Saga #22 (Image)

writer: Brian K. Vaughan
artist: Fiona Staples

via Image Comics

Have I ever actually read a Brian K. Vaughan comic for any extended period of time?  Well, no I haven't.  I think I read the last year or so of Y: the Last Man.  Never read Runaways.  Read a few issues of Ex Machina.  But I've now read more of Saga than anything else he's done.  And now that I'm getting back into reading it regularly for the first time since its early days, I've...got to get used to the idea again.

Every issue can't be pure magic, I guess.  Maybe it was just the thrill of the new that made it seem so initially.  There's a lot of soap opera drama between Alana and Marko these days.  This issue deals with the impending split (so our faithful narrator Hazel, their daughter, declared a few issues ago) and how it develops.  It's kind of sad, because in a lot of ways, Saga originally read like an intergalactic fairy tale romance.  Now it seems like Shakespearean tragedy waiting to happen.  Yay!

To matters worse, they're both in hiding.  Alana seems to be the one having a harder time realizing "in hiding" means keeping a low profile.  She quotes from an obscure book on her TV show.  This is considered a bad idea.

Anyway, there's always Prince Robot IV to entertain us!  But even he's got a case of the dramas going on since his newborn was born, his wife dying in childbirth and the baby kidnapped by disgruntled janitor Dengo, who seems to be on the verge of spoiling Alana and Marko's...less than ideal circumstances.  (Maybe he'll actually make things better?  Not for the people he shoots, but y'know...)  We meet Robot King, who has a massive...screen.  And no sympathy for Prince Robot.

Such is the way Saga turns.  At least there's always an excuse for Vaughan to throw Fiona Staples an interesting visual to tackle every few pages!  This book certainly remains gonzo.  And gonzo, as any self-respecting fan of Grant Morrison will have to admit, is always good.