Saga #26

By Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Saga is always a tough book to review because it’s so consistently great that a mediocre issue is still better than most other titles. As we come upon issue 26 we have several groups of unlikely characters teaming up. Families are split, enemies are now friends and the Will is still not himself.

Brian K. Vaughan is pretty much a master storyteller. He has his hands full this issue juggling several characters while introducing some new ones, and he does a great job. He gives each storyline a good enough amount of time to develop and it doesn’t feel like any one section gets more panel time. One thing that Vaughan excels at is developing his characters. You could go back to the first issue of Saga and see that Marco is not the same character. He still has some of the same characteristics that made him who he is, but Vaughan has fleshed him out more, and it all seems natural. This is an issue that is paving the way for a bigger issue, but it was still pretty entertaining. Vaughan has shown where each of these stories will be heading in the next few books and the cool thing about it is that they all seem interesting and fun.

It’s really hard to complain about the artwork Fiona Staples. Her pop art light style and colors really make this book amazing. Whether it’s the Brand and company fighting crazy colored giant sea lizards or Marko beating the crap out of a burglar, her pencils and colors look great. It’s hard to show any emotion on a character whose face is a blank TV screen, but Staples does a superb job of allowing us to see it through body language. These are the little things she does that make the art on this book such a fan favorite.

Saga continues to be one of the best titles on store shelves. Between the superb writing of Brian K. Vaughan and the wonderful art by Fiona Staples, fans are treated to one of the most original and imaginative stories in the past ten years. This is a team that truly loves what they are doing and it shows every issue.