Saga, Vol. 2

The world we live in is only a speck of dust compared to the universe. Imagine all that could be out there. Including a planet that is just a giant egg ready to hatch. In Brian K. Vaughan's second volume of Saga, Alana and Marko are still trying to find a way to keep Hazel safe. Alana and Marko might have escaped a spider-woman, found a spaceship made of a tree, and bound their daughter to the upper torso of a little girl ghost to save Marko, but nothing prepared them for what was walking onto their new ship... Marko's parents. When they banish Izabel to the closest planet, Marko insists on going to save the ghost girl. His mother goes with him, not only to make sure he stays safe, but also to harangue him for getting mixed up with a Landfall girl. Meanwhile, Alana and Marko's father are left on the ship to... bond? Hard to do when she makes the ship wrap him up in vines and hang him from the ceiling! Meanwhile, The Will is getting over the death of the woman he loved and is caught up with saving a little girl from the brothels. Meanwhile, Prince Robot IV is determined to find Marko and Alana before his wife has their child, and he has a plan of exactly where they are going to go. What none of them know is that everything they think they know is wildly and completely wrong. And all of them are thrust into this world because of one little girl. Hazel. It's official. Brian K. Vaughan is a master. A complete and utter master. And the art by Fiona Staples? A. Maze. Ing. It is so beautiful and so unique, its hard to pry yourself away from the images to keep going with the story, but then again, the story is so awesome, it is hard to keep yourself from flying through the thing without hesitating to enjoy it! Such a conundrum! I really loved the addition of Marko's parents, too. His mother was tough as nails (any idea why he is so smitten with Alana?!). But his father was the one who really got me. He was a man who was instantly in love with his new granddaughter and still had a dark secret he was hiding. I loved how protective he was of both new additions to his family, and he made this story just that much more special. But still, the best of all was the world building. This saga (pun intended) never ceases to amaze me with its different planets and worlds out there. They are weird, creepy, bizarre, and so exciting to see! I almost hope the group keeps traveling because I want to see more, more, more!

I loved Y the last man and most of Brian K. Vaughan's stuff and I enjoyed volume 1 but never went any further and now that I've read volume 2 it's grown on me more. The characters are showing some depth and your getting some of their back story which is nice. Alot of new characters in this one but all introduced very well and not for no reason. Enjoy the art, rhe writing and the story keeps getting better and growing on me more and more. Excited to read volume 3 and so on. Highly recommend if your a Brian K. Vaughan fan or just a fan of sci-fi/fantasy and even a little good old-fashioned violence lol and not just those boxes to put them in Sci-fi/ fantasy cause they really contain a little of everything, love story, horror in ways, action, ghosts. It's an all a round very good story. Enjoy

Great stuff. Great, great stuff. This is what happens when the scribe and the artist are given creative freedom over their work. It's not like an established master like Brian K. Vaughan needs to prove his writing chops, but he continues to do so with his brilliant dialogue and storytelling techniques. With so much crazy in one idea, I feel like Saga has a lot of potential to be really BAD, but I love the direction he's taking the story, so much so that I enjoyed reading this volume a bit more than I did the last. And obviously, much of the success of this series is owed to the wonderful artwork of Fiona Staples. Being a space epic, this series has a lot of visual diversity, and it's just a joy to take in as you read. One thing I love about this part of the "saga" is that it gives us quite a bit of insight on the beginning of Marko and Alana's relationship without providing too many details or resorting to unimaginative romantic conventions. There are other specific parts of this book that I'd love to bring up (some involving other characters like The Will and Prince Robot IV), but I won't for the sake of avoiding spoilers. I will say that I loved the last issue in this book. I mean, as awful as the wait for the next volume of Saga is going to be, I'm giving props to BKV; that was a great way to end this part of the series. Now, here's the thing: this book has a lot of sex, profanity and a fair bit of violence, so it's DEFINITELY an adult comic book (and anyone who's read the first volume knows this). Therein lies my issue; it isn't so much that I'm bothered by all of the sex and profanity, so much as I'm not a big fan of the gratuitousness of it all. I mean sure, these things have a place in any entertainment medium, but sometimes I felt like BKV threw the worst appropriate swear word he could think of into various portions of dialogue not because the situation called for it, but simply because he COULD, like he had some sort of curse word quota to fill for each issue. There wasn't so much that I didn't enjoy the book, or that I'd stop reading the series because of it, but there was just enough to bother me a bit. Nevertheless, Saga is a fantastic comic, and Volume Two left me eager for more of the story. If you like comics, you'd be remiss not to check out this series.

SAGA by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples uses their second arc to tell the love story between Alana and Marko, and it actually makes sense! Chapter 7, "Dad grew up on WREATH, a magical moon locked in endless conflict with LANDFALL, the very planet it orbited." So we have the classic Capulet v Montague rivalry, here. "We are small, but the universe is not." Or as Linus Van Pelt once said, "There is no battle too big that I cannot run away from it!" But SAGA is about the trouble you cannot hide from because life refuses to leave lovers alone like that. Chapter 8, "I sometime forget, but mom and dad had lives long before I ever came into the picture. They had dreams that had nothing to do with whether or not I'd grow up to be an acrobat or a brain surgeon. They had their own hopes. They had their own desires. And then, against all odds, they found the perfect person to share everything with." The universality of that statement, even though Marko was Alana's prisoner, cuts through the specificity of SAGA's narrative. If there's no heat between Alana and Marko then what are they running for? (But enough about about Darth and Padma, ahem.) Marko's father Barr says to Alana, "Hazel is fine. She stopped crying the instant I put her into that absurd pile of things you call a crib." Holy Nativity, Batman! But beyond the Biblical allusion, this young family is in a desperate situation. "There is no way that I'm this lucky. My father-in-law is a seamstress?" Costume changes in comic books usually happen because a new artist has come on board, but Fiona Staples realized that going forward Alana needed clothes appropriate for her situation. Chapter 9, "Hiya, Mama Cellulite." This insult slung at a female pimp is the feminine sensibility of this series at its best: no guy would say anything about cellulite before pulling out a gun. Slave girl says, "Thataway." Each chapter of SAGA opens with a splash page and closes with a splash page, this closing has a child pointing directly at us the reader and reminds us that the stakes are always about life and death for all creatures big and small. Chapter 10, "Yeah, dad always had a way with the ladies." Marko's transition from prisoner to love muffin is critical, but Brian K. Vaughan's male protagonists (as in Y: THE LAST MAN) are often the only c*** for miles around, so they don't need to work that hard to get some. Izabel returns in high style, "Yeah, that's right. Flee in terror, bitches!" Fiona Staples has designed alien witches to scatter away that are spooky as hell. Izabel is none too happy with Marko's mom Klara, "You're the old crone who sent me to this dump, aren't you?" Well, yeah, but that afforded Barr precious time to bond with Hazel, for Alana was freaking out, "I was giving Hazel a bath and part of her just... just f****** fell ff. I don't even know what the f*** this is!" Barr explains how his species works to her, yet another clever role-reversal in SAGA where a loving grandfather can give a nervous mother of a newborn invaluable parenting advice. Chapter 11, "Yeah, yeah, so my mom and dad used to have sex." Again, Alana and Marko being intimate drives SAGA forward, it's not the kind of funky doodle Nightwing was doing with Starfire for over a decade where there was no possibility of pregnancy; these two fugitives had a baby while on the run - this is why we're all here, folks. Marko tries justify his trying to knock Alana up but she's not having it, "First of all, we're not free, we're hiding on a f****** rooftop on f****** Cleave." SAGA is gender neutral in that it's the guy who is romanticizing their plight. Klara is trying to do the noble thing when their rocket ship is under attack, "Your father and I have lived rich lives, lives that aren't worth a wet s*** without you!" To his credit, Marko holds his parents in higher regard than cannon fodder, but loss has always been a factor in Brian K. Vaughan's stories and SAGA is no exception as Hazel wistfully explains, "I still have a scrap of the outfit he made for me." Chapter 12, we are on the battlefield where one of bounty hunters is saved by an ill-fated medic, "Wait... am I dying? Am I gonna..." BAM. That same hunter tracks down a lead for the fugitive family not yet realizing that, "We'd already been there a week," Unlike the first three episodes of Star Wars where everything we learn about the Force and the Empire feels forced and unpersuasive, this second arc of SAGA brings three generations together organically while putting the dangers at a slightly lower boil without sacrificing a sense of urgency. SAGA takes the time to blink its eyes, to breathe deeply, and to let its concepts cool down a touch. SAGA does not let its mythology choke out its humanity. STAR WARS took 3 movies to tell us about Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader: The Early Years, and it was too academic, too much spectacle and too little emotion to matter. SAGA never fails to be emotional: Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples gracefully bring deep feeling into every science-fiction scenario :D

Believe the hype. I decided to check out Saga after getting absolutely floored by the first Paper Girls trade and it did not disappoint. I like this series more than Y The Last Man already, and I REALLY like Y. The creative team behind this series really knows their stuff, both the writing and the art really draw you in to a clever story full of interesting characters set in this captivating, fully realized sci-fi/fantasy mashup of a world. I don't want to go into the actual details of what happens in this collection, but suffice it to say it ramps up well from the first one and if you liked that one you'll love this one. HOWEVER I do have one strong recommendation for those considering this book: order the third volume at the same time. With the way this one ends you'll definitely want the next one handy to find out what happens next. I really like how Amazon makes this easy by offering these trades about $5 less than the cover price. Also, for the Vaughan fans out there reading this, be sure to get the first volume of Paper Girls. It's an amazing read.

This is a highly entertaining continuation of the Saga series. When Marko’s grandparents show up and accidentally banish Marko and Alana’s ghostly babysitter onto a different world it’s up to Marco to travel there and get her back. Meanwhile Alana gets some quality time with her father in law. Marko’s ex-fiance also enters the picture and ends up joining forces with The Will. We also get some backstory on Alana and Marko and how they meet and got involved. The story is fast-paced and the illustration and color are very well done. It’s easy to follow and I am loving the characters and the action. This is a very adult graphic novel, so I would recommend for mature (17+ readers) only. Overall this was a wonderful continuation of the Saga series and I can’t wait to read the next one. I would recommend to adults who enjoy science fiction graphic novels with a lot of action and complex characters.

This books picks up right where the last one left off. Marko and Alana receive some surprise visitors that send them on journeys, both of the heart and the physical sort. On the other fronts, The Will teams up with a new ally, and Prince Robot the IV begins to make his way closer towards his quarry. I'm being purposefully vague so as not to spoil anything. This one, like the first, just barely missed the five star cut. I looked forward to reading it each day and enjoyed all aspects of it, but it just didn't wow, shock, or awe me. I wasn't blown away, which is why I couldn't rightfully give it five stars. My favorite thing about this one was that we finally got to see the character's backstories. Well, most of them (at least a piece). I'm not sure exactly how Fiona Staples managed to convey this through her art, but there was a more innocent look to all the younger versions of the characters that just really made me feel the feels. I don't know who my favorite character is anymore, because they're all so wonderful. I'm looking forward to picking up volume three at some point soon because this series is super addicting and it seems to really have a great momentum to it. If you're not reading this series, what's wrong with you? But seriously, it's a great series for those new to graphic novels.

ARC provided by NetGalley This volume collects issues #7-12. One of the things that I've always liked about Vaughan's other works, Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, is just how well the artwork fits with the story and breathes life into the characters, even with the different art styles. And this series is no exception. I've not seen Fiona's artwork before this series, but I've quickly become a fan of her style and design. And how can you not be? Fiona focuses more on breathing life into the characters vs. trying to add overwhelming detail to background objects. The background objects are recognizable, but they tend to be more muted in color, less detail, which really helps put the focus on the characters themselves, which is something that I really enjoy. My favorite scenes in this issue involve The Will, one of the freelancers chasing after Marko and Alana. He just seems...normal. There's just something that stands out to me about his character design. Brian K. Vaughan is one of my favorite writers of all time. He has this amazing gift for creating a world that is just out of focus of ours, and yet makes the characters and their experiences relatable to what we experience and what we know. And that's what I love about this story in particular. Sure it's a world that we aren't quite familiar with, but the characters and the situations that they're placed in are familiar to us. And we can relate to them easily enough, that sense of wanting to protect someone, even if it means our own death, that sense of fear at not quite being sure what's real and what isn't it. Brian captures human emotion extremely well, far better than many of the other writers out there. One of my favorite aspects of this particular story is the fact that the daughter is narrating, telling us what will happen and giving us glimpses into the future. We don't yet know much...but hearing her narrate gives the reader a bit of hope, that even though she talks of the darkness and destruction, that she and her family survive. I love this series and I can't wait to read the next issue and see what will happen next. I highly recommend this series for fans of Brian Vaughan, Star Wars, Firefly, Fables...in short if you like sci-fi this series has something in it for you.