I can’t believe Saga has been going for ten years now! Brian K Vaughan (writer) and Fiona Staples (artist) set out on this journey in 2013 – a science fiction story that has drama, humor, war, family, mystery…just SO good. I kept up with each trade, one or two being released each year.

But then it was announced that the series would be taking a break, due to other outside commitments (my guess is BKV working on the Amazon Prime adaptation of ‘Paper Girls’ which I’m STILL upset was cancelled) and wanting to devote attention to that and not have Saga suffer. But finally the series returned in 2022 and a trade was released late last year!

And in that time I apparently forget most of the details of story because between 2013 and 2023, I read a lot of other stuff and over that break of a few years, my brain must have decided I no longer needed to know about Marko and Alana and Hazel. So when Saga Volume 10 (!!!!) arrived on my desk and I looked at the cover…I knew I had to go back and reread the series to fully enjoy it’s triumphant return.

If you’ve never read Saga…well, look at the cover for the first trade and tell me you don’t want to read it right now?

It can be hard to sum up in a few sentences but at the core of Saga we have the forbidden lovers – Marko and Alana. Their home worlds have been at war with each other for years, generations even. But they made a connection (I won’t tell you all the secrets!) and end up running off together and when we meet them at the start of the series, they have a newborn. Of course, they are immediately made targets by their own people, their relationship considered disgusting and evil.

But there are more layers, because this is a SAGA after all, and it is packed full of unique characters. Not just the leaders of their warring homes, but bounty hunters sent to find them, other leaders of other planets pulled into the struggle, ghosts of people killed during the war, monsters, aliens that star in soap operas, aliens on heavy drugs, a talking cat…look, this is NOT a simple story.

It’s also not for the faint of heart – there’s a bit of gore, lots of swearing and this is a series for ADULTS. Marko and Alana have a healthy sex life and so do many of the other characters (well, healthy might be a stretch for Prince Robot IV…but I digress). But if you’ve made it through any HBO series, you’ve seen…well somethings, but other things I think Vaughan and Staples might have been out drinking together and seeing who could come up with the most random image to surprise a reader with.

But don’t let that deter you! This series is smart and funny and full of heart that you might not expect after that last paragraph. But it really is and it is such a great story.

I just finished re-reading Volume Five and I’m going to start Volume Six tonight! Once I wrap up Volume Ten, I’ll post to let you know if the series stayed on track or veered off the deep end!

Is there a long-running series that you love that you’ve had to re-read or re-watch to refresh your own memory? Did it all work out in the end? Let me know in the comments or link me to you post!