Saga #1
Written by Brian K. Vaughan
Art by Fiona Staples
Letters & Design by Fonografiks
Coordinated by Eric Stephenson
Cover by Fiona Staples
Image Comics
Release Date: March 14, 2012
Cover Price: $2.99

Saga #1 is the kind of comic that comes along once in a great while. What comes with it is that the feeling that your “on to something.” Remember what it felt like reading that first issue of Y:The Last Man? That first issue of Batman: The Long Halloween? That first issue of Spider-Man: Chapter One (am I alone here?)? What Saga #1 DID NOT feel like, is the “Star Wars meets Game of Thrones” experience that the solicitation copy had led me to believe that I was in for.

Brian K. Vaughan, writer of comics like Y: The Last Man and Marvel’s Runaways, comes back to comics with…. Star Wars meets Game of Thrones? I’m sure he didn’t write the solicitation copy, but I strongly dislike that sales tactic. This book is NOT like Star Wars. This book is NOT like Game of Thrones. What it IS, is a fantastic story that combines many standard genres into one great comic!

Brian K. Vaughan has spent the last few years as a writer for the television series Lost, but before his move to Hollywood, the writer was best known as the creator of some of the best comic books series of the past decade, like Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Marvel’s Runaways.

Since Lost wrapped in 2009, Vaughan’s been working on various projects — an original story called Roundtable, along with big-screen adaptations of some of his own comics, along with the screenplay for Stephen King’s Under the Dome film.

But while Vaughan has had great success with movies and television thus far, I have to say – we miss him in comics!!! Which is why it’s wonderful news that Vaughan is currently working on a new series for Image Comics called Saga, along with artist Fiona Staples. Saga #1 will be released this Wednesday, March 14, and you can check out the full cover and a 4-page preview from the issue here below.

DV8: Gods and Monsters #1 of 8
Written by Brian Wood
Art by Rebekah Isaacs
Colors by Carrie Strachan
Letters by Jared K. Fletcher
Cover by Fiona Staples
Variant cover by Jim Lee
DC/Wildstorm
Price: $2.99
Release date: April 21, 2010

I never read an issue of the original DV8 series, released in the mid 90’s, but I’ll read anything by Brian Wood, so I gave this one a try. The original series rode the wave of Gen 13’s popularity, and featured a bunch of morally bankrupt teens, and that’s about all I know about the original series. This new series keeps the original cast, but throws them in a completely new situation.

DV8: Gods and Monsters #1 opens as Gem Antonelli, aka Copycat, crashes onto a planet of Stone Age (or maybe Dark Age, it’s not really clear) era humans. She is the last of her team to arrive on the planet, the rest having already split up and disappeared. Only her teammate Frostbite remains to explain to Gem what has happened in the last few days. From there we see what the rest of the team has been up to, and it doesn’t look like it will be very good for those living on this planet.