Oh, this one was painful, and not necessarily in that IT HURTS SO GOOD way (except for that last panel). Some of it was just downright unpleasant to read. I suppose not everything can be kittens and puppies and lovefests all the time. People get depressed, they drift apart, things suck sometimes. Saga, Volume 4 is one of those times.
This volume takes place over a couple of years as Marko and Alana & Co. are parked on one planet while Alana makes money for them on The Circuit, a sort of live theater televised broadcast, and she seems to be on some sort of weird soap opera wrestling show. Marko is restless and lonely and exhausted from taking care of Hazel all day. And Alana hates her job, and then makes some questionable decisions. They have a huge blow-out fight near the end of the book, and for a little bit you think that’s going to be it, and everything is awful.
And then this robot asshole Dengo shows up. Dengo’s entire life mission appears to be fucking other people’s shit up.
This book opens with a truly disgusting and weird image of a robot baby being born. Like, it’s a straight up robot vagina shot. It’s bloody and gross, and is sort of a weird harbinger of what’s to come in that storyline. By the end of the book, SPOILER the robot baby has been kidnapped, his mother murdered, and his kidnapper isn’t shy of murdering anyone else in his way. It doesn’t help that the guy has legitimate gripes. But he’s still the reason that by the end of the book, Marko and Alana’s fight, which I’m convince they could have gotten past, turned into an actual separation, with Marko being left behind, just in time for a newly back from being disappeared Prince robot IV to show up. That last panel was seriously awesome, though. Everybody’s out of their malaise, and Marko may be miserable and miss his family, but he’s on a mission now, and SPOILER he’s teamed up with Prince Robot to do it.
I suppose everything that happened in this volume was necessary. It’s fun to watch people come back together, but they have to be separated first, and that part sucks. I don’t want Alana and Marko to be mad at each other any more. My emotions are fragile and can’t handle it.
Help me, Saga, Volume 5, you’re my only hope.
