Posted in: Comics | Tagged: brian vaughan, Comics, fiona staples, Review, saga

Review: Saga #6 – Being Tucked Into Bed

Published Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:00:50 -0500

Louie Falcetti writes for Bleeding Cool

Grab on to your horns. Adjust your decorative wings. TUNE IN YOUR TELEVISION HEAD. It's a new issue of Saga, Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples surrealist, sci-fi epic that's only playing fast and loose with every genre notion you've ever had while telling a story about everything and everyone, everywhere. That's the good news. The bad news is that Chapter Six is the last Saga issue for the next two months.

If you're familiar with the television series Game of Thrones you're probably aware that episode 9 is usually the episode that feels like the season finale. It's the one right before the end where all the story threads from the previous season get tied up. The final episode on the other hand seems to be the springboard for the next season, setting up the new stories and teasing the audience with hints about the characters futures. Saga seems to be taking a page out of that plotting playbook as the arrival of Marko, Alana, baby and ghost at the Rocketship Forest feels slightly anti-climatic following the events of, well, all of the events up to this point. Which is not to infer that there's anything wrong with the season finales of Game of Thrones or Saga's act break. If anything Chapter Six feels in some ways like being tucked into bed, if your bed is hurtling through the cosmos and you're tree ship is getting magick'd by…well, you're going to have to read the issue for that one.

It looks like Prince Robot IV may have actually killed The Stalk, which gives us another opportunity to see a side of The Will that isn't murderous for money. Then again he does immediately threaten lots of violence after hearing of her apparent death. I just can't believe that a character that scary and bizarre would be gone from the series already. The Will, like most of us, hates his ex but still doesn't want her to be killed by a walking Royal Television.

Meanwhile back in the Rocketship Forest or rather, what's left of it, our heroes can't get in to their tree…ship…fort…thing without a sacrifice. This has become the way things work in the universe of Saga, nothing is free. You want to use some magic to get unstuck? You're going to need a secret. You want the ghost to guide you through the mountains? You're going to need to let her bond with your infant (something I'm still not entirely sure I understand).

Prince Robot IV steals The Stalks ship and figures out where our rebellious runaways are racing to and the answer is almost cute, that is it would be if in the revelation there wasn't suddenly the added element of racist, governmental violence. Then again there wouldn't be much of a story without the jackboots from another galaxy trying to crash out groovy love-in. The final moments of the chapter bring in two new characters who look like they're going to be major players in the next arc. And while most of the characters and settings might seem impossible and strange it looks like little Hazel is already an Adventure Time fan? Or maybe just Fiona?

Chapter Six, like the rest of the chapters thus far, continues to cement Saga's place among the great comic books of the 21^st century, a feat that Brian K. Vaughn seems unable to avoid to the disdain of no one. Fiona Staples continues to do everything and more, from moody, atmospheric covers to dazzling, ultraviolent visuals and serene double page spreads of awe inspiring wonder.

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