Comic Review - Saga #4

I know that when Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples first premiered months ago it was a big deal.  “Vaughn was coming back to comics!” said many a fan.  I honestly had no idea that he left.  But I did enjoy Runaways for Marvel back in the day so I figured I would pick up the trade.  I was therefore a little apprehensive about grabbing issue four by itself this week, but to be perfectly honest the selection of comics to review this week was fairly slim and uninspiring so i bit the bullet and went with it.  

First of all, let’s start with the price point.  I am all for a comic that is $2.99.  There are so many sub-par comics that are priced higher from all publishers that if you can find a good one at the lower price-point it is a treat.  However a good comic is not made by the price-point alone so let’s see what the meat and potatoes of this comic is all about.

Cover-

The cover, while beautiful in its own right, has nothing to do with the story aside from the fact that it features two characters that are in a part of the story.  It is more of an iconic image, kind of like what you would see on one of the Ultimate Marvel books.  That being said, the cover itself is beautiful.  I also like the fact that the background color (yellow) is continued onto the back cover, unencumbered by any ads.  The method of producing the art by Staples – A thin black outline around the figures with all of the interior detail work done in color only – makes it a visual masterpiece.

8/10 – It’s beautiful but has nothing to do with the story so that prevents it from achieving a perfect score.

Story-

We quickly learn the names of the two characters on the cover (within the first three pages) but that is about it.  We do not really know who they are or why they are at the sex-club planet thing, whatever it is.  To be honest I thought that the bald guy, The Will, was the guy with goat horns and the little girl he meets may have been the chick that always has her tit hanging out feeding her kid (seriously, that kid is always eating), and that this was all a flashback.  After reading the whole comic I now realize that the bald guy is a bounty hunter, but I had to wait until nearly the end of the book to find that out. 

The best part of the book is the argument that takes place between Goat Horns and Breastfeeder (if they had superhero codenames I assume that these would be it).  The dialogue is so spot on that, regardless of their current circumstances and their outward appearance I could actually see this happening. 

Here are the questions that popped up after I read the book:

-         Who is the bald guy, not his name, but what is his purpose?

-         Who is the little girl that he meets and what purpose does she serve?

-         What are Goat Horns and Breastfeeder running from/to?

-         Was the sex club/planet a flashback or is that happening in real time?

-         How do these people tie together?

-         How does Goat Horns expect to fight a spaceship probably full of soldiers or people that wish him harm with a sword?  Not a gun, just a sword.

That last question was the cliffhanger for next issue.  I guess we are supposed to wait a month wondering how Goat Horns will take down a whole ship with a sword.  Is this a Macgyver crossover?  I don’t know.  I was not impressed enough to pick up the next issue, and honestly I am unimpressed enough to avoid the trade paperback now.

Yup, Goat Horns is going to take on that whole ship with a Samurai Sword, tune in next month as he magically gets out of it. (There, now you don't have to waste your time or money either).

3/10 – The only thing that salvages this is the verbal fight scene between husband and wife.  Other than that nothing of substance happens.  A big letdown.

Art-

Let’s get this out of the way in the beginning.  Fiona Staples makes good art.  In fact, she makes all of it, pencil-ink-color.  While the results are beautiful, I think that the fact that she does it all is a detriment because the backgrounds in the book are mostly single-colored blobs meant to signify rocks or parts of a room.  Don’t get me wrong, there are panels in the book that are fully fleshed out, but those are few and far between. 

An example of a good couple panels, hey, there's that hungry baby again.

The character work is great though.  She keeps the layouts simple and does a good job with the storytelling aspect of the comic.  She also does a decent job making sure that the sex club/planet is as tastefully done as possible and doesn’t look like a mutant German orgy.  Everything is kept fairly pg-13 for the most part. 

Aside from the lack of substantial backgrounds, my main complaint is the fact that the human characters all look too similar, which led to my confusion as to who-is-who and whether part of the book was a flashback or not.  I realize that the goat horns should be a dead giveaway, but the facial structure looks so similar on the characters presented (and really there are only four human-ish characters in the whole story, so it is natural to think there is a correlation.  Staples needs to do a better job clarifying that, because Vaughn sure as hell wasn’t going to. 

6/10 – The art is beautiful but the lack of backgrounds and uniformity of all of the humanoids knocks the grade down a few pegs.

Overall - 6/10 – The cover is great and the art is good, but the story is just bad.  I would rather just buy a Fiona Staples portfolio book than try and understand what is going on in this book.