Saga is a great series but I haven’t completely fallen in love with it. Brian K. Vaughan is one hell of a writer and he gets to show his comedic chops as well as his imaginative side as a writer here. It also doesn’t hurt that he has one talented artist in Fiona Staples to draw his brilliant madness. Quite frankly if Staples wasn’t the artist here I seriously doubt we’d be talking about this title as much as we have.

The reason why I haven’t fallen in love with this book is that, while it is written very well, the tropes we’re seeing here aren’t very unique. A ‘Romeo-Juliet’ story? That’s been done. A story about parents trying to protect their child? That’s been done. A story about going into a planet filled with naked tricylops? Okay that hasn’t been done and its moments like that where it makes this series stand out from the rest. I’m not denying that this book can be seriously funny nor am I saying that BKV hasn’t got a great series on his hand. But when I read this particular issue I just didn’t find much to gush over. His pacing with the dialogue is still good and he does bring some dark humor to the title. But again, nothing to really ‘love’ about this issue. (I hope that makes sense)

What I’ll always love about this series though is Fiona Staples art. Her style is very weird and it can be a bit hard to describe it. There’s a wealth of detail in each page and yet it has a rough quality to it. The characters are well defined but they don’t have many detailed qualities apart from their outfits. Look at how she draws their faces. You see the emotion in each panel but she doesn’t put the detail in the face. She is a master at using eyes to showcase emotions. You see a character’s determination or anger just by looking at their eyes. Of course she also draws some great alien planets and creatures when need be. We get a great sequence of the epic war we hear so much about. Also, we quite possibly get one of the grossest panels in the history of comics. Amazing how Staples is able to draw the prettiest things and yet deliver some unimaginable horror in regards to that one page.

This is a five star comic all the way just on the dialogue alone by Vaughan. But the reason I can’t fully love this series is because there isn’t much originality to it, or he is using tropes we’ve seen a million times over the years. Again, not denying the talent in his scripts but I just can’t bring myself to say this is the best series on the stands just on the premise. What will keep me going month after month is the gorgeous work by Fiona Staples and that should be a given to anyone who picks an issue up of Saga. You gotta be crazy if you don’t see the amazing talent she brings each issue.