Saga, Volume Three

written by Brian K. Vaughan
art by Fiona Staples

"There are only three forms of high art: the symphony, the illustrated children's book and the board game."  (Saga, Volume 3: 57 [15: 8])

Pulp novelist and covert social revolutionary Oswald Heist has on more than one occasion doubled as Vaughan's surrogate voice.  He advocates the same pop culture defiance that Saga has embraced throughout.  As the traditional and sanctioned voices of wisdom fail, the outcast artist-philosophers rise along with the meaning and importance of popular, seemingly vapid art forms.  Romance novel A Nighttime Smoke is not only an allegory for tolerance but a manifesto for sex as an agent of change, both literally and figuratively.  Wreath board game Nun Tuj Nun is the finest form of grief therapy for Marko and Klara in the wake of Barr's death.  And pirate entertainment broadcasts in the Circuit are not only a possible career avenue for Alana, who more than anyone (save possibly Heist himself) is attuned to the subversive potential of "low" art, but an arena in which melodrama is incendiary because it's entirely uninterested in polemical politics.

Sex, it seems, is the order of the day.  Heist's follow-up to his critically panned and widely misinterpreted A Nighttime Smoke is The Opposite of War, and as Prince Robot IV comes to realize, sex is that something, whatever it is.  Its power is evidenced by the danger it seems to pose to other political and social authorities and the proscriptions it inspires.  The willing union between two soldiers from Wreath and Landfall quite literally pose the greatest threat in the universe to both warring governments—and, at least initially, the greatest, almost unthinkable personal betrayal for Marko's ex Gwendolyn, his parents, and Alana's stepmother.  Prince Robot IV's pornographic vision at the moment of near-death is an enormous and inexplicable embarrassment for him.  Upsher and Doff's sexual as well as professional partnership is a career—and perhaps physical—liability on their home planet of Jetsam.  Even The Will's burgeoning interracial attraction to Gwendolyn has taboo tones.

Most of Saga's characters are most—sometimes exclusively—likeable in their romantic plots.  Gwendolyn is nearly intolerable in her compulsive and vengeful hunt for Marko and his family.  Her heartbreak is easily sympathetic, since the fiancé she watched go to war changed, fell in love with another woman, and never returned.  But, her shrewish antagonism toward Alana and Hazel and her uncompromising racism are petty, vindictive and entirely without reasonable perspective, even as she's falling in love with another man of another race herself.  Ultimately, her confrontation with Alana is immensely satisfying because Alana emerges both articulate and victorious.  But it's nearly impossible not to get wrapped up in her somewhat combative but ceaselessly hot flirtation with The Will and their evolving pseudo-family with "Slave Girl" Sophie and Lying Cat.  Likewise, Klara is angry, sometimes bigoted, and nearly always imperious with Alana and Izabel, but her sweet and conspiratorial friendship with Oswald brings out the best in her and helps her find her own place in her son's unconventional and fugitive family.

The finest developments:  (1) tabloid reporters Upsher and Doff, who in addition to being intuitive detectives seemingly capable of tracking down the outlaw couple better than most of the government agents, also have a reputation for responsible non-partisan journalism, which is a much more dangerous matter than propaganda for either side; (2) The Brand, an only-in-case-of-death emergency contact assassin with a terrifying St. Bernard sidekick named Sweet Boy, who also just happens to be The Will's sister and Slave Girl's namesake Sophie; (3) upon The Will's incapacitation by Sophie, Gwendolyn begins wearing his cloak and wielding his lance; and (4) Hazel begins growing up, a toddler in the final full-page splash.

As always, Fiona Staples' artwork is unmatched, perfectly suited to Vaughan's brutal, lyrical fantasy-world, a potent combination of visceral realism and delicate grace.  But her talents are especially evident in the expressiveness of Lying Cat, who's alternately able to communicate perplexity, painful worry, and fearful shame with an inhuman face. 

Collects Saga #13-18

ISBN:  978-1607069317