Saga Vol. 3 (2014)
Saga Vol. 3 Review
Saga is an epic space opera fantasy comic book series written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples. The third volume covering issues 13 to 18 was published in 2014.
This volume was pretty much on par with the first one, meaning that this series is absolutely brilliant. It never stops being hugely entertaining, intriguing and memorable. You are always hooked reading it and you want to read more and more. I cannot wait to see what the next volume has in store for our heroes.
There is so much to discuss here as the volume is very busy with character arcs and storylines. First and foremost, I have to commend the newly added characters to the roster – the amphibian tabloid journalists Upsher and Doff. They are a gay couple, but the comic isn’t just pandering to minorities, but actually developing all of its characters properly. I liked these two quite a bit and I want to see more of them. It will be interesting to see how they will report on our heroes’ exploits now that they have been pretty much silenced to talk about it.
Prince Robot IV got easily the most meaningful role in the story yet in this volume. His dream about an epic orgy with his colleagues (both male and female) made for very spicy imagery, but I also liked how competent he was here and how he was a genuine danger to the protagonists. I also loved the character of Heist. He is this author of trashy romance novels and he is very funny and a great comic relief. He was an interesting romantic interest for Marko’s mother Klara, but they unfortunately decided to kill him off toward the end of this volume in a memorable moment for sure, but I am going to miss him quite a bit.
Alana and Marko are not as emphasized as they were before, but that was a great choice to give more of a breathing room for other supporting characters. But both of them were still very memorable and they saw some great growth – Marko realizing that he wants to be a fully present father and Alana realizing that she can fly. The latter moment was truly spectacular.
But I did not quite care for Gwendolyn. I find her character to be a typical badass female heroine, but she just wasn’t as well developed or as interesting as some of these other heroes. But The Will being in grave danger here lent the comic a lot of suspense and I liked Sophie’s arc too. I wished to see more of Lying Cat myself, but oh well. Hazel’s narration continues to delight and she adds a sprinkle of wonderful humor to the proceedings. The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and I appreciate the big count of large panels quite a bit.
