Review: Saga #9
Published by Image Comics
Written by Brian K Vaughan
Art by Fiona Staples
The Plot
The Will is rescuing the little slave girl and receives a timely assist from The Stalk. The Stalk then tries to calm the girl down, but at that moment it is revealed to be the Will’s dream sequence. His cat is there to greet him when he wakes up. Gwendolyn emerges and she eventually comes to an agreement to help in freeing up the slave girl in order to convince him to continue pursuing Marko and Alana. Gwendolyn calls Mama Sun and convinces her that keeping the girl will hurt business for Sextillion. The Will, Gwendolyn, and his cat all travel to Indica to pick up the girl. Once they arrive they find some resistance, which they are eventually able to overcome. Back aboard the Will’s ship, he tries to decide what to do with the girl while finding that she may be quite useful to his mission.
The Breakdown
The creatures that the Will was facing off against at the beginning is what I’m talking about with coming up with weird and different character designs. It was nice to see the other worlds and characters being expanded upon. I’m also looking forward to the inevitable confrontation between the Will and Prince Robot IV. I was also pleased to see that Gwendolyn’s character is being developed before meeting up with Marko and Alana. Their confrontation will have much more of an impact because it won’t be just implied as being important now. Now she’s more than just the angry ex-fiance and she’s a resourceful character. In addition, her prowess with spells was also impressive as was the Will’s knowledge of their implications. Lying Cat is a pretty effective sidekick. I thought that he was useful as a lie detector, but his battle prowess was a nice bonus. The plan that Gwendolyn devised was a good one in order to get the slave girl out of captivity. It just made the whole universe even more cohesive. Once again, Staples’ work was very effective at helping to tell the story. The expressions on some of the panels were very done such as the Stalk’s face when she didn’t like the Will’s stubble. Even though it was just a dream sequence, the brief appearance by the Stalk was good because it was interesting to see her in action with her multiple limbs. At the end of the book in the letters section, there’s a page description that was pretty funny to read. This was another solid issue and even though none of the main characters are in it this was nothing even close to being a filler issue. It did a great job of expanding the world of Saga.
BUT…
This is just a personal preference, but I cringe when I see the Will engaging in…romantic activities with the Stalk (who has eight red eyes and half the body of a spider). In stating that this is my personal preference I’m not implying that this turns anyone else’s crank either. I hope that some further social commentary is utilized with relation to the slave girl. Her experience is unfortunate and sadly it’s one that exists in real life and there can never be too much awareness with relation to the issue of child exploitation.
Buy It, Borrow It, Shelf Read It, or Ignore It?
Buy It. This issue was an interlude to the main story, but it still did a lot to push the overall story forward. There was a lot of character building in this issue and it made the series much stronger as a result. The cast of characters is expanding and there is time spent building each of them up. I enjoyed this series from the start, but not as much as everyone else seemed to. However, the last few issues have really made me enjoy it a lot more. Vaughan and Staples continue to be a very good team creatively.
