Saga vol. 3
It sounds weird to say this, but the fact that the first volume of “Saga” struck me as only being “good” was probably the best thing about it in hindsight. With the unanimous praise it received and impressive sales it racked up, I was expecting the world from its initial collected edition and didn’t quite get it. Brian K. Vaughan’s writing was clever and Fiona Staples’ art was lovely to look at, but it didn’t have the (to use a fancy word) frisson that strikes when you know you’re reading something great. Something like “Y: The Last Man” to use a totally and completely random example here. Still, the fact that it didn’t hit me like that meant that there was room for it to improve. Which it did in its second volume and again here as everything really starts to click amidst the laughter, joy, and heartbreak that envelops this interplanetary tale of a family on the run.
Well, not “running” so much in this volume as “hiding” given the cliffhanger that closed out vol. 2. The beginning of the issues collected here jumps back in time a bit to just before Marko, Alana, their daughter Hazel, and Marko’s battle-hardened mother Klara made it to the planet Quietus. They’re on their way to meet D. Oswald Heist, the author of the trashy romance novel that inspired Marko and Alana’s inter-species romance. Upon meeting the author, he comes off as a cyclopean Morgan Freeman doing his best Warren Ellis impersonation — which is to say he’s thoroughly charming in his rudeness. After Heist realizes that the vindication for his writing has shown up on his very doorstep, he agrees to help the couple set up a more stable life to raise their kid.
That being said, even though our protagonists have stopped running it doesn’t mean their pursuers have stopped chasing them. While we already know that Prince Robot IV is successful in his efforts, we also get to see what The Will, Marko’s ex-fiancee Gwendolyn, former slave girl Sophie and Lying Cat are up to as they touch down on a rural planet for repairs. Then there’s the press, or the tabloids actually, who get wind of the fugitive couple and decide that it’s a story worth chasing down and telling to the galaxy.
I mentioned in my review of the first volume that the world of “Saga” isn’t one heavy on detailed worldbuilding or tech-heavy exposition. It’s really our world with fancier technology and people with more fur, scales, wings, and webbing between appendages than most of us have. This felt like a letdown at first, but I have to admit that Vaughan and Staples’ approach is really starting to grow on me. Simple things like The Will finding out he’ll have to wait a day for the repair crew to reach his planet because he’s out of their “same day coverage zone” are cute enough. More interesting is the “Nun-tuj-nun” party game that Alana, Marko, Klara and Heist take part in. It may seem to be a fairly exotic example of the genre as it involves drawing, arm-wrestling, and a psych-out round. Yet the spirit of camaraderie and competitiveness it evokes will be instantly familiar to anyone who has done this kind of thing with their own family. Vaughan even finds a way to tie it into the main story as well.
That being said, it’s the characters who continue to drive this story and they continue to remain a likeably flawed bunch. Alana has a genuine fangirl geek-out at meeting Heist, even going so far to exclaim “NO SPOILERS!” when she finds out about the man’s new novel. Yet even though love on the run is awfully appealing, she and Marko wind up coming face-to-face with maturity as they’re hit with the realization that their lives will need some stability if they’re going to raise a girl. The two being who they are, the way there involves oral sex.
It’s also cool to see how The Will’s hallucinations are flipped on their head during the course of his stay on the planet. While this isn’t the first time we’ve seen him visualize The Stalk after her death, her entreaties to stay and settle down on this planet and consummate the sexual tension he has with Gwendolyn are nothing if not familiar. Vaughan clearly recognizes this and has them lead to something far more disturbing and violent with significant consequences for the character.
Consequences that lead to all the major plot threads converging on Quietus in the book’s last third. “Saga” has never really been an “action-packed” series but these last two issues represent an intimate flashpoint as all hell breaks loose in Heist’s house. Even though we know that Hazel’s life isn’t in any danger — she’s the narrator after all — and her parents are the title’s main protagonists, that just means Vaughan is free to have his way with maiming and killing the supporting cast. Which he does so with abandon here. It doesn’t feel gratuitous, but it is extremely painful to watch bad things happen to these characters that we’ve come to know and like after sixteen issues of development. Really, the last two issues of this volume drove home the fact that Vaughan and Staples have done an excellent job in developing their cast so far.
Oh, and I was wrong when I said “all” the major plot threads as this volume introduces us to a tabloid reporting couple who are tracking down Marko and Alana. They’re mainly in this to give us an idea of what the press is like in this world (short answer: much like ours) and fill in some backstory regarding Alana. I’m willing to say that their inclusion is worth it for the last bit, though given their encounter with The Brand — and the clever way she kills their story — leaves them with an interesting story thread to develop.
Even as the characters and their stories become more interesting, the art continues to impress along with them. Staples renders lots of impressive sights from the bone bug skeleton and Alana’s “dismantling” of it, to the flying color-spotted sharks, and Sophie’s haunted desperate gaze. (I can’t say more about the scenes you’ll see it in but you’ll feel the bad things coming as a result of it in your gut just before they happen.) I don’t know if drawing things like a drunken writer slouching towards our protagonists in an open bathrobe while carrying a gun and seeing a pregnant Robot being attended to by crocodile maids is fun, but the artist certainly makes it appear so on the page and it is certainly the infectious kind.
If the volume has any flaw, it’s that we don’t get to know too much about Alana’s new profession. Save for the fact that it appears to be a galaxy-wide theater group built on performing the worst kinds of superhero comic cliches and tropes to a mass audience. It’s not that I don’t understand why “Saga’s” creators feel the need to give the genre a swift kicking, yet they’ve already done so much good work without acknowledging it that to engage it in this fashion feels like their attempt to have their cake and eat it too. Either they’ll get it all down in one go, or we’ll wind up choking on smug arrogance. Given how this series has gone so far I’m willing to favor the latter and am looking forward to seeing how it’ll turn out in seven-or-eight months’ time.