Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples is a much beloved fantasy/science-fiction comic book series. I'm going to do my best to get through all them, but the wait times to get them through my library are a bit insane. It might be a years long project. I originally wanted to read them because Binge Mode did an episode on Saga and I wanted to listen to it, but I just listened to it before I read any.
Volume One (I read in June 2020): Alana and Marko are on opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war when they fall in love. They become hunted by both sides of the fight as they try to keep their daughter, Hazel, safe. In this volume, we're introduced to a whole cascade of characters, a world of utter devastation and war, and a ghost nanny. I'll definitely keep reading more.
Volume Two (July 2020): Marko's parents find our trio and some fun in-law shenanigans ensue. Meanwhile, many others are attempting to find the trio since Marko and Alana are fugitives in both of their home worlds. There are a couple of bounty hunters, notably The Will and his sidekick Lying Cat who can tell if someone is telling the truth, and Prince Robot IV, the heir to the Landfall throne. We get a bit more backstory in this volume, seeing more about how Alana and Marko met and fell in love (a book! she read him a book!).
Volume Three (July 2020): Marko and Alana head to Quietus, a planet where their author hero, D. Oswald Heist, lives. They are pursued there by The Will (along with his sidekicks, Gwendolyn and Sophie) and Prince Robot IV. Meanwhile, there are two journalists trying to track down the story. The Will's sister, The Brand, tracks down the journalists and injects them with a poison that will kill the journalists if they tell the story of Alana and Marko, but will otherwise leave them able to live their lives. The Will is seriously injured. The Brand has an awesome dog as a sidekick.
Volume Four (August 2020): Prince Robot IV's wife has a child while Robot IV is off doing very naughty things and then his child is kidnapped. Meanwhile, Alana is working as an actress and becomes hooked on drugs which leads to Marko and Alana's separation. Gwendolyn and Sophie are on a quest to find a cure for The Will. I am always a bit squeamish about reading about marriages in peril and it's not my favorite trope, but this seems oddly realistic in a fantasy world. Money and legal troubles combined with a toddler will definitely cause stress to a marriage.
Volume Five (September 2020): In this addition to the world of Saga, Alana and Marko are reunited, but now Hazel the Wonder Baby has been separated from them. Prince Robot IV kills his son's kidnapper, but is wounded in battle. Meanwhile, Gwendolyn and Sophie have found the cure for The Will, but at the cost of The Brand's life. I know that this series is beloved and I want to love it as much as the Binge Mode people do, but I find myself putting off reading it because it's dark and, honestly, a bit too crude for me. There's a panel in this edition in which a male dragon is doing something only a male dragon could do (to himself) and...it's just not my style. I'm more than halfway through, so I'm going to continue, but this isn't exactly endearing me to graphic novels as an art form.
Volume Six (November 2020): Several years have gone by since Alana and Marko were separated from Hazel and she's been in a Landfall re-education center with her grandmother. Alana and Marko try to find her. Prince Robot has been cut off from his royal family, but does his best to protect his son. The Will has gained a ton of weight and is completely drug-addled, but that doesn't stop him from hounding the reporters who have put in a lot of work on this Hazel as an abomination story. There are some good moments in these books, but they are maybe a bit too adult for me. Eh. I'm a prude, I guess.
And, honestly, that's as far as I got. I took out Volume Seven from the library, but I never wanted to read it and I ran out of renewals and so I returned it, knowing that I would probably never finish the remaining story. I think it's just not the story for me.
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