| “ | My innocence died when my house fell on a witch. | „ |
| ~ Dorothy Gale to Cinderella, Cinderella: Fables Are Forever #4 — "Part Four" |
Dorothy Gale first appears in Jack of Fables, as one of the many Fable prisoners at the Golden Boughs Retirement Village. Her story is told in the Fables spin-off Cinderella: Fables Are Forever, where it is revealed that the former innocent farm girl became a professional killer for hire, going by the code "Silverslipper." She went on to become Cinderella's greatest nemesis.
History
Adventures in Oz
Originally an innocent farm girl from Kansas, Dorothy Gale quickly developed a love for killing when her house accidentally crashed on top of a wicked witch in the land of Oz and was rewarded for it with a pair of silver slippers by a good witch. The Wizard of Oz then hired Dorothy to take out a second wicked witch, which she did with a bucket of water, and she found she had enjoyed the experience. A second good witch revealed to Dorothy that her slippers held a number of magical properties, but before she could explore their powers fully, Dorothy lost the shoes over the Deadly Desert when she used them to fly back to Kansas.
Though the slippers were gone, Dorothy would return to Oz, but she along with two of her companions — the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion — were eventually driven out of the Homelands when the Adversary's territory expanded.
Killer for hire
Dorothy and her supposed friends reached the mundane world in 1943. She met with Snow White and Bigby Wolf at Fabletown but was repulsed by the Fabletown Compact and refused to sign. Though Snow believed it was because Dorothy did not want to see her friends sent to the Farm, Dorothy found the compact too restrictive for her needs and stormed out of Fabletown. She abandoned the Tin Man and Cowardly Lion in the New Jersey Pine Barrens and became an assassin for hire code-named Silverslipper, reveling in the role unimpeded for decades with a resilience granted by her story's popularity with the mundys.
Dorothy repeatedly crossed paths with Fabletown spy Cinderella, who ran into Dorothy during several of her secret missions for Fabletown, getting in the way of Dorothy's work. Dorothy pointed out, every chance she had, that she and Cindy were exactly the same but that she was better than Cindy. Cindy, however, greatly denied that, as she killed to protect Fables and humans as a patriotic act. She calls Dorothy a cold-blooded killer who killed for fun and was dangerous.
It came down to a final confrontation, when Dorothy kidnapped Snow White and was planning to hold her hostage. The two had several violent encounters over the years, until Cindy almost finished Dorothy off in Switzerland in the year of 1986 by throwing Dorothy off a cliff.
Prisoner at the Golden Boughs
Dorothy, passed out, was found by Mister Revise people and was imprisoned at the Golden Boughs Retirement Village where she was thrown down Revise's memory hole. When she emerged, she had been stripped of most of her memories and was again the same innocent girl she had been so long ago.
The years passed, and Dorothy described them as living in a fog where she could not think straight. However, when the Golden Boughs was destroyed, the memory hole was destroyed with it, and all of Dorothy's memories came back. As mentioned in a conversation between the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man during the final Jack of Fables story arc, Dorothy then struck off on her own. The Lions mentions that she got "all dark," and the Tin Man responds that Dorothy always was "kind of creepy."
Final confrontation
As seen in Cinderella: Fables Are Forever, she began plotting her revenge on Cinderella, while also for the first time remembering where she actually lost the silver slippers. She returned to the Deadly Desert and managed to get the slippers back by hanging off an aircraft on a rope, careful not to touch the deadly sand. She recruited the Spoon Brigade, Bungle the Glass Cat and a Chiss to assist her in her plan for revenge.
When Mister Kadabra is mysteriously killed by an unknown assailant, all signs point to Cinderella's nemesis from the old. Cindy sets out to find her, aided by Ivan Durak of Shadow Fabletown, who claims that Dorothy has been hired to kill him. Eventually, both are abducted and taken to the Deadly Desert of Oz, where Dorothy is waiting. Before they reach their destination, both manage to escape in the middle of the desert. Cindy is feeling ready to face Dorothy, but Ivan drugs her, and she wakes up tied to a chair, Dorothy standing before her with her little dog Toto at her side. (Toto had previously been killed during the mass escape from the Golden Boughs, but, as Priscilla Page points out during the first Jack of Fables story arc, "killed Fables often get magically replaced by new versions of the same Fables.")
In a surprising plot twist, it is revealed that Dorothy was Ivan all along (the real Ivan has been dead for a long time), disguising herself using her magic silver slippers. Cindy manages to persuade Dorothy to untie her and fight her in a real battle, in which Cindy steals the silver slippers and defeats Dorothy by pushing her from a great height into the Deadly Desert, apparently killing her, though her body is not seen.
Dorothy has a brief appearance in Fables #113 — "In Those Days," in a flashback that shows the death of Mister Kadabra. As previously implied, it was Dorothy who killed him. Dorothy is also referred to in the story arc "Cubs in Toyland."
Killed victims
Trivia
One of the statues in the Woodland's garden depicts Dorothy Gale alongside her loyal dog, Toto.[1][2]