Saga #17

By Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

Issue #17 of Saga finally brings everything back to present day and moves all the pieces to the same place. It was pretty obvious that when Gwendolyn and Prince Robot IV finally caught up to Marko and Alana things would get violent, and writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples don’t disappoint on that front.

Vaughan has a knack for developing characters you truly care about in a very short amount of time. He also relishes in ripping them from you in satisfyingly violent ways, and this issue has one of those moments. Of late the series has been pretty quiet on the action front, but this issue kicks things up in quick but bloody fashion.

As usual, Fiona Staples knocks another issue out of the park. Her work with Prince Robot is especially enjoyable because of how they show emotion through the screen of their TV head. It’s always interesting to see what image she will draw to portray a specific emotion. She even has a way of making the talking head panels look absolutely gorgeous just by how well she draws different emotions of the character’s faces.

Saga issue #17 is the penultimate issue in the third arc of the series. The issue was pretty packed as Vaughan and Staples continue to juggle multiple story arcs, but the majority of those stories are converging together for next month’s issue #18. This book seems to get better month after month. If you aren’t already on board the Saga train, correct your mistakes.