A flashback in Saga #57 details a painful decision that when paired with other abuses feels like Marco’s legacy is being scrubbed from the pages.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Saga #57, on sale now from Image Comics.
Marko’s death still lingers for many as audiences are now three issues removed from the years long hiatus of Saga and the death of its favorite blue tongued Wreather. Observing the wreckage of his family and the circumstances surrounding their survival is a brutal reminder of what they have all lost. However many of those reminders are either being erased in some way or continue to be denigrated to the point that the man who sponsored them are unrecognizable.
Hazel, Marko’s daughter, has expressed that she doesn’t feel anything about her father’s passing and this may be true but it is more than likely that her coping mechanism includes numbing herself to the ache of his absence. However as events unfold around her there are narrative choices being made that are aiding in that effort. Saga #57 is another splendid issue by the most talented pair in all of comicdom, but it also erodes the presence of Hazel’s father and his impact on the world at large. In just a few short months Marko’s legacy has become murkier and the future seems poised to overwrite his existence for both personal and political reasons.
Alana was once pregnant with a second child who failed to make it to term and she visited an off the grid clinic ran by a wolfen creature called Endwife to have the fetus removed in an effort to save her life. After Marko’s death Alana returned there to have her wings amputated. Prior to meeting Marko, and reading the works of D. Oswald Heist, Alana was a committed soldier of the Landfall infantry who thought her hereditary wings were vestigial in nature. Her unique romance with a man from her moon was entirely forbidden and offspring between the two races was thought to be impossible, but with an abundance of faith in a moment when it was needed most he pushed her and their child off of a roof to save them.
Alana’s tiny wings beat at the air for the first time in her life and lifted her skyward toward the precipice where she was able to reciprocate the life saving, allowing her family to escape their pursuers. In a very real way Marko gave her wings meaning and purpose by suffusing the confidence he had in his wife into a tangible action. He trusted her to save their child without any reservation even though she was convinced that she was incapable of doing what he knew was lying dormant inside of her. Alana went to the Endwife so that she could traverse the universe in secret while her daughter’s horns became more and more prominent, who also had her own pair of wings to worry about concealing.
The decision to remove them has saved her life as of the latest issue, but the cost was like killing a piece of Marko all over again. Meanwhile his killer, a freelancer called The Will, has been jaunting from one planet to the next with his skull in tow, copulating with the deceased’s ex girlfriend, and smearing his name across the stars to every party with an interest. Marko’s people consider him a bestial traitor and regard his offspring as an abomination. The Robot Kingdom now believe that Marko killed the royal heir, though that was also The Will’s handiwork. It is not as if Marko had a sterling reputation that is being besmirched. He was a soldier with a tendency toward bloodlust that eventually embraced pacifism, so despite his accomplishments on the battlefield he had already been deemed a black sheep.
The Robot Kingdom had always been enemies of Wreath so there is no love lost there and the truth of who he was could never be elevated above the blasphemy of creating a child born of two warring worlds. However the simple crudeness of how his remains have been bandied about by the man who murdered him in cold blood, after Marko showed him mercy, is galling. Marko’s brand of naïveté was always dangerous and even foolish but watching all the connective tissue attached to his legacy shrivel and die adds insult to injury. The most relevant aspect of his intact memory comes in the form of the replacement father figure that now lives with the family of fugitives.
Bombazine works for Alana in their drug smuggling business as a charismatic do it all and plug every hole kind of cog and he is clearly protective of Alana and her children. It was just revealed that he also may be hiding a violent side while running from his past, just like Marko. There hasn’t been a deep exploration about the circumstances surrounding his previous exploits but it is clear that he was indeed the “heartless psycho” he was momentarily mistaken for in issue #57 and had a lie prepared that would have made Mr. Orange of Reservoir Dogs proud.
Saga spans years and years of trauma delivered with equal parts brutality and grace. It is a true epic in a completely unique environment with characters that jump off the page. Alana, in an effort to distance herself from the dangers her union with Marko represented, has literally severed many of the things that bound them to one another and defaced her own body. The administrators on Wreath have never been interested in Marko except for his use as an efficient piece of propaganda and the enemies he had in life remain his enemies in death. He would not lament his fate or the desecration of his bones if it meant his family was kept safe from his heroics and his mistakes. For those who held him in high esteem however, they must continue to cope with not only his loss but with the pen of history and how it has chosen to portray him.
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