Saga Volume 1 (2012-2013/ Collected 2015): written by Brian K. Vaughan; illustrated by Fiona Staples: Saga has become something of a sales sensation since its first appearance. It's the sort of half-dippy, star-spanning science-fantasy tale that owes more to allegory than astronomy.
A race of horned aliens and a race of winged aliens have been at war across the galaxy for millennia. They've outsourced the business of war to many other races in a variety of places. But two soldiers from the opposing sides have fallen in love. And she's pregnant. And a galaxy-wide hunt has been kicked off to find them.
If you require hard science fiction, or at least scientifically plausible science fiction, avoid Saga. The first volume is fun and breezy in that often anomalously snarky Buffy the Vampire Slayer way, though both the writing and the pleasant artwork from Fiona Staples rapidly evaporate in one's memory. Maybe you'll enjoy it more. A volume made semi-famous by an episode of The Big Bang Theory in which the nerds get all hot and bothered by the mother breast-feeding her baby on the cover. Yeah, hubba hubba. Losers. Lightly recommended.
Y: The Last Man: Deluxe Edition Volumes 1-5 (2002-2007/ Collected 2014-2016): written by Brian K. Vaughan; interior illustrations by Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan Jr., Goran Sudzuka, and Paul Chadwick; covers by Aron Wisenfeld, J.G. Jones, and Massimo Carnevale:
Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's 60-issue Vertigo comic series from the early oughts reads like the greatest TV series never made. This makes a certain amount of sense, as Vaughan has worked in TV to good effect over the years. It's now available in five volumes rather than ten, making it something of a bargain for your summer reading list.
On a normal day in 2002, something happens. Every man on Earth drops dead simultaneously. Along with the men go a wide array of males of other animal species. Even sperm banks are somehow affected, the sperm itself rendered inert.
Well, seemingly every man but one -- 23-year-old Yorick Brown, part-time magician and escape artist, full-time purposeless slacker. And the male capuchin helper monkey he'd just received to train in an attempt to do something positive with his life. He named the monkey Ampersand (&) because he has an enduring interest in grammar and punctuation. He's also an English Lit graduate whose father gave he and his older sister (Hero) names of minor Shakespearean characters.
The 60 issues (or 1300 pages) of Y: The Last Man follow Yorick's picaresque quest to discover the cause of -- and hopefully cure for -- whatever devastated humanity. The pace is brisk, the characters nicely drawn, and Pia Guerra's art on most of the issues is about as clean and straightforward as it gets. This isn't an 'art' book, but Guerra's rendering and panel-to-panel continuity favourably remind me of legendary Superman artist Curt Swan's understated, emotive art from the 1970's and 1980's. Nothing showy, just solid story-telling.
Some of the set-up can seem a bit TV-coy at points, especially Yorick and Hero's names, and the fact that the story couldn't work at all if Yorick's mother wasn't a United States Senator. Vaughan's clever enough to puncture his own set-up at points, however, as Yorick repeatedly muses on the improbabilities of his life.
Yorick's co-protagonists for much of the series are Agent 355, a female agent of a super-secret American spy agency founded by George Washington, and Dr. Alison Mann, a cloning expert who may be able to save humanity's future. Their adventures range from violent confrontations to social parables to the occasional almost-Swiftian observation of one strange new satiric pocket of society or another, from the apocalyptically inclined Amazons to a peaceful community of escaped prisoners.
Y: The Last Man makes any number of gender and social observations while it wends its way from New York to San Francisco to Australia to Japan to China to Russia to France and seemingly everywhere in-between over the course of five narrative years that parallel the five years the title was published. And it's smart enough to make Ampersand a poo-throwing jerk -- the last monkey isn't all that cute and cuddly.
In all, this is fine work -- clever, funny, and often quite moving. And unlike many great comic series, it really seems almost perfect for TV adaptation. Which I'm guessing is why we've never actually seen it adapted. Oh, Hollywood! Highly recommended.
Dr. Strange: The Oath: written by Brian K. Vaughan; illustrated by Marcos Martin and others (2006-2007/Collected 2007): The ubiquitous, excellent Mr. Vaughan and an able Marcos Martin team up for a most pleasing adventure of Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange.
With long-time man-servant/bodyguard/pal Wong dying of cancer, Strange sets out to find a magical cure. But powerful earthly forces -- well, Big Pharma -- don't want any such cure found. And they've got their own magician, along with a hired mercenary, to stop Strange's attempts.
All that and a magic-soaked handgun that's peculiarly lethal to magicians regardless of what defensive spells they have up. It's all a rousing, often very funny trip into the odd world of Dr. Strange, and one of the good Doctor's most memorable adventures since his glory days in the 1960's being written and illustrated by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Highly recommended.
Dr. Strange: Prelude to The Last Days of Magic: written by Jason Aaron; illustrated by Chris Bachalo and others (2015-2016): Dr. Strange has been cancelled so many times as a comic book that I can't really fault Marvel for going with a revisionist take on the character in his new comic. I don't agree with some of writer Jason Aaron's retcons and personality tweaks, but I understand them: this Dr. Strange is a lot more sarcastic and a lot less self-assured than most of his previous incarnations.
Aaron introduces one retcon that's quite interesting without really being consistent with all previous versions of the Sorcerer Supreme: magic takes a horrible physical toll on Strange. I guess we just never noticed before. So it is with major retcons.
In any event, the magical menaces Aaron comes up with are fun and interesting. Chris Bachalo's art is almost perfect for the visionary horrors of Dr. Strange's world -- his monsters and magical vistas are indeed monstrous and magical.
Only that odd, persistent Bachalo whoopsy-cuteness in the faces of characters detracts from things, and I don't think Bachalo's going to lose that artistic tic now, even in the build-up to some gigantic magical apocalypse that's about to commence at the end of issue 5. This may not be my ideal Dr. Strange, but it's certainly worth a read -- it's one of the best 'superhero' books currently on the 'stands.' Recommended.
