★★★★☆ Alana in show-biz

Saga, Volume 4

Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator)

If you're like me, your first question on seeing Saga, Volume 4 is, "Who is that woman on the cover?" That, my dear friend, is Alana. About halfway through Volume 3 Alana and Marko had a brief conversation about The Circuit, which is a performance venue of some kind that people can tune into with a virtual reality helmet. Before she became a soldier, Alana harbored ambitions of performing on the Circuit. Now that their lethal pursuit has been temporarily distracted or put out of commission, they're focused on making some kind of living. Marko encouraged her to audition.

So now Alana is performing on the Circuit, and what you see on the cover is her bewigged with wings bound and hidden in order to perform. She's the family breadwinner. Marko is a househusband, staying home and taking care of Hazel. The Marko-Alana-Hazel story in this volume is a bit dull. Without giving away any spoilers, it's kind of a typical show-biz family type of soap opera.

But we have two other families to follow: The best is the proto-family of The Will, Lying Cat, Gwendolyn, the rescued slave girl whom The Will has named Sophie, and another mercenary who calls herself The Brand. At the end of Volume 3 we learned that she is actually The Will's sister Sophie, and she calls him Billy. So there's a story to tell there, and it's the best story of Saga, Volume 4, in my opinion.

The story of Prince Robot IV's family becomes very messy, and at the end it intersects with Hazel's story. That, I surmise, is where we're headed in Volume 5.

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