Cassie’s Image Comics Review: SAGA #3

The third issue of Saga opens where the terrifying last issue left off, with the Horrors entering the glen and scaring away the Freelance bounty hunter The Stalk. Alana is defenseless against them as she protects daughter Hazel from their ghostly presence and her husband Marko lays dying beneath her. Things are not looking good for our star-crossed heroes when Alana is forced to compromise to save her family.

While Alana worries about her husband we get to learn more about the Horrors, the ghost children that are depicted in vivid pinkish red hues with corresponding colored text. Love that tiny little detail. When the residents who live on Cleave die they become ghosts or “spiritual defenders” of the planet, which explains why the leader of the ghosts, a sassy teenager named Izabel is missing the lower half of her body. The dangling entrails are a nice touch.

Marko is seriously injured but not dead… At least not yet, and Alana is able to learn that she needs to get him snow so he can perform a healing spell. In order to do this she must make a sacrifice, and agree to an uneasy truce with Izabel to get what she needs. In exchange for leading her to snow, Izabel wants to leave Cleave with them. The problem? In order to leave she must bond with a native, specifically baby Hazel.

We also learn slightly more about Prince Robot IV, who is interviewing Alana’s prior charge, a rhinoceros man who she was guarding while on Cleave. The plot thickens as he asks about a book she was always seen reading, a ridiculous looking romance novel called A Night Time Smoke, complete with a busty woman clinging to/riding a man on the cover. What that has to do with anything is beyond me. You and your intricate plots BKV. Does anyone call him that? They do now! In addition to the romance novel, this section also gives us more insight into the television royalty, specifically that they have the power to morph certain parts of their body at will.

As a woman I feel slightly bad for my inadvertent sexism against the strange looking The Stalk, a woman with an armless torso and eight hands on her lower half, not to mention her six glowing red eyes. She’s a formidable opponent, so much so that The Will gives up looking for Alana and Marko when he hear she’s also been hired. And I wrongly assumed her to be a man for striking fear in the hearts of others. My bad.

Fiona Staples’ artwork is as strong as ever, the attention to details such as the romance novel cover and the Fruit Loops looking cereal The Will eats (with gelatinous mascot) are nice noteworthy touches. This and the atypical comic book conventions found within make this a memorable series. The cliffhanger is less visually horrifying than in issue two, but it will tug at your heartstrings. That’s just how things work in this character driven sci-fi comic.

Story: Brian K. Vaughna
Art: Fiona Staples
Cover: Fiona Staples
32 Pages/FC
$2.99
On Sale May 16, 2012!