Saga

Each chapter of Saga is titled with a numerical Chapter, such as "Chapter 1" for the debut issue. Every six chapters make up a story arc designated as a "Volume" and are reprinted as trade paperbacks. Every three Volumes compose a "Book" and are collected as hardcover editions.
The opening Volume introduces the series' leads, Alana and Marko, two lovers from different worlds whose peoples are at war with one another. Alana comes from the technologically advanced Landfall Coalition, so named after Landfall, the largest planet in the galaxy, and Marko is from Wreath, Landfall's only satellite, whose people wield magic. Because the destruction of one of the worlds would send the other spinning out of orbit, the war was "outsourced" to other worlds. Although peace was restored on the two home worlds, the conflict spread across all the other known planets, whose native species were forced to choose a side. As Landfall and Wreath were on opposite sides, Alana and Marko met when she was assigned to guard him in a prison on the planet Cleave after he became a prisoner of war. They fell in love and escaped together twelve hours after meeting. In the beginning of the series' first issue, Alana gives birth to their daughter, Hazel, who narrates the series as an adult looking back on her life. Marko and Alana's respective people are incredulous when it is suggested that they have voluntarily mated and they are pursued by forces in service of both Wreath and Landfall, both because of the perceived betrayal of the two fugitives and to prevent knowledge of their pairing from spreading and damaging morale among their troops. On Landfall, Prince Robot IV of the Robot Kingdom, Landfall's closest allies, is sent to kill the entire family. On Wreath, a mercenary called The Will, along with his sidekick Lying Cat, a giant sphinx cat with the power to tell when people are lying, is hired to kill Marko and Alana and capture Hazel. However, when he learns that his ex and fellow mercenary The Stalk has been hired for the same job, he heads for Sextillion, a planet that appears composed completely of brothels. While following a map to Cleave's fabled Rocketship Forest, Marko, Alana, and Hazel are found by the Stalk. Marko is badly wounded, but the Stalk is scared off by the sound of encroaching Horrors, mysterious terrifying creatures that roam Cleave's woods. After the Stalk flees, the horrors reveal themselves to be the ghosts of children killed on Cleave. Their leader, Izabel, offers to help Alana find the snow necessary for the healing spell that can save Marko. Marko, delirious from his injuries, mentions an ex-fiancée named Gwendolyn. On Sextillion, The Will meets a six-year-old girl who has been sold into sex slavery. He kills her pimp, but does not manage to liberate her from Sextillion. Marko is successfully healed, and explains that he was engaged to Gwendolyn when he met Alana, but that they had grown apart as a result of his growing pacifism and her staunch patriotism. He also explains that the rings he proposed to Alana with, which also function as translators, were originally Gwendolyn's. Later, while nearing the Rocketship Forest, they are attacked by Landfall soldiers. Alana and Hazel are injured, sending the seemingly pacifistic Marko into a such a violent rage that Alana is forced to shoot him with a paralyzer before he goes too far. Prince Robot IV, having found the injured soldiers while following Marko and Alana's trail, encounters the Stalk. Having just learned of his wife's pregnancy, he is paranoid, and kills the Stalk. Moments later, the Stalk is called by the Will, asking for her help in rescuing the girl from Sextillion. Prince Robot IV answers and explains what happened. In response, the Will vows to kill Prince Robot IV and everyone he cares about. Marko and Alana reach the Rocketship Forest, but find it seemingly empty. Izabel reveals this to be an illusion created to protect it from outsiders. Learning that the Rocketship, essentially a giant treehouse, requires a sacrifice to be activated, Marko destroys his family's ancestral sword. Prince Robot IV, meanwhile, comes to suspect that Marko and Alana are headed for the planet of Quietus, where Alana's favorite author, D. Oswald Heist, lives. Indeed, heading for Quietus, Marko, Alana, Hazel, the Rocketship, and new babysitter Izabel, now bound to Hazel's soul, are in good spirits. The ship is soon attacked by a pair of armored Wreathans who mystically banish Izabel. They are soon revealed to be Barr and Klara, Marko's parents, and stand down upon seeing Hazel.
In the second Volume, more is revealed about Marko's parents and his upbringing and his initial time with Alana. Marko's ex-fiancée, Gwendolyn, makes her debut, helping the Will rescue the slave girl on Sextillion in exchange for assurance that he will kill Marko. They rescue her, killing several hired guns of Sextillion in the process. The girl, like all natives of Phang, the comet where she was born, has the power to hear the "voices" of objects which, because Gwendolyn has a pendant which was part of a set with Marko and Alana's wedding rings, she can use to track Marko and Alana. Marko and his mother Klara travel to the nearby planet that Izabel was banished to, getting into an argument about Alana in the process. They learn that it is not actually a planet, but the nearly hatched egg of a type of destructive celestial being called a Timesuck. In the Treehouse, Alana and Barr fight, and Alana learns that Barr has a magic-resistant terminal illness before he uses a sleep spell to knock her out. Marko and Klara find Izabel just as the Timesuck begins to hatch and Gwendolyn, The Will, Lying Cat and the girl close in on the treehouse. Gwendolyn tries to take the Will's ship closer to the Treehouse, ignoring the danger of the Timesuck, and nearly causing the Girl's death in the process. To protect the Treehouse from the Timesuck, Barr is forced to use the last of his strength on a spell, causing his heart to give out. Marko and Klara arrive back on the ship just as he dies.
The third Volume, beginning in August 2013, which Vaughan intended as a "big tonal shift", introduces the amphibian tabloid journalists Upsher and Doff, as they pursue their own investigation of Alana and Marko, who take refuge at the lighthouse home of author D. Oswald Heist. The Will, Gwendolyn, and the Girl, meanwhile have crash landed on an idyllic forest planet after surviving the Timesuck. There, the Will begins seeing visions of the deceased Stalk, and decides to name the girl Sophie. On Quietus, Marko and Alana are confronted with the reality that they will soon need to get actual jobs if they are ever to provide Hazel with a fulfilling childhood, while Heist and Klara begin a tentative courtship. On the forest planet, the Will tries to kiss Gwendolyn. She punches him, but subtly expresses an interest. Soon after, Gwendolyn and the Will independently discover that the planet's foliage, which they've been surviving on, contains a hallucinogen called Heroine which is to blame for the Will's visions. It is too late, however, as Sophie has been manipulated by a vision of her mother into brutally attacking the Will. Gwendolyn decides to find Marko, who she says knows a healing spell. Upsher and Doff, meanwhile, are kept from reporting on the story by another mercenary known as the Brand, who places a spell on them which will kill them should they ever tell others about their findings. Prince Robot IV arrives on Quietus first, getting into a shootout with Heist and Klara. Gwendolyn arrives soon after, taking Heist's life. She then finds Marko and Alana and, after learning that Marko's healing spell will not work on the Will, gets into a fight with them. Feigning defeat, Marko pushes Alana, Hazel in her arms, off the top of the lighthouse. However, Alana discovers that her wings are not merely vestigial, and shoots Gwendolyn with her paralyzer gun. Left in a fugue state by head injuries sustained during the fight, Prince Robot is manipulated by Izabel into rescuing Klara from the burning lighthouse. By story's end, the Will is in a coma at the hospital, where he is visited by the Brand, who is in fact his sister, also named Sophie, Lying Cat and the second Sophie are left in Gwendolyn's care, Prince Robot IV is aimless, and Hazel has taken her first steps.
The fourth Volume, which begins Book Two, establishes the family living on the planet Gardenia, technically undeclared in the war. Alana is working, through a favor from D. Oswald Heist's ex-wife Yuma, in an underground theatre company called the Open Circuit whose shows, projected across the galaxy, are a combination of soap opera and superhero content. Marko, using "Barr" as an alias, is working full time taking care of Hazel, who is now speaking in simple phrases. Prince Robot IV's son is born. A disgruntled, anti-monarchist robot janitor, Dengo, kills Prince Robot IV's wife, kidnaps his infant son and journeys to Gardenia. Prince Robot learns of this while taking a sabbatical on Sextillion, and vows to hunt down Dengo and save his family. Meanwhile, The Brand teams with Gwendolyn and Sophie to acquire an elixir to heal The Will's injuries. Alana begins using a drug called Fadeaway, while Marko begins an emotional affair with Ginny, Hazel's dance teacher. When they get into an argument about this, Marko flies into a rage and throws some groceries at Alana and she screams at him to leave the house. Hoping to publicize his anti-monarchist views, Dengo goes to the Open Circuit, but is talked by a self-interested Yuma into going after Hazel's family. Marko goes to Ginny's, but heads back for the treehouse when he realizes how far he's fallen. By the time he arrives, however, Hazel, Klara, and Alana have already gotten into a shootout with Dengo, who still has IV's son, which resulted in the ship launching and going off world. Robot Prince IV arrives on the scene moments after Marko, and the two determine to find their families together.
The fifth Volume begins three months later. The family's rocketship has set down in a frozen region of a planet, where Dengo meets with members of The Last Revolution, a radical anti-war group, who wish to use Hazel as a pawn in their campaign against Landfall and Wreath. Meanwhile, as Marko and Prince Robot IV struggle to maintain their alliance while in pursuit of their kidnapped loved ones, Alana and Yuma both deal with the consequences of their use of the drug Fadeaway. By the end of the arc, Dengo has turned on the revolutionaries, but is himself killed by Prince Robot IV, who is united with his son. Marko and Alana are reunited, but Hazel and Klara are relegated to a Landfallian prison. The Brand, Gwendolyn and Sophie have acquired the elixir, but the Brand is killed in the process.
In the sixth Volume, Alana and Marko search for Hazel and Klara, who remain incarcerated in a detention center on Landfall. Upsher and Doff resume their investigation of the couple after hearing of The Brand's death. The journalists are confronted by The Will, who has resumed his vendetta against Prince Robot IV. Meanwhile, Prince Robot is using the name Sir Robot and is raising his rapidly growing son, Squire. New characters introduced include Hazel's sympathetic schoolteacher Noreen and a transgender female prisoner, Petrichor. The arc closes with Hazel successfully reunited with her parents and the revelation that Alana is once again pregnant.
The seventh Volume, "The War for Phang", began with Chapter 37 and was released on August 31, 2016. It is the beginning of Book Three of the series, and as indicated by its title, Sophie's home, the comet Phang, is the central setting. The family deals with the addition of Petrichor to the reunited family, and Alana's second pregnancy.
The eighth Volume, "The Coffin", finds the family dealing with the effects of Alana's miscarriage after the events on Phang. Vaughan stated in an interview that Petrichor would continue to play an important role in Hazel's development, and that what has happened to The Will is another subplot explored in the arc.
The ninth Volume, collecting issues 49–54, centers around the ongoing dynamics between the family and their allied companions, which is complicated by the presence of their pursuers and building up to a shocking finale that sees the deaths of several characters. The end of this Volume also signals the extended hiatus of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples.
The tenth Volume, collecting issues 55–60, marks the beginning of Book Four of the series and sees a significant time jump in the narrative relative to the number of years Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples have gone on hiatus. The family and their allies have gone their separate ways since the traumatic events from the previous Volume, with this story arc primarily focusing on Alana struggling as a now single parent trying to make ends meet for Hazel and Squire who are now preteens.
The eleventh Volume, collecting issues 61–66, is set six months after the end of the previous arc and follows three key storylines: Alana's resolve to improve the fortunes of her family, Gwendolyn's plan to sway the Robot Kingdom's allegiances over to Wreath, and Agent Gale being forced by Landfall's government to finish the mission of eliminating Hazel and the allies associated with her during the course of the series.