By Zack Quaintance — I’ve really been enjoying Saga: The Return. In fact, I’ve reviewed each new issue of the book (except for Saga #58 because I was travelling that week), and written about them mostly glowingly. After a long hiatus for a story told in installments (be it comics or television), there’s a natural question about quality. Will the book feel the same? Was the break long because the work has become a struggle? Will that much time passing naturally change things about the storytelling we fell in love with? Saga #59 had me thinking about how much of an accomplishment it is for this series to be back with this, feeling largely like itself.

All that said, this issue seemed to have far more setup to do than any of the others that came before it, resulting in a relatively subdued yet still interesting chapter, presumably quiet before next month’s Saga #60 arc finale storm.

As with most issues of the series, Saga #59 is bound by a central theme — collaborations are difficult. I couldn’t help wonder if this is intended to be taken metafictionally. The book is, after all, a collaboration between writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples, and while outwardly it’s always felt like a smooth one, Saga #59 seems to want to let readers know that they too have had challenges in working together. As Future Hazel narrates at one point, “Most creative endeavors — hell, most endeavors — eventually result in some degree of conflict.”

Now, to be sure this is also directly applicable to what’s happening on the page as well. There are two plots in this issue — the action with the little family, as well as the machinations of the shadowy agent now pursuing them — and both involve friction between folks working together. So, maybe that bit is just a little wink, keeping things light as the book often does. Still, it felt a little distracting for me as I made my way through this one, was this, I wonder, part of the reason for the long hiatus? But enough about that.

What’s really the most salient point about this issue is that it’s mostly subverted expectations and setup, moving pieces that seem to be shifting into place either for action to come in Saga #60 or maybe even further down the line. MAJOR SPOILERS START HERE SO IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS COMIC YET TURN BACK NOW. The main thing that happens here is that Bombazine tells Alana he’s going off with the other captain they’ve met and their business arrangement is over. In his version of a “go on! get out of here!” speech, he also excoriates her for being an unfit mother, actually using the word unfit, which makes for a scene that might actually feel worse than if Alana and the kids were facing down physical violence, something we as an audience have seen before, basically from the start.

Yes, it’s a hard scene, especially for folks like me who have been thoroughly charmed by this husky cargo-shorted Koala man with his attentiveness to the kids and his steady Alana support. We as readers know that the other captain has something on him, knowledge of a grave secret about his past, some horrible action that Bombazine himself has taken. The captain seems to respect Bombazine for some power related to this action. He’s using the knowledge to recruit Bombazine after all. This creates a couple questions, the first obviously being about what Bombazine did, and the second being why Bombazine is leaving the family.

Is he protecting Alana and the kids from some knowledge that could implicate them? Is he protecting their feelings toward him? Is he a fugitive that could go to jail for what he did? It’s intriguing, if uncomfortable, and I’m personally hoping we get at least a little closure on it in Saga #60, at least some kind of idea of what his backstory is and why it can be used to make him act this way.

One thing I really liked about all this though is how it continued to subvert expectations around the pirate captain character. Alana herself fully expected to come back from the mission he bullied her into to find Bombazine and the kids hostages, or something, but instead she finds something almost more insidious — the captain is going to pay her but he’s turned Bombazine against her, to the point he’s taking him away from her all together. The double cross is here, just not in the way we expected, and it works well, keeping us as an audience on our toes and whetting our appetite further for whatever surprises are to come in Saga #60.

And it’s that subversion of expectations that for me makes Saga #59 another strong issue. After the tragic events of Saga #54, the conversation around Saga has become something like, “Oh no who are they going to kill next this is Saga and everyone is going to die.” But as Bombazine himself says in this issue at one point, “…killing’s not the worst you can to do to a person.” In having Bombazine seemingly extorted to join the pirate crew — subsequently leveling a valid and personally devastating verbal attack against Alana — we are freshly aware that this is true. In other words, Saga has found new and interesting ways to hurt us.

Overall: Saga #59 is an issue that subverts expectations in more ways than one, ultimately fueling curiosity around a number of questions that seem likely to explode in a big arc finale within next month’s Saga #60. 8.8/10

REVIEW: Saga #59

Saga #59
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Fiona Staples
Letterer: Fonografiks
Publisher: Image Comics
What the hell does this fish have to do with the people who want Hazel dead? Find out this May as the strangest epic in comics continues-somehow still only $2.99!
Price: $2.99
Buy It Here: 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.