Now that Alana is fully licensed, everything is good, right? Right? Saga #60 is drawn by Fiona Staples, written by Brian K. Vaughan and lettered/designed by Fonografiks.
Matt Lazorwitz: Well, thatâs a way to end an arc. Staples and Vaughan always know exactly where to punch; itâs the place you werenât expecting.
Mark Turetsky: Hazelâs family has had it pretty bad from the start, but itâs never quite been this bad. Not since they found their tree ship.
Blue is the New Orange
Matt: So, we did call it right last issue. Agent Gale has found his way to Klara, and she is about as helpful as you would have expected her to be.
Mark: Yes. Her Blue is quite ⌠well, blue here. âEat all the shit out of my colonâ is her opener.
Matt: Always a font of the blue, Mark. Much appreciated. I have to admit, I thought for some reason she would have known that Marko died. I worked under some kind of assumption that with the magic of the people of Wreath, there would have been some kind of bond broken or feeling when a loved one died. Apparently not, because boy does Staples sell the pain and shock on Klaraâs face when Gale breaks it to her ever so gently.
Mark: And props to Gale for figuring out about Hazel having been a prisoner there as well. It happens between issues, so weâre spared a scene of him looking at records and figuring it out. And the shock to Klara is so deep that she doesnât notice, doesnât resist when Gale tries to garrotte her (her Blue is a shocked âMy little boyâ).
Matt: Yeah, Gale is proving to be a far more competent adversary than many of the less reputable characters have proven to be in the past. Which bodes ill for Alana, but good for the story.
What saves Klara is the word of our old friend D. Oswald Heist. It seems sheâs been sharing the good word around the prison, and it has expanded to the guards as well as the prisoners. Again, the power of art, be it the written word or music, remains so central to what this book is about. That art can change minds and bring people together. And save some lives. Do we think that, now that she knows about Markoâs fate, weâre going to see Klara make a break for it?
Mark: I have questions about what Gale says as he leaves: âYou know what you need to do next.â Itâs ominous. I donât know how much he knows about magic, but the fact that he leaves so calmly and doesnât argue with the guard is puzzling. He says he got everything he needed, when clearly what he was after was Klaraâs blood or corpse or something as a magical reagent. We saw him locate her with Markoâs skull, so why not just keep doing the same thing until he finds Hazel?
I also donât buy the compassionate guard. I donât think the character is putting on an act, but it doesnât seem believable to me that a prison guard would be so kindhearted toward Klara. I know from reading the accounts of cops and ICE officers that have tried to do better that the culture of such institutions wonât tolerate sensitivity like this. Officers who donât fall in line donât stay officers for long.
Matt: So we are thinking that this will end poorly for the guard. Was this something intentional done by Gale, to put this guard around Klara at just the right time, so the guard can aid Klaraâs escape and he can just follow her to Hazel? And the guard is simple collateral damage; no fuss, no muss, and he doesn’t have to do the magic himself/find a new practitioner?
Mark: Iâm not sure. I donât know how many of the guards have joined this brotherhood of Heist or what. I think Gale expects Klara to kill herself is my guess. But then again, if he gets a hold of her body, then itâll be easy to find Hazel. Hmm.
The Heart of Hazel
Matt: Itâs easy to forget just how young Hazel is. Between the narration from older Hazel and bursts of intense emotional maturity, as we get in one scene here, Hazel can sometimes seem like sheâs an older teen, if not a young adult at times. But then? Then we are reminded that sheâs still a kid. And that can hit hard.
Mark: The scene on the pyramid world opens very much like the opening of this arc. Alana is back on her street corner selling illicit baby formula (which, Iâve gotta say, hits differently now than it did a few months ago, in real-world terms).
Matt: Oh, yeah, that definitely occurred to me, too. Life imitating art.
Mark: And hereâs the big difference: Without Bombazine, Hazel has to assist Alana. We talk about her having to grow up quickly, and here she is, helping her mom out selling baby formula and probably drugs. Of course, it wasnât like she would have been back at the tree ship behaving herself. Last time, she was shoplifting and nearly getting caught flying by the local fire cops.
Matt: On a mostly unrelated note, but definitely from this scene, I love Hazelâs top hat. Itâs a great look.
Hazel doesnât seem ready to be Alanaâs shill. She seems nervous, and cringes when the fire cops show up. Which is, granted, the proper response when either cops or fire monsters show up. And when the cops are fire monsters? Doubly so. I wonder how much Alana thinks of Hazel as a kid. Losing Marko, I wonder if she needs her daughter at times to be a stand-in spouse, not in a romantic way, but in a âYou are my partnerâ way. Seeing her use Hazel like this reminds us of what Bombazine said about Alanaâs mothering style last issue.
Mark: To be fair to Alana, she does have her medallion, which shows that sheâs fully licensed to be selling the formula on the street. That and the fact that the crowd is filming the fire cops lead the fire cops to leave them alone. And then we get our big reminder that Hazel is, despite all of her posturing, still very much a child: They go to Space Chuck-E-Cheez, or Douglas L. Zaapyâs, and she has the time of her life.
Matt: I want to spend all my ill gotten gains as Douglas L. Zaapyâs! But while she is having a joyful time as a kid, she has to have a serious discussion with Squire about his recently professed feelings for her. We already had an idea of how this would all come out, since narrator Hazel continues to address Squire as her brother, but again she shows maturity beyond her years by talking this out rather than just hiding from it. And her confession about how numb she is, emotionally? That was almost more painful than when the dam breaks a few pages later.
Mark: She also teases that she and Squire will once again play the game of water and snakes battling in a few years time for much higher stakes. So we know Squire at least survives for a little while to come.
Speaking of: Does the Robot Kingdom know he and Prince were living together? Thatâs a dimension we havenât seen brought up: the fact thereâs a missing Robot heir out there somewhere (and who sometimes slips up and uses colors on his screen).
Matt: Oh, I doubt we have seen the last of Robot politics in this book. I think when our good friend Gale catches up with them, that will become a plot point, yes indeed.
But we go from Hazel having a grand old time as a kid to experiencing one more tremendous bit of loss. I have fortunately never experienced a house fire that cost me everything, but when youâre someone so attuned to loss, and when you lose something that has been one of the few constants in your ever changing life? Well, no wonder this is the thing that finally makes her crack.
Mark: Marko has been such a presence in this arc, not only as a disembodied skull, but especially as a pall hanging over Alana and Hazelâs life, itâs no wonder this emotional climax is what jars Hazel loose from her feigned apathy. Weâve seen her playing tough through the last six issues, and Staples just does a virtuosic job of showing her break, alternating flashback panels of Marko being a great dad and present Hazel losing it. Itâs really powerful stuff.
The Continuing Saga ⌠Continues
Mark: I knew going in that this was the end of the arc, and Iâm used to Saga (or really, any image series, but Saga was the first to do it) taking a break between arcs, but it looks like we wonât be getting any more until January 2023. So the book is taking a six-months-on, six-months-off approach to publication. But that just gives us some extra time to reflect on this arc as a whole. What did you think worked best in this arc?
Matt: I think this arc did a good job of getting us back into the world of Saga. We got glimpses of most of our surviving key cast of the past, while also establishing a lot of the characters weâll be dealing with moving forward. The loss of Marko cost the series one of its principal characters from issue #1, so it also moved Hazel forward as more of a lead, something that started with the prison camp stuff from a few arcs back but now is center stage. And I personally like, for the value you can like a villain, Gale. I think heâs going to make for an interesting antagonist moving forward. How about you?
Mark: I agree with all of that. I also think that, in terms of scale, this is a fairly contained arc: Alana and co. get captured by pirates, Alana takes on a job for them, and they return to more or less their status quo (with a few key differences, of course). In terms of big, galactic-level stuff, we get some palace intrigue, we get Dranken reading a newspaper, but the war seems distant here. I do think thatâs going to change, and possibly very soon.
In terms of what I didnât like: while I liked the Skipper as a character and as a threat, I could do without the threat of sexual violence against children. I mean, look, I know itâs Saga, part of the ride is expecting to be shocked, but I think it stepped over a line (or rather, gestured loudly at a line and shouted at me that I was a fool if that upset me).
Matt: Yes, that particular bit left a sour taste in my mouth as well. I think this series has reached a point where the shocks need to be more organic to the plot, which they often are, but things like self-fellating dragons and ogres with giant scrotums have inured us to page-turn shocks when it comes to Saga. I donât need Skipper saying vile stuff like that to keep me engaged. The tree ship burning or even Squireâs confession of love are far more impactful shocks than that, and they donât leave me feeling queasy in a bad way.
Mark: Well, hereâs hoping Saga can grow up a little bit alongside its lead.
Saga, Etc.
- The full-page splash of the tree ship on fire shows off what great silhouette work Staples does, with each character distinct and immediately identifiable.
- I feel called out by Hazel saying we probably donât remember Hectare and Drankenâs names.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
