Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples Saga debuted in March 2012 to critical and social acclaim, racking up shelves of awards and standing as one of the defining creator-owned comics of the 2010s. From the very beginning, the creative team was honest about their having a plan for 108 issues, which made the intermission announced on the letter page of Saga #54 a shock for a lot of reasons.
After three years, Saga is set to return in January 2022 to finish its truly one-of-a-kind science fantasy family epic. Far beyond a simple space opera, Saga is a study in complex relationships, the humanity of monsters, caste cruelty, the hypocrisy and apathy of war, gender fluidity approached with grace just around the corner from harm, but most of all, the nature of love. Before Saga returns, we're taking a closer look at the world of wings and horns to prepare for the journey ahead.
WHERE DOES SAGA TAKE PLACE>
Wreath is a moon that orbits the planet Landfall, and they have been at war as long as anyone can remember. The people of the moon are creatures of magic and speak in an arcane tongue called Blue. They are phenotypically human with the exception of cranial horns that are as unique as fingerprints. Meanwhile, Landfall is a world of technology that considers itself civilized by comparison, also mostly human but born with wings as varied as music.
Due to their gravitational codependency on one another as planetary bodies, the wars fought between them immigrated to other worlds that they could destroy without compromising their own. The entire galaxy became a battlefield and innocent planets were forced to choose sides or have choices were made for them. Cleave is one such planet, remote by galactic core standards, though that provided them no immunity to carnage.
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HOW DID SAGA BEGIN?
Each issue is narrated by Hazel from some unknown moment in the future where she has attained old age and credits that impressive accomplishment to her parents, Alana, Private First Class in the Coalition Forces, a native of Landfall and Marko, prisoner 9763572, a conscientious objector and former foot soldier for Wreath High Command. Hazel is the first of her kind, a living hybrid of both species born with wings and horns, considered an abomination by many and a threat by some. From the literal moment of her birth, which occurs on page three of the first issue, they are hunted.
Intelligence officers from both factions are aware of what has transpired and neither want the truth of their union, much less the byproduct of it, to become public knowledge. Wreath wants Hazel alive and unharmed, but both want her parents destroyed and forgotten. Wreath hires bounty hunters to achieve its goal. The Stalk, a humanoid arachnid with a reputation for results and mercilessness and her sometimes lover, The Will, a cool-headed warrior partnered to a cat that can detect lies, are on their heels in the hours just after Hazel's birth. Landfall reaches out to their allies in the Robot Kingdom and commissions Prince Robot IV with the assassination, newly returned from the front and suffering from PTSD with a baby on the way.
When the family tries to leave the planet, they encounter a ghost who offers them a means of transport on the condition that she be allowed to leave with them. The phantom, a disemboweled and disembodied young girl named Izabel, must attach herself to another native of Cleave in order to do so. Though they are each resistant to the idea at first it quickly becomes clear they have no other choice. Once in orbit, Marko's parents arrive attempting to help but end up causing more confusion until Marko's father sacrifices himself to save the family.
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WHAT HAPPENED IN SAGA?
The freelancer bounty hunters never stop searching, along with the Prince, and a pair of reporters who become targets themselves by the same powerful patrons who need Hazel's existence to remain secret. A few years go by and the family settles in anonymity on a world called Gardenia. Alana earns a living as a masked actress on a galactic broadcast called the Open Circuit and becomes addicted to a drug called Fadeaway while Marko grapples with his dormant bloodthirst and his dimming connection with his wife.
War continues to count casualties on every world but the two that started it, and extremists start committing more and more atrocities in the name of peace. A janitor named Dengo from the Robot Kingdom kills Princess Robot and abducts her infant son, traveling to Gardenia so that he can send the signal of forced armistice across the stellar waves via the Open Circuit with a royal hostage in tow.
Eventually, Marko confronts Alana about her drug habit, which results in his exile from the ship. While he is away, Dengo arrives and takes the entire family hostage. He contacts a group of terrorists to assist him in his quest, but realizes that they are not who he thought them to be and tries to free Alana and her family before things become worse. Marko and Robot tentatively joined forces to find their children, only to find Hazel and her grandmother Klara have already been captured by Coalition forces. While the Prince is reunited with his son and Marko is reunited with Alana, the quest to keep Hazel safe continues.
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WHAT HAPPENED LAST IN SAGA
By the time Hazel was four, she was in a Landfall detention center for noncombatants with Klara and Izabel with her secret intact, thanks to tape for her wings and specter babysitter for her timely illusions. Eventually, Alana and Marko rescue Hazel with some help from Prince Robot, though Klara decides to stay. After briefly seeking refuge on an ill-fated comet, a freelancer named The March catches up with them and kills Izabel which causes Hazel a degree of psychic pain. Marko puts aside his pacifism for a moment and kills the bounty hunter to save his family, shortly before departing the soon-to-be-destroyed comet.
When the reporters who have been tracking them for years at this point finally catch up to them, they make the family an offer to disclose their story to the worlds in return for new magical identities that could offer them true freedom. As the decision hangs in the balance, The Will finds them. He kills Prince Robot in front of Marko who then beats him into submission. With a chance to end him, Marko grants him mercy, and The Will quite literally stabs him in the back. The final panel of Saga #54 is of Marko lying dead in his own blood, leaving an even more uncertain future for Saga when it returns.