Review: Saga — Volume 1

Saga: Volume 1
Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

★★★½☆

2012 • 160 pages • Image Comics

I think I read this too fast.

Saga has been relentlessly talked up to me ever since its inaugural issue in 2012. I’ve read the reviews. I’ve heard the good word. I’ve clapped eyes on the cosplay. Hell, I danced with a Prince Robot IV cosplayer at con once. Hype is such a hard thing to balance; some things are hype-proof (Hannibal wail okay that obligation is done for today) and some things… well, some things collapse like a flan in a cupboard, to quote Eddie Izzard, when exposed to such high hype levels. And that’s not to say that the hyped texts are undeserving of their hype, per se, but just that expectations and execution have unpredictable chemistry.

Saga is the story of Alana and Marko, two soldiers from different worlds at wars—Landfall, an empire rooted in science, and Wreath, Landfall’s moon, whose inhabitants practice magic. The two worlds have been at war since time immemorial, but because the deconstruction of either planet would destroy the other, the war has been outsourced to other planets. Landfall soldier Alana falls in love with her captive, Wreath soldier Marko, and the two escape… and have a baby, in a society where Landfall’s people and Wreath’s people loathe each other. The concept of them having viable offspring is offputting, but valuable. So we’ve got two soldiers on the run from their respective governments, desperate to protect their new family and escape the war, and the forces on their tails: the forces of Prince Robot IV, Landfall’s heir apparent, and the Will, a mercenary sidetracked in this volume by the discovery of a child sex slave ring.

Review: Ex Machina — The First Hundred Days

Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days
by by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris

★★★★☆

2005 (originally published 2004 to 2005) • 136 pages • WildStorm

It is amazing how time passes. Every once in a while, I’m astonished to realize that it’s no longer the late aughts but 2015, but I usually have a pretty good grip on where I am. (Where am I? Feverishly waiting for Trainwreck to come out next month, that’s where I am.) It’s far more disorienting to read something from George W. Bush’s presidency and have that whole political and pop cultural climate come rushing back. It helps (or hinders) that the early aughts were my political and pop cultural awakening (thanks, The Daily Show and The Lord of the Rings), so it’s sort of realizing that you still know all the words to Liz Phair’s “Why Can’t I” even though you haven’t heard it in years.

That’s what it feels like reading Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris’ Ex Machina, because this series is so pointedly a response to the post-9/11 world that it brings you right back there, all the way back to 2004. Especially with the way the first issue ends—that, my friends, is what you call a hook.

Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days collects the first five issues of Ex Machina, which follows New York Mayor Mitchell Hundred during his four years in office. Of course, Mitchell earned the post largely through his brief stint as the superhero the Great Machine, gifted with the ability to talk to and understand machines, a career that climaxed on 9/11. Despite his notoriety, however, Mitchell is much more dedicated to the law than to his superpowers as an agent of good. Now, if he could only get everyone to believe that on top of running the city that never sleeps during a hideous snow storm, resolve a controversial art piece at a local museum, and solve a string of seemingly connected murders…

The Literary Horizon: Ex Machina — The First Hundred Days, Phonogram — Rue Britannia

While I do love my mainstream superheroes (Steeeeeeeeeeve), I actually jumped into comics feet first in 2009 with The Unwritten and American Vampire, titles put out by Vertigo. So I’m much more used to non-superhero and independent (or semi-independent in Vertigo’s case, as it’s an imprint of DC) comics and the fantastic concepts you can usually find within. Today’s selections involve a superhero turned mayor and a world where music can save your life—or kill you.