Saga is a violent space opera science-fiction romp with explicit sex scenes and a whole lot of randomness. It has a high shock factor, and probably shouldn't be read in class or at work. Or any public place for that matter. (Really, don't do it. It will get you VERY weird looks.) Gimmicks aside, Saga is also incredibly well written, funny, poignant, and has some fantastic messages on violence and its pointlessness. It's great. The (rather adult) style reminded me of Rat Queens, which is similar, only set in a fantasy world.
Well, I wish I liked this more. It came to me highly recommended, and it's obviously well loved here.
I was drawn to it because of its awesome art style, but its sexism and just plain odd dialogue didn't appeal to me at all.
So Volume 1 introduces us to the very complicated plot (that at times moves a bit too fast): the inhabitants of a planet and its moon (the races distinguished by having wings or horns, respectively) are at war. Because both the planet or the moon need each other to keep in orbit, the war was outsourced to other planets in the galaxy.
The main characters, Alana and Marko, are two deserters from the opposing sides who've fallen in love. Both sides want Alana and Marko dead, and their baby captured alive.
Sounds pretty good! The execution of it is what falls flat. And yeah, so I haven't read many graphic novels, but I'd still like to think that a comic can still be successful without gratuitous sex and sexism. I mean, aliens with cultures completely different from our own, and yet sexism is still a cultural norm? It kind of shows a lack of creativity, at least, besides reflecting poorly on Brian Vaughan, who thinks a "strong woman" is someone who shits on other women and talks like a teenage boy.
Then again, everyone had the same teenage voice, and it made the witty banter stale very quickly.
I might read the other two volumes my friend let me borrow, but I probably won't go looking for more.
There are three types of comics: The really good ones, the maddeningly bad ones, and the ones that are labeled “amazing” when really they are “meh” at best. Saga fits in that last category for me.
Saga is a weird mix of fantasy and science fiction, which both worked and sort of failed. Our narrator is in fact the child who at this point is only days old and is on the run with it’s parents. They’ve both abandoned their posts in the military to be together, which would be somewhat less severe if they hadn’t been from opposing sides. I both understood and was completely baffled by the plot in this one. I got the basis of it. Two warring sides, two people who fell in love and are now fugitives are trying to escape their death sentence, bounty hunters are trying to find them…simple stuff. Then there are the things like robots with human bodies and tv screens for heads, a sex planet, a rocket made of wood (yeah because apparently no one has told them this is a crap idea), and the lack of continuity when it comes to alien species. One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to aliens is when there is only one of something portrayed, or worse when there are a ton of species and no indication that there is truly an actual race of these people. Saga does that. Apparently the space in which they have manage to travel is rather huge or at least it’s a section of space that is densely populated by not just a few alien species but tons…and only like 6 of those have more than one of their kind represented. *internal screaming* One way this could have been fixed would have been world-building. Most comics take advantage of the visual medium for world building, but this one really doesn’t and it doesn’t actually tell you more than the plot as it centers around these three, so I was sort of confused as to how large a scope I was looking at. Are there a ton of planets? Are the robots a race created by someone else? How the hell is it pregnant? How the hell does the tv screen work with the human body? In short, I have a ton of questions. I don’t expect 6 issues of a comic to explain everything, but I would like atleast something explained.
The dialogue/humor in this one is actually really good and paired with the awesome art style it did made for a quick read entertaining read. Those two reasons are a big factors into what makes me want to read a series, so while I have a ton of complaints about it I still want to give volume two a shot. The story holds a lot of promise and I’m just hoping that in the next 6 issues I’ll see some of that promise come to fruition.
So this novel was so good that I immediately went out and bought the next one. What will I do when I actually have to wait for one? Everything about this book was amazing. I loved that the child is telling the story sometimes and I love the world that was create. The whole story and back story was amazing and nothing was predictable. Love it!