The Saga Re-Read: Saga #53, where it all starts to go even worse

By Zack Quaintance — Re-reading Saga has been a dual exercise in clarity and familiar feelings. The clarity comes with the reminders of what has happened in this story and why, both of which are liable to get lost when you read a comic monthly. The familiar feelings are a bigger surprise, in that I find myself being moved by this story in almost the exact same ways I was the first time through.

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #52 is ominous as all get out

By Zack Quaintance — So, it’s been a while since the last installment of the Saga Re-Read, which we posted way back on Sept. 20...like six weeks ago! To be totally honest, I thought we’d have an announcement of a return date by now, especially with writer Brian K. Vaughan appearing at New York Comic Con. Part of me thought his presence at the show was all about announcing a Saga return.

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #51 is the start of the horror

By Zack Quaintance — This is the real start of the deep deep troubles that unfold throughout the rest of this arc. This is very much an issue with a surprise at the end. I remember thinking upon my first read that it was time to lose a character, and that I was sad that it had to be someone as charismatic as Doff. If I only knew…

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #50 starts with sex and happiness as we move toward the fall

By Zack Quaintance — In some ways, this is the quintessential issue of Saga. It blends moments of domesticity so well with science fiction, commentary, and the suspenseful escape plot we’ve been following from our first issue. It is, perhaps, fitting that this is the book’s 50th issue, and one that comes before a massive status quo shift. Oops, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #49 is the start of the most recent (and devastating) arc

By Zack Quaintance — Well well well, it all starts here, the beginning of Saga’s most recent arc. I will admit, the end of this arc was a tough one for me to get through, not because it wasn’t entertaining, but rather—well, you’ll see as this thing progresses. It is, actually, this arc I’ve wanted to re-read for the longest time, looking for more meaning as well as any signs that everything will be okay.

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #48 is a sweet and simple story that sets the stage for tragedy

By Zack Quaintance — I didn’t really notice this at the time I was first reading these issues, but this arc that starts on the abortion planet actually ends with a pair of atypical Saga issues that focus on fleshing out the backstories and current mind-states of a couple of periphery characters, namely The Will and Squire. 

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #47 is a fast issue that fills in The Will’s tragic past

By Zack Quaintance — Hey hey, we’re back! Apologies folks, but we’ve missed a couple weeks of recaps, nearly an entire month, as things would have it. There are a few good reasons, though! Namely that the ongoing Saga hiatus looks to extend through at least October now, which takes away any need for urgency, and secondly that I’ve been busy working with contributors to get more perspectives and more content. 

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #46, ‘#*$& your mercy in the face’

By Zack Quaintance — One of the qualities I find impressive within Saga is the way the series can both linger with you for the scope of its massive (and defiantly coherent) narrative, while also consistently landing some of the best individual moments in comics. For example, I remember this stretch of issues as the abortion arc, a somber aside that fit into the larger story because it sort of settled the question of whether Marko and Alana would have more kids. Upon losing and subsequently terminating the pregnancy to save the mothers life, they realize they won’t. It’s a vital part of the massive story going on here, if a bit of a side quest, so to speak.

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #45 is as heartrending and suspenseful as this book gets

By Zack Quaintance — Saga #45 put us directly into the heart of a story arc in which Marko and Alana must go to a wild west planet in search of a discrete medical procedure to help her with the baby she lost in the last story arc. This sounds silly for me to say, but as I re-read it, this story arc is proving to be much darker than I remember. I think that has to do with reading it with weekly breaks, rather than with months…

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #44 is a story of miscarriage, abortion, and a pro-life posse

By Zack Quaintance —  And like so many things on the site this week, today the Saga Re-Read is making its (triumphant?) return. It’s been a nice break, in the sense that now we just might have an announcement about the book’s return before this whole thing is over, although I still think the smart money is on it coming back in November, following the release of that super-mega-first-half-of-Saga hardcover.

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #43 is an accessible encapsulation of what this book is all about

By Zack Quaintance — So, this is an interesting issue, in that it was discounted to $.25 and aimed at attracting new readers to a long running title. I like these sort of things and comics like this. I came up reading books that were 400-some issues into their numbering and still working hard to summarize what had been going on lately on the off chance it was even just one reader’s first issue. This harkens back to that just a tad.

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #42 really ups the bleakness

By Zack Quaintance — One of my favorite things in monthly comics is when a long-running series has become so comfortable with its characters and plot, that it can start to center entire chapters around theme, rather than knocking things out it has to do to hit big dramatic flourishes. Phew. Anyway, Kurt Busiek is a master of this, but Brian K. Vaughan has some pretty strong chops as well.

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #41 is a return to a central Saga theme

By Zack Quaintance — Here we are at the penultimate chapter of The War for Phang, which concludes neatly next week with its sixth part. First, however, there is more fighting and more suspense. Giving into violent urges a theme that is as central to this book as those about family, and we see it here thoroughly unpacked.

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The Saga Re-Read #40: Saga #40 is the darkest issue in some time

By Zack Quaintance — In Saga #40, The War for Phang is raging. Although, the real combat is happening almost entirely off-page. What we see instead is a number of characters making very dark admissions, about a range of topics, from being so worried about being a bad parent that they have come to the brink of suicide, to admitting that violence feels good. This, my friends, is a hard…

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The Saga Re-Read: Saga #39 drops an interesting clue about the book’s future

By Zack Quaintance — We’re roughly at the midway point of the War for Phang storyline, and, as is in keeping with the rest of Saga, we really haven’t seen all that much warring. Instead, our central characters have remained at the margins of any actual fighting. The war is still a threat to them, but none of our main cast are all that invested in how it’s going or who wins. They just want to be rid of it, which I think is…

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The Saga Re-Read: We say goodbye to a beloved character in Saga #38

By Zack Quaintance — The War for Phang story arc has been billed as a self-contained event for Saga, and so as you’ll see in a moment, that means teasing the death of a character. Indeed, in modern comics no event is complete without loss, and even indie-minded Saga capitulates to…

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