Saga #34 Review

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan / Artist: Fiona Staples / Image Comics Saga has been a comic from day one of my reading that has always delivered on all these fantastic and strange characters. Sure they may have horns, moss covered backs, wings or one eye (or many)..but that doesn’t keep them from being interesting, lovable, hated and sincerely some of the best characters to use to play around with themes like the long term effects of war, prejudice, blended families, substance abuse and so on and so on.  As different as many of these characters are from us in terms of the physical–all  of of their convictions, their choices, how they express themselves are familiar. The first lines of this book are, in Hazel’s narrating words: “We’re all aliens to someone.” And the first person we see in the panel attached to these words is a fellow prisoner of war like Hazel and her grandmother, is Petrichor whom we discover is possibly a transgender person last issue as Hazel accidentally comes across her showering. Petrichor who is different to a degree where other detainees actively exclude her is the first person to come across Hazel and the dilemma of her fallen teacher and help her. Seeing Hazel exposed and seeing both her parents genetic features (Marko’s horns and Alanna’s wings previously covered and wrapped) makes Petrichor pause but help Hazel out anyway is a beautiful sign of solidarity. And a move made perhaps made from sympathy too as she believes that Hazel is a product of rape. B…