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When I heard about the TPB release for SAGA, Vol. 1 I almost jumped out of my seat.

'The guy who wrote Y: The LAST MAN is writing a STAR WARS-styled space saga?? !!!!!! No (bleeping) way!' <-- my basic reaction.

Keep in mind that I had just finished familiarizing myself with Brian K. Vaughn via his PRIDE OF BAGHDAD TPB and his Y: THE LAST MAN series, the latter of which I devoured in just a few weeks. (I know, I know, I've been out of the loop for a while now. My bad.)

I guess you can say that I've been on a Brian K. Vaughn "kick", but hearing what the story of SAGA would actually be about only raised my expectations even more:

With crazed robotic despots and relentless multi-limbed bounty hunters in hot pursuit, two lovers from opposing sides of an intergalactic war must take to the space ways in hopes of protecting their new born child.

Not that I was expecting the second-coming of BLADERUNNER, mind you, but, coupled with the story's promising logline, I was expecting nothing short of brilliant originality from SAGA, whose author had already made me laugh, wonder, pant, and cry all at the same time with his dystopian tale of a callow young man and his pet monkey. I just couldn't wait to discover what Vaughn had in store for my emotional state with his very own sci-fi vision of the future.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I finally cracked open the first volume of SAGA and immediately realized that the same author who had boldly imagined a world where all the males (save one (well, two)) died off overnight had literally carried through on his promise to return to comics with his own STAR WARS-styled sci-fi epic. I mean, SAGA is a LOT like STAR WARS.

Like, dude. I was under the impression that the sci-fi genre obligates writers to imagine their OWN speculative futures. Apparently not where Brian K. Vaugn's is concerned. LOL. Indeed, in SAGA, not only do you have your hero with a glowing-sword, your magic-wielding warriors, your Han Solo look-a-like-contest winners, you also get your anthropomorphic side-kicks (BTW: I <3 Lying Cat), your interstellar bounty hunters, intergalactic civil wars, callous emperors, seedy off-world cities, etc;.

Sound familiar? D'uh. I mean, "SAGA?"

Alas, as it turns out this is, like, exactly the point. To be sure, though his new series smacks of that galaxy, far, far away, at heart, SAGA has more subversive plans: Using well-known tropes and motifs from the STAR WARS universe (among others), SAGA plays these situations out to their logical extensions. Indeed, in SAGA you WILL understand the kind of stuff that REALLY goes down in places like Mos Eisley, you WILL understand just how precarious a career interstellar bounty-hunting can really be, and you WILL be shown exactly what kinds of sexual positions electronic lovers tend to prefer with their robotic partners. IOW, SAGA is essentially a more imaginative, harder hitting R-rated version of STAR WARS.

So, now that I think of it, yes, SAGA is exactly the kind of thing that I should have expected from the author of Y: THE LAST MAN, namely an irreverent, funny, but heart-felt take on a popular sci-fi favorite. Indeed, often playing like a naughty parody of STAR WARS, at times like a scathing critique, SAGA is ultimately an earnest attempt to re-imagine Lucas's epic through an adult's point of view. Not that STAR WARS is the only popular sci-fi epic from which SAGA borrows ideas.

It could just be that I recently finished re-reading Ennis's sci-fi-horror classic or something, but for my money, Vaughn not only echoes PREACHER's concept of Genesis--i.e., a love-child created by two forbidden lovers (I know, I know, not exactly an original concept in itself), he also uses the same terms with which to introduce this concept, namely as "a fragile idea" that needs a village to become a reality. But where Genesis was mostly a device in PREACHER, in SAGA the love-child in question quickly develops into an actual character of its own. Well, sort of.

A ghostly presence speaking to us from an unknown future, the love-child in question here helps make the proceedings more resonant. Adding suspense to the story's events and providing insightful editorial asides, the child's disembodied voice-over narration imbues the protagonists' struggles with both greater emotional depth and sharper psychological complexity. Totally works.

Adding to the notable emotional and psychological resonance of the series is the cutting-edge artwork. Indeed, vacillating between warm earth tones and eerie neon hues, the color work her alone enhances SAGA's appeal as an otherworldly universe, which contemporary earthlings will still recognize as a hip yet futuristic place.

Contemporary, hip, yet futuristic would also be an accurate way to decribe Fiona Staples's voguish but soulful artwork. Allowing Vaughn's stories to take center stage, Staples's elegant choices never seem too trendy or attention-hungry, though her characters do seem to have an uncanny knack for striking the proper "naturalistic" poses at just the right moment.

Speaking of the characters, I actually kind of hope that Hollywood gets to SAGA sooner than later. I mean, though I tend to get possessive when I hear that Hollywood has decided to turn a piece of literature that I realy dig into a Movie, Rosario Dawson and Adrien Brody would be shoe-ins for SAGA's main characters. They'd absolutley kill in these roles. Like, seriously.

A final note here on the pricing of the TPB itself. I usually never comment on these issues (just as long as the pages aren't falling apart, I'll pay a reasonable price for a book that I really like), but, I gotta tell you, at $9.99, SAGA, Vol. 1 is more than fairly priced. In fact, in this day and age of flimsy biweekly story content and $15.00 TPBs, the price here is downright special. Oh, and did I mention that the thick and glossy paper stock used for this TPB is of the fancy variety?

Do yourselves a favor and scoop this one up, people, Brian K. Vaughn & Co. are just starting to rev up their rocket engines here; though SAGA, Vol. 1 is wonderfully entertaining in itself, I get the distinct feeling that best is yet to come. 3.5 stars.