Review: 'Saga' #54 and the Act of Violence

How can we be kind in a violent world? What do our children require from us? Is it possible to be better than we are? Pick up Saga #1, keep reading, and these are the essential questions that emerge. For all of thrills and shocks embedded in a first reading of Saga #54, they are the questions to keep in mind upon subsequent consideration. It is a gut punch of an issue, one that has and rightfully should leave many readers in tears. Yet it offers so much more than the momentary distraction of a sensational story; Saga #54 provides answers to some of the series' most important questions and does so through stirring manipulation of the comics medium.

WARNING: Spoilers for Saga #54 follow.

The issues is essentially the examination of two character's climaxes: Marko and The Will. They have not always been cast as parallels, but their similarities emerge upon further reflections. Both men have gone through journeys that provided them with partners, children, and reminders of family. Their choices have brought them to dramatically different ends. The Will is a creature of violence, someone who has always chosen to kill when confronted with a problem. This has left him subservient, impulsive, and bitter in the series' most recent arc. Marko has chosen the path of peace, laying down his weapons after abandoning his post as a soldier. It is a choice he has struggled with throughout the entirety of Saga, and one that has always held consequences for him. The symbolism of Marko carrying a shield and The Will holding a "sword" is difficult to miss.

These journeys are the summation of much of Brian K. Vaughan's career up to this point. Throughout works like Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, the writer has been obsessed with the Western notion of a "good man." His male protagonists struggle to confirm identity and maturity while facing pressures of providing for those around them. Marko has been the most mature representation of this theme by far, with The Will acting as a significant counterbalance. It is through Marko that Vaughan and Fiona Staples have interrogated notions of masculinity, specifically within the roles of son, husband, and father. This is what makes the choices and outcomes of Saga #54 tragic in no small part.

It is worth examining The Will's fate before that of Marko though. Saga #54 is a spiral following his decision to murder Prince Robot IV on the final page of Saga #53. That moment was a rejection of peace, compromise, and everything non-violent in The Will's life. He embraced his rage and took revenge on a character who had struggled to become better for the sake of others. Now when The Will acts, he becomes a manifestation of this choice. Staples slowly forms him into a living weapon, first with the destruction of his lance and then with it being melted about his right hand. It is an ugly and malformed limb, one that declares what he is to any reader or character that might see him now. He is become exactly what Hazel said in the pages of Saga #4: "a FUCKING monster."

A superficial examination makes it difficult to balance Marko's outcome with that of The Will. One of these men is dead, while the other is alive, and that is because Marko allowed The Will to live. In a single page, Staples makes it clear why this situation is not so simple. When The Will is being strangled, he sees all of the people who have hurt him and how he has hurt himself. An abusive father, sadistic lover, and the loss of those he has loved have shaped this monstrous person. Marko's act of violence is another step perpetuating that cycle. The right thing is obvious, and it is what Marko has believed from the very start of Saga: peace if the hard choice, but also the right one.

While the flashback to a day spent on the beach with his family obviously evokes an even greater sense of tragedy after it has become clear that The Will has murdered Marko, it is not pure emotional manipulation. This final scene is a scream in the night crying out that Marko was not wrong. To judge the moral value of these moments based on their immediate outcome is to fall into the same trap as The Will, to argue for violent means and violent ends. To watch the colorful, sunny display of a child growing up is to witness the world through Marko's eyes. It is an affirmation of his life and his choices as his body literally ascends from earth to the heavens.

Marko is not a hero because he is a son or a father or a husband. These are roles that The Will and so many others in Saga have played and used to justify terrible actions. What makes Marko and the entirety of his life heroic is his insistence on doing the right thing while in these roles. Even as he lays dying, a consequence of his philosophy, there is a little girl who will get to grow old because of it. Saga does not immediately reward its characters or readers for good actions; it often seems to punish them. The monologue that connects #1 and #54 has made the ultimate victory clear all along. No matter how difficult these choices may be, it is the lives of others that give them value.

Published by Image Comics

On July 25, 2018

Written by Brian K. Vaughan

Art by Fiona Staples

Letters by Fonografiks