Issues are by no means what they initially appear to be in Saga. Seemingly likable characters are launched, set up some form of pleasant rapport with the principle characters, after which are later revealed to be evil (or vice versa).
It’s a components we’ve seen time and time once more in Saga, however the genius of Brian Ok. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ sequence is how properly they pull it off each time. Studying it, you by no means anticipate the characters to go from outwardly hospitable to cold-hearted, close to sociopathic ruthlessness inside the span of a web page.
However they do, and naturally, you by no means anticipate it, leaving you shocked, bewildered, and anxiously ready for the subsequent problem to see the way it all seems.
The characters in query listed here are Saga #56’s band of house pirates/drug sellers/music bootleggers/self-professed crappy rock band who carry Alana and crew aboard their skull-shaped ship.
Initially, they seem hostile—primarily to Alana’s new right-hand man, Bombazine—however when Alana seems with Hazel and Squire in tow, they placed on a brand new face, welcoming them aboard and providing the little tots ice cream and an opportunity to go searching their ship.
Initially, this group seems not fully dissimilar to Alana’s group. They’re a random assortment of refugees from each side of the struggle who discovered companionship in each other, and even espouse a fierce hatred in the direction of the battle, blaming each factions concerned.
Individually, the 2 teams share a pleasant dialogue about their private pursuits and their pasts, with Hazel even being launched to a guitar for the primary time (it’s hinted by means of Hazel’s narration that it will turn into a interest of hers afterward).
Nonetheless, in true Saga style, the plot twist comes on the finish of the problem that the ship’s Skipper—whereas showing to be a jovial, easy-going, Robin Hood-like legal main a ragtag band of misfits—is definitely only a common legal thug who will do something to verify a job will get performed.
The crimson flags start piling up when he subtly pressures Alana to smuggle medicine for him at a planet with a excessive police presence, finally providing to maintain Hazel and Squire onboard whereas she performs the job. When he tells Alana to carry up her shirt to indicate proof that she doesn’t have wings (he hates Landfallians), that’s when the actual Skipper comes out, blasting Alana with a magical lightning and threatening Hazel and Squire.
Some of the entertaining facets of Saga is simply how a practical spin Vaughan and Staples’ give established style stereotypes, subverting readers’ expectations and delivering one thing wholly completely different.
Take, for instance, Saga’s inclusion of “the Revolution,” a parody of kinds of Star Wars’ Rebel. In Saga, the Revolution isn’t some organized group of freedom-fighters battling tyranny for a noble trigger. As an alternative, they’re a hyper-violent terrorist group keen to kidnap youngsters, homicide unarmed civilians, and do any variety of unspeakable acts for the sake of their targets. It’s an excellent juxtaposition between what readers know (the Rebel) versus what that very same group would appear like in a extra real looking setting (the Revolution).
Saga has performed this time and time once more in quite a few methods, and right here, Vaughan and Staples do it once more.
Opposite to what readers are anticipated to imagine in his introduction, the Skipper just isn’t some romanticized outlaw pirate residing on the fringes of society, stealing from the wealthy to feed the poor. He’s a determined legal pirate who threatens to carry out unspeakable acts on youngsters. (As a result of in Saga, in contrast to Star Wars, there are not any good guys or dangerous guys. It’s a world populated by conflicted, morally grey characters who can feed you ice cream one minute and threaten to kill you within the subsequent.)
Whereas the problem primarily revolves across the introduction of Skipper and his pirate crew, there are a number of extra facets to the comedian that present two characters’ huge progress. Alana, specifically, demonstrates a way more wearied, pragmatic facet to her persona these days.
She’s keen to take dangers, certain, however she’s not keen to place her youngsters in peril, preferring to carry out the smuggling operation the Skipper provides her on her personal, with Bombazine watching Hazel and Squire.
She’s nonetheless the hard-edged Alana of outdated, however she’s additionally somebody who’s realized from her errors and is wiser due to it. Sadly, she might have bitten off a bit greater than she will be able to chew trusting the Skipper and his crew so early, but when there’s one factor Alana has all the time been, it’s resourceful.
The opposite indicators of progress when it comes to character comes from a not possible supply. Mourning his son’s loss of life, King Robotic displays on the lifetime of his “child boy,” ordering his subordinate, the Countess (probably Countess Robotic X, Alana’s first commanding officer), to carry whoever killed Prince Robotic IV to justice.
The final time readers noticed King Robotic, he was busy verbally dressing IV down, coming throughout as little greater than a two-dimensional caricature of the omnipotent, emotionally distant sovereign father determine. Later, readers additionally study that—due to IV’s repeated failures to seize Hazel and her household—the King has revoked IV’s royal title, brandishing him with the minor moniker of Sir Robotic IV, and primarily banishing him from the Robotic Kingdom.
Now that IV is lifeless, the King seems to lastly get some much-needed nuance and complexity, brazenly admitting his remorse at dropping his son and the poor relationship they’d. In consequence, he posthumously reinstates IV’s royal title and is able to punish whoever killed him, earlier than being calmed down by Countess X.
Earlier than the King can attain a definitive determination, their non-public assembly is interrupted by a customer who claims to know one thing about IV’s loss of life. (It’s virtually definitely The Will, given his assembly with Gwendolyn in Saga #55.)
For followers of Vaughan’s epilogue in the back of the guide, Saga returns with its signature “Reader Survey,” stuffed with some enjoyable, attention-grabbing questions posed by Vaughan for anybody desirous about answering through print mail. On the finish of this epilogue, Vaughan additionally hints that readers may even see the reunion of The Will and Mendacity Cat, though what precisely they’re doing collectively once more is unknown. We’ll simply should learn Saga #57 to seek out out.
Saga #57 might be hitting comedian guide stands on March 23, 2022.
Richard Chachowski is a contract author based mostly in New Jersey. He loves studying, his canine Tootsie, and just about each film to ever exist (particularly Star Wars).