Rating: 5 stars
July brought another volume of Saga and there was great rejoicing in the Patterson household (well, at least from me, the husband is still a few books behind. I honestly have no idea where his priorities are). The action has jumped ahead a few years since we last saw our band of plucky protagonists, and Hazel is now living with her grandmother in a detention centre on Landfall, and she's going to kindergarten and making friends her own age for the first time. She's becoming a proper little person of her own, fully aware that she is an individual with a unique heritage, that she needs to keep hidden. Keeping secrets all the time is very difficult, though, and after meeting a transgender prisoner in the camp's showers, she reveals her wings to her shocked kindergarten teacher.
Meanwhile, her parents, now reunited after a long time apart, are looking for her throughout the universe. Also reappearing in the story (missed by absolutely no one - feel free to kill of these two anytime, Mr. Vaughan) are the gay tabloid journalists, now freed from the embargo put on them by the Brand and off looking for the scoop of the century, namely Marko and Alana's star-crossed romance. We get to see the Will again (not in a good place), but sadly Lying Cat only appears in what could be called a cameo, it's really very blink and you'll miss it.
I've seen some reviewers say that this volume really is just filler and that it's not as satisfying as some of the ones that have gone before. I would say that in this, several of the story lines set up in earlier volumes finally pay off, and this isn't so much a filler book as a bridge, suggesting interesting (and no doubt dangerous things) to come for our favourite sci-fi family. Hazel is an utter delight, Marko and Alana reunited fills me with joy. I have high hopes that the Will can snap out of his gloom and reunite with Lying Cat and maybe the boring journalists will be murdered soon, so the stories can be more satisfyingly focused on people I actually care about.
The reveal on the penultimate page made me literally squeal and promises such exciting developments in the volumes to come. Sadly, I am unlikely to get more Saga until 2017, at the earliest. That's the absolute worst part of this great comic - that the wait between volumes is so interminably long.
Judging a book by its cover: Simple and elegant, with a beautiful blue backdrop, the cover shows Marko and Alana finally together once more and it fills my heart with happy. Someone in a Goodreads review said they'd probably marry Fiona Staples' art by now, and I absolutely agree. So much of what I love about this series is the artwork.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
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