And so we finally come full circle back to Saga #12, with Prince Robot IV interrogating Heist, and Marko and his family hiding in the attic. But of course, considering all the time we spent getting back here, there are a few new wrinkles to add to make the scene even more tense and exciting. Saga #17 looks like it’s going to be pretty awesome. But we’re not there yet. First, Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples need to drop the last few pieces into place. And as I’ve come to expect from this series, those pieces are just as much fun as can be!

Saga #16

Also, we quickly find out what the point of the hallucinations were on The Will’s paradise planet, so at least there’s that. So much for all my grumbling in the last review.

Comic Rating: 7/10 – Good.

Like most issues in this volume of Saga, this one is about fleshing out the world and getting to know the characters. We’re solidly in Act 2 of this saga, I would say, and we’ve got a long way to go. One test of a good comic book series – or any fiction, for that matter – is if the writer can make the characters fun to read even when they’re just sitting around having coffee or playing board games. Vaughn succeeds. The conversations haven’t necessarily been as exciting as when they were all on the spaceship, but then Barr was a special kind of awesome. As was his brief relationship with Alana. Their scenes together were some of the best in the series so far.

That’s not to say everybody else doesn’t pick up the slack. There are a lot of great scenes in this issue between Heist and the family. He’s no Barr, but he’s still a fun character. And in this issue, everyone just works so well together, which is what we’ve come to expect. Plotwise, everything moves forward, especially the sub-plot about the two reporters. That might be taking a big leap forward.

But in the end, this is a penultimate cliffhanger issue. It’s all about finishing the set-up for what will hopefully be an epic climax!

Join me after the jump for a fully synopsis and more review.

This month, Upsher and Doff pay a visit to Special Agent Gale, the winged Landfall agent who sent Prince Robot IV on his mission to kill Marko and Alana. They catch him at home after a jog (or a fly? A flog?). Being a secret intelligence officer, he’s none too happy having to deal with the press, but once they tell him what they’re investigating, he invites them inside. He asks them to drop the story, because Alana isn’t some lovestruck runaway soldier, Gale says she’s a spy!

I’ve never noticed Gale’s batwings before

Upsher and Doff don’t necessarily believe him, so Gale changes tactics and goes for the gut punch by bringing up the fact that the reporters’ home planet, Jetsam, is very anti-homosexual – and I’m pretty sure Upsher and Doff are gay. Gale can tell, so he passive aggressively points out that it would be pretty tough for an openly gay person to have a career on Jetsam. He then shows the two of them the door, saying he can’t force them to drop the story, but he hopes they take the repercussions into account.

No sooner is the door closed than Gale is on the phone ordering an assassination. The seahorse guy who hires out freelancers (like The Will) tells him that journalists are off limits, but Gale says he’ll pay the super-rate to kill these glorified pamphleteers! The searhorse guy pulls out a file that mentions someone named The Brand.

Elsewhere, on Quietus, everybody is reading in Heist’s library.

Sadly, my childhood didn’t have enough cyclopses or ghosts

Heist is reading Hazel a scary children’s book, and everyone discusses the benefits of reading scary stories to kids. Despite valuing children’s books so much, Heist has never written his own because it involves collaborating with an artist, and after his second wife, artists scare him. This leads to a discussion about the Open Circuit, where his ex-wife now works. It seems the Open Circuit is like a cross between television the Internet, like some kind of pirate drama broadcast that isn’t exactly forbidden, but is kind of frowned upon in most circles. For example, Klara wouldn’t let Marko watch as a child, but she says their neighbors got a viewing box and it turned them into blithering idiots. So it’s entertainment, but not the kind Klara would let chlidren watch.

We’ll check in with the Open Circuit later, because next we head out to the paradise planet, where Gwendolyn and Lying Cat are still searching for Sophie.

What they find instead is a beautiful naked woman with a unicorn horn and a whip, calling Gwen’s name.

And my blog just got cheekier

Apparently Gwen knows the woman, Velour, but can’t believe she’s standing there in front of them (naked, no less). Looking to Lying Cat, Gwen says, “The person who took my virginity is standing before me,” to which the Cat replies, “Lying!” Gwen throws up the piece of fruit she had eaten a moment ago and the two rush back to check on The Will. The hallucinations are caused by the food, remember.

So we learned that Gwen’s first time was kind of hot, and that the Lying Cat’s powers are pretty fantastic. Gwen doesn’t know what she’s seeing, so for all she knows, that’s the real Velour standing there. So Lying Cat’s powers aren’t necessarily based on whether or not the person believes they’re telling the truth? He can actually deduce fact from fiction regardless of circumstances? It’s…complicated. But it worked. Clearly there is more to this sentient, fib-detecting, space alien cat than any of us realize.

The two make it back to the ship in time to find the bewitched Sophie standing on The Will’s neck, so they grab her. Gwen checks The Will’s wound, and it’s bad. She doesn’t know enough medical magic to save him, but Marko does! Their only hope in saving The Will is to fly to Quietus as fast as they can!

Speaking of Quietus, Marko’s watching a show on the Open Circuit, and a lot of things fall into place…

There are so many questions…

Fall into place for us, the reader, I mean. Not necessarily Marko. The Open Circuit features people dressed as superheroes acting out dramas and TV shows? That might explain why The Will’s cloak has a superhero hood on it.

Anyway, it looks like Marko is sitting in some kind of studio audience, right? Apparently that’s what happens when you put on the Open Circuit viewing box helmet.

Well there’s one answer

He’s just in one of the bedrooms with Alana, and they talk about the Open Circuit for awhile, and how Alanas used to act in high school. She also says she once considered running away to join a troupe before she ended up joining the military. Soooo…potential job? Looks like that’s where the story is going next.

But before we get to that, Heist and Klara are making food downstairs and chatting about how the Open Circuit was their idea, cleverly planted in Marko’s head. Those tricksy older folk! They talk about war and art, and how Klara doesn’t think any artist has ever really captured both the beauty and the horror of war. Heist doesn’t buy the ‘beauty’ part of it, and rushes upstairs to get a book he thinks will change her mind. Izabel shows up to point out how Heist is totally into Klara, who tells the ghost she’s not blind. Izabel insists that Klara doesn’t need to close herself off to all men just because her husband died, and that she’d want that for Barr if she’d gone first. There’s wisdom in Izabel’s words, prompting Klara to ask just how old our ghost friend is…

But then Heist rushes downstairs to tell them to hide! Someone is coming!

Hooray tiny seal boy cameo!

Prince Robot IV strolls up to the lighthouse, though first he calls his wife for a brief chat – one that’s cut off by a dropped phone call. Hazel’s narration catches us up to Saga #12, where Robot interrogated Heist in his lighthouse. But this time, there’s something more. Somebody is watching Robot through binoculars.

Found in the dictionary next to ‘awesome

She’s like an Oncoming Storm!

And here I thought that tense scene in Saga #12 was good enough, but throw a badass Gwendolyn into the ring, wearing The Will’s cloak, with Lying Cat at her side; hot damn! I’ve got a feeling that next issue is going to be epic! Perhaps even the next two issues, considering Saga usually publishes six issues at a time before taking a break.

But we don’t have either of those issues yet, so how about this one? Saga #16 is nice. I really enjoyed the continued happy life of Marko and the gang in Heist’s lighthouse. He’s a swell old coot, and really worked well with all of them. Everybody gets some nice scenes, even Izabel. Hazel isn’t much of a presence, but her narration is always a highlight in this book. Most of these scenes were pushing Marko and Alana towards this Open Circuit thing, which would definitely be an interesting new setting for the next volume. It also has the added benefit of opening up Saga‘s world a bit more. Vaughn and Staples have created a truly insane universe, when you really think about it. So it’s always fun to explore new corners of the place.

Though, as always, the best parts of each issue are the rich, entertaining characters. I could read these people sitting around making breakfast and it would still be awesome.