this point, so grab some trades if you're behind.