Warning: The following contains spoilers for issues #53 and #54 ofSaga.Read at your own risk!
And so, just as the main characters had all reunited on the planet Quietus, disaster struck.
Things only got worse after The Will escaped from Ianthes control.
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This enraged Marko, who let his well-honed pacifism slide in favor of murderous bloodlust.
What are you hoping people to feel after reading issue #54?
But like for all of us, sadly, theyre not a permanent part of that story.
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FIONA STAPLES:Sagas plot building to this climax happens to coincide with my own feelings of mild burnout.
It felt necessary to take a step back and let the book and ourselves breathe for a bit.
The day after we went out for breakfast, and we were just talking about this most recent arc.
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But Fiona doesnt like exact spoilers.
Fiona likes to read the script and have an emotional experience and then channel that into drawing.
But Fionas the best, shes very trusting.
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So, no tears.
Fionas a consummate professional who kills people with grace and elegance.
Hazels narration in the final scene, echoed from our very first issue, is what really got me.
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How did you guys approach that?
I was really blown away by the result.
VAUGHAN:
I was too.
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Was Markos death foreshadowed at all by his fathers death earlier in the series?
There have been issues where people have said Hey, nothing happened that issue!
What was that about?
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Its always a setup for something we intend to pay off down the line.
From the very beginning I was just like, Oh, we will see aboutthat.
They hate him, they love him, they mourn him.
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The Will has been something similar.
Like, Lets see The Will get back to being The Will again and killing people.
And now its like you said: No, we didnt mean like that!
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Marko isnt the only character weve said goodbye to in these last few issues.
Prince Robot IV wasnt the only android in our story, but Ill certainly miss him a lot.
It has very little to do with the reality of war.
That has a lot to do with this conclusion we were trying to explore.
Spider-Man writers come and go, but Spider-Man is still going to be there every single month.
Thats not true of movies, where theres years between your favorite movie and its sequels.
Its just not gonna last, this corporate mandate to keep this machine running.
I realized from the beginning that I didnt want a fill-in artist.
Fiona is an equal collaborator in this.
So from the very beginning we had to figure out, how are we going to do this?
So every six issues we took a little break in-between.
