From Eisner Award winning duo Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples comes the Image comic series Saga. Check out our review of issue #29.
Saga is an epic space opera/fantasy comic book series created by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples, published monthly by Image Comics. The series is heavily influenced by Star Wars, and based on ideas Vaughan conceived both as a child and as a parent. It depicts two lovers from long-warring extraterrestrial races, Alana and Marko, fleeing authorities from both sides of a galactic war as they struggle to care for their newborn daughter, Hazel, who occasionally narrates the series.
When Brian K. Vaughan cranks up the urgency he dials it past the breaking point and Saga’s 29th issue is one of the craziest chapters yet. Artist Fiona Staples tweeted shortly after the release to say that usually she likes to think that both the writer and artist are responsible for telling the story but for #29 she’d like everyone to blame Brian… She wasn’t kidding.
Now – when we speak about shock and raising the stakes, it usually involves the death or deaths of major characters. And yes that is true this time but there is so much going on in #29 that the horrific and shocking loss of a fan favorite isn’t even the half of it. There’s a two-page spread that will fuck me up for a long time. If you had issues with the massive inflated balls of that one gigantic creature several issues back then you may have a heart attack when you see what Staples had to draw here. I had to flip the page back, put the comic down, then wash my hands, then dry them because I don’t want to wreck the book, then look at it again without gagging. Thanks for that.
Last issue’s shocker is followed up with several this go-around as the revolution thugs try to make a deal here by selling Hazel, only for everything to go horribly wrong. This leads to one of my favorite moments of the entire series so far and it just so happens to include Dengo — once again – a scene stealer and just maybe my pick for best supporting character of this series.
Vaughan’s Hazel narration of issue 29 is such a tease too, teasing sacrifice for several panels while flashing back and forth to several life or death moments between all of our main cast. The effect was so racked with tension that I couldn’t handle it. By the time we see what he means by ‘sacrifice’ we’re left reeling once again. Saga is the best comic book on the shelves today and one that should be read issue to issue because every single chapter is solid gold.
Rating: [star rating=”5″]