From Eisner Award winning duo Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples comes the Image comic series Saga. Check out my review of issue #30.
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.
After last issue’s shocking demise of a fan favourite character, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples showed no intention of slowing down, quite the opposite in fact as this final issue of the arc was loaded. It may have felt a little too frenzied in fact, as several subplots and storylines are resolved hastily to the point where I actually had to backtrack and let everything sink in every couple pages.
Marko and Prince Robot IV managed to crash land on the same planet where Alana is in the middle of an escape attempt, so it was nice to finally see their storylines collide. The majority of this issue deals with the chaos surrounding Dengo’s rescue of the people he had originally kidnapped, so we spend a lot of time here dealing with the remaining rebels and their impending and expected deaths.
Dengo has been my favorite character for several issues now and his arc has been a joy to watch unfold, especially in these last couple chapters. He’s violent sure, he’s done awful things to people that didn’t deserve them and hell, this entire dire development is a direct result of his psychotic crusade to deliver a big fuck you to the robot empire — but that still doesn’t mean he’s unsympathetic. That’s a sign of brilliant writing. Thanks BKV — you continue to be awesome.
Elsewhere we finally see the conclusion — or is it the beginning? — of The Will’s road to recovery and it is so not what I expected. He is a scary dude and BKV has hinted in several Hazel narration sequences that The Will was absolutely the most frightening individual that her parents will ever face. This is a true glimpse into where that journey is headed…
Minor Spoilers Ahead:
One of my favorite characters is brutally murdered in this finale (fans know that we have to wait a few months for the next arc to fire up with issue #31). I knew it was coming – it was set up – but that still doesn’t mean it didn’t sting. It stung so bad. The final few pages do that time jump thing again too so it looks like the immediate fallout from this frenzied chapter won’t be directly explored when Saga comes back, and I’m actually thankful for that. Issue #30 shoehorned in maybe a little too much stuff in the last few pages but it’s probably for the best when we get rolling later on… At least that’s what I’m hoping for.
Rating: [star rating=”4″]