“Am I shitting? It feels like I’m shitting!”
Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ comic series “Saga” begins with these remarkeble words, right in the midst of a childbirth, and if you gather from all this that MAYBE shocking you is the goal, you’re not entirely wrong… But of course, this is the 21st century, hello, who doesn’t give a FUCK? who doesn’t give a good goddamn?
However, I wouldn’t particularly recommend this work to the prudish, as this is not the ONLY case. For example, since you see dangling male genitalia several times, you also visit a brothel planet where you stumble upon an orgy. Then there’s a character with more legs than arms and more eyes than ears – and you might start to doubt yourself whether is it possible that you’re aberrant a bit when you think that this beautiful creature is very sexy?
But yes, it’s very possible!
Moreover, she goes through all her scenes in a monokini. So, if you didn’t know what arachnophilia is, now you definitely will!
And that’s not even the point.
The point is, there is the largest planet in the universe, and it has a moon, and they are at war with each other. To avoid destroying their own celestial bodies, they OUTSOURCE the war to ALL other planets. This is, of course, nonsense because it would be enough if they didn’t go near each other, and that’s it, but other than that, almost everything is fine in the comic series “Saga.”
The two main characters on opposing sides fall in love (one has wings and is SUSPECTED to be a huge slut, the other one is a conscientious objector with horns on his head and a cool little magic sword). They have a child, and from now on, the three of them are against the world(s).
On these worlds, you encounter a tremendous brainstorm of ideas: from screen-headed noblemen to ghost-babysitters, spaceships that are bred in the forest, EVERYTHING is there like in an amusement park. As if they mixed The Fifth Element with Star Wars, Harry Potter, and a trophy catalog, but just to be safe, they threw in a bit of Lone Wolf and Cub.
If you really wanted to nitpick about the work, you would find very few handles: You know since Once upon a time that every spell has a price, but this price shouldn’t be any random stupidity. Oh, and the part set on Sextillion is slightly out of character.
But otherwise, it’s adorable.
8.5/10 (85%)
Saga: Volume One by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
160 pages, Paperback
Published in 2012 by Image Comics
(Saga: Volume One collects Saga #1-6.)
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Review of the next volume:
Saga: Volume Two