Saga #14 – Review

By: Brian K. Vaughan (story), Fiona Staples (art)

The Story: Hazel gets an unconventional, but literally cleansing, baptism.

The Review: To the owners and operators of Comics Unlimited—much as I revere and adore your store and happy as I am to funnel my increasingly scanty funds into your business, this ridiculous business with slipping Saga in into plastic sleeves with a mature content warning sticker has got to stop.  At least, read through an issue to make sure there’s some actual explicit content in there before wrapping it up.  It’s just environmentally the smart thing to do.

This issue could easily have gone on the shelves without the extra non-biodegradable packaging without raising too many eyebrows.  Aside from the Stalk’s nips and a rather jaw-dropping panel of author Heist puking out his guts (from emotion!) onto Hazel, this is probably the least offensive issue of Saga yet, both visually and textually.  Even if you find something graphically objectionable to it, the issue more than redeems itself with moments of pure, if bruised, heart.

A lot of it, as with the best works of fiction, is in the little things: Klara’s growing rapport with the family’s ghostly nanny (“Ready your side of the ether, Izabel.  At this rate, we’ll be ghosts by dawn…”) or the faith Alana’s stepmom still has in her despite their estrangement (“Our girl may have her problems, but Alana isn’t a turncoat.  She was…she is a good person.”).