By Zack Quaintance — Saga #57 is a comic primarily about what happened in the gap between Saga #54 and Saga #55, during which there was a major in-story time skip along with a maaaaajor real world hiatus. This issue makes as much clear in its opening narration. “A little backstory, if you’ll indulge me.” Hazel apologetically lets the reader know from the start that we’re going to have to do a flashback.

What is perhaps most interesting about this is that Saga is a book that rarely (perhaps even never) looks backward, preferring instead to show readers the results of its world-building and giant off-page occurrences, rather than tell them exactly what happened, with the most famous example of all this being the forever war between the Horns and the Wings. We’ve seen glimpses of it here and there, generally as it applies to our little central family, but on the whole, the conflict is still largely nebulous. Other comics this deep into a very successful run would have done an entire issue — if not an entire arc — by now detailing how the war started, what it means, why we should must care about every detail. But not Saga.

This is why, I think, the book is almost apologetic about having to look back so directly now, but it really shouldn’t be. The flashback in this issue is illustrative and interesting, connecting not only events but also more of the emotional journeys that Alanna and Hazel have been on, the former steeling herself against what she lost and the latter processing her trauma in typically childlike ways, playing through the pain, which is a theme we've seen continuing to manifest in the present as Hazel falls deeper into her new adolescent obsession with music.

The other interesting choice in this issue is to spend much of the rest of it looking ominously ahead. Where this is done most interestingly is with The Will and with Bombazine (more on Bombazine later). MAJOR SPOILERS START HERE SO IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS COMIC YET TURN BACK NOW. The Will’s appearance is limited to a five-page interlude in this book, in spite of him and Lying Cat appearing on the cover, but it might just be the most consequential segment of the new arc so far. Specifically, the second panel in which we see The Will has him on the phone with Gwendolyn, Marko’s vengeful ex with whom The Will is now having an affair.

“This little reunion act is a cheap stunt and it’s gonna get us both killed,” The Will tells Gwendolyn (see below). Most crucially, he tells her this while Lying Cat lounges behind him, not stirring to refute the assertation with his signature, “lying.” In the scenes that follow, The Will goes on to create a backstory of his own for King Robot about how his erstwhile son, Prince Robot IV, was killed my Marko. The robot monarch and his attendees are incredulous, leaving it unclear how they feel about The Will’s truthfulness, and, most importantly, how they plan to act.

As this segment wraps up, Hazel tells us, “Sometimes, a little backstory is all it takes to change the course of history.” She tells us this with Lying Cat looking on as its owner has just spun quite a bit of deceit. It’s an interesting and very effective bit of foreshadowing, leaving one with the impression that this five-page segment will have major consequences for our story overall. What are those and who will they effect? Well, that all remains to be seen, but it’s Saga, so someone will probably get killed because of this.

The third facet of this issue about backstory has to do with the newest edition to the little family, Alanna’s entirely platonic work companion, Bombazine. Bombazine’s presence in this issue lives at the intersection of backstory and foreshadowing more than anyone else’s. He has a bit of a flirtatious exchange with one of the members of the new pirate band that has become entangled with the family. She hints that Bombazine used to have a different, more imposing identity, and that she’d met him before, a “heartless psycho” who had Bombazine’s same build and wore a hood over the top half of his face.

Bombazine denies it, spinning a backstory about being a toilet paper delivery man who was caught up in and severely injured by the forever war. With his cargo shorts and sandals and koala nose, he laughs it all off, leaving his inquisitor to remark, “…you’re definitely not the person I crossed paths with…no, you’re hilarious!” And, indeed, maybe Bombazine is that person, but the events of his own life have left him changed.

This comes right after The Will segment that established the power of even a fraudulent backstory. The end result is a feeling that there is more to Bombazine than just goofy comic relief, an especially poignant note given that the issue ends on a splash page of him holding a meat clever, using the family’s new code word to voice fear and misgivings. The Bombazine arc is an excellent summation of all the things this issue does well. It gives us just enough backstory to connect emotional dots without feeling clunky or proscriptive. It hints that we are headed for rougher seas, and it does it all with wit and a touch of humor.

In the end, very little actually happens in Saga #57. It’s a largely expository 20-some pages that looks both backward and forward. This issue does, however, understand a couple of savvy things about Saga readers. We are A. still hurting from Saga #54, and any glimpse at how the characters in the story are reacting to what happened there will be as painful as it is interesting. We are also acutely aware of this book’s deliberate foreshadowing, and these veiled hints of more tragedy to come are very interesting indeed.

Finally, before wrapping up here I have to note that if anything happens to dear, sweet Squire, I just don’t know what I’ll do. Squire (see above), with his quiet, devastating sadness; his attachment issues; his touching new mother-son relationship with gruff Alanna, who is sweetly reciprocating. Kill them all, if you must, but leave the poor boy alone.

Overall: Saga #57 is an interesting exploration of how backstory can shape the present and future. It also might just have the most consequential five page segment of this new arc so far. 9.0/10

REVIEW: Saga #57

Saga #57
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Fiona Staples
Letterer: Fonografiks
Publisher: Image Comics
Long-term relationships are easy? LYING.
Price: $2.99
Buy It Here: Saga #57 Digital

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He has written about comics for The Beat and NPR Books, among others. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.