Saga, Vol. 4 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples
My rating: 4/5 cats
A lot of people who came into my family’s life looking like heroes ended up acting more like villains. I wish I could say the opposite was also true, but that was pretty fucking rare.
see, this is why goodreads is so great – i wasn’t in love with this volume until i read anne’s excellent review, where she recontextualized the story into real-world situations that made me appreciate it so much more with her insights and anecdotes. that woman’s got a gift for reviewing, man. she should come back and do it more frequently.
because, yeah – this time it isn’t all fierce action and adventure. this has always been the story of a complicated marriage, but it’s usually taken the form of “both of our people want to kill us and the product of our miscegenation and we must flee to the farthest reaches of the galaxy.” and here, the problems are more recognizable relationship woes: working late hours, trying to make time for each other, the jealousy of the working-spouse for the caregiver-spouse’s closeness with their child, turning to mind-obliterating substances to get through the grind of the day, new friends with romantic agendas – and it’s all done really well with some excellent subtle detailing, but man – at first i was dismayed at how “ordinary” the drama was.
(although i am still such a fan of the damnable foreshadowing this series is so fond of dropping. this one was dropped and it set off a chain reaction that made my jaw and stomach drop simultaneously)
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it’s a different vibe from the previous books, and there was far too much time spent in robot-ville for me, but it’s definitely setting the stage for exciting developments to come. and it’s not all rom com themes. there’s still zany-fun stuff like this:
and this:
and if you ever wanted to know what a teevee-headed android’s perineum looks like, well, you’re in luck:
but the WORST thing about this book is this:
which is apparently a limited-edition bookplate that was given out at forbidden planet; a comic book store located, like, RIGHT THERE. i wish i’d been reading this series when this was going around because i would have grabbed it like cake. you snooze, you lose, karen!
i will leave you with this excellent observation:
and seriously – read anne’s review. i mean, unless you haven’t read the book first, and then – go read the book, silly!
thanks for letting me read this, maggie! it was still warm from your tummy!
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maggie’s trying to help me out in my resolve to not burn through this entire series in a matter of days
“if you can’t get to it, you can’t read it!”
can’t argue with that…
eventually, she moved.
review to come
