The Will and Lying Cat

Our Saga profiles currently stop with issue #18 (the end of the third trade collection). Since that’s when they were written.

Said profiles have plenty of S P O I L E R S for this excellent (and beautifully drawn) series. They include a lot of hypotheticals, since the book doesn’t do background explanations.

This profile co-stars Lying Cat. Everybody loves Lying Cat.

For an overview of the Saga setting, see our Izabel the Horror profile.

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Powers & Abilities

The Will appears to have a degree of superhuman strength, though he’s not superhumanly durable.

He is an experienced killer, fighter and bounty hunter with his own network of informants. He seems capable and intelligent.

Gear

His usual weapon is his lance – a handle that can project a sort of long metallic tentacle ending with a spike. This is halfway between a spear, a sword and an impossibly long whip. It is deadly enough to engage opponents with firearms.

Another advantage is that most people assume that it’s a laser sword and thus only useful in melee. Until the “blade” telescopes out over more than 20 metres.

The Will’s cape is highly resistant, particularly to fire, and he can use it as an ad hoc shield. It could easily block a burst from an energy submachinegun.

His small spaceship is styled like an helicopter seed (reminiscent of the seed of the Burmese lacquer tree ). Its living quarters are the equivalent of a small studio apartment.

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Lying Cat

Lying Cat is a sort of large alien cat. She is a capable fighter, and our game stats assume that she has the physical abilities and senses of an Earth panther.

Lying Cat appears to be fully sapient  and to understand language. But she can only say one word : “lying” (hence the species’ name).

She is an infallible natural lie detector and will react if anybody in her presence (including The Will) lies, by loudly saying “lying”. This is an invaluable asset for The Will, though of course it’s a two-edged blade.

History

As his name indicates, The Will is a freelancer. “The” is a title much like “Dr.” for accredited mercenaries.

His agent is the Brio Talent Agency, which appears to provide high-end bounty hunting and assassination services.

Other operatives from Brio include The March, The Stalk, and The Brand – the latter being The Will’s sister. The Will’s actual first name seems to be William.

The Will operates with Lying Cat – often assumed to be his pet, but whom The Will considers his partner or at least his sidekick.

“Lying cat” is also the name of Lying Cat’s species.

It was stated that lying cats behave according to a strict code of honour – which includes a strong dislike for lies, and rules of engagement about whom they are allowed to attack.

This specific Lying Cat apparently had an unhappy childhood, being the runt of the litter.

Bounty Hunter

For much of his career, The Will was a remorseless hunter-killer. The narrator of Saga describes him as a “fucking monster”, though she hastens to add he’s far from the worst.

However, when the story begins The Will is entering a massive professional burnout. The trigger was a romantic betrayal by The Stalk, a spider-woman hybrid known for being an even deadlier manhunter than The Will.

Said betrayal was apparently the result of a misunderstanding. The Stalk hadn’t realised how much The Will loved her and thought they were just having a casual fling.

A maudlin The Will became increasingly reluctant to kill, and did not want to associated with the perplexed The Stalk anymore.

While he was trying to drown his unease on the brothel world Sextillion, The Will realised that one of the prostitutes was just 6, and in a fit of anger killed her pimp.

However, even The Will couldn’t get the slave girl — whom he named Sophie — out of Sextillion. Her arteries had been booby-trapped to prevent her from running away.

Sophie

Unable to bear leaving Sophie behind, The Will decided to buy her contract, which cost a fortune. Overcoming his depressive reluctance, he called The Stalk to partner up on the lucrative contract the Brio Talent Agency had recently landed.

Things did not necessarily go well.

Description

The Will occasionally smokes hand-rolled blunts.

His cape has an integral cowl. Though he never put the cowl on, it would look like a superhero costume akin to Batman without the ears if he did.

His general silhouette and demeanour is reminiscent of a more muscular, beefier version of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name.

The Will is one of the few Saga characters who looks completely human (at least so far). He sports a shaved head with several “slash” motifs shaved in.

Lying Cat looks like a panther-sized, blue-green sphynx breed housecat. She always wears her coppery collar and pendant, as well as a sort of grey segmented coat on her back.

Personality

The Will is a stone-cold killer and an experienced manhunter.

However, he’s undergoing a severe burnout and depression that turns into a sort of mid-life crisis. He’s increasingly unable to perform unethical acts, and depressively wallows in mementos he has left from The Stalk.

Protecting the little slave girl became an irrational imperative to him. But he didn’t really know what he actually was going to do and why.

Lying Cat appears to behave much like a big lazy housecat. She likes children.

Both Lying Cat and The Will see themselves as full partners in bounty hunting, and will take potentially fatal risks to cover each other’s back.

Quotes

The Will: “You’re in politics, which means you’re connected, which means you’re rich, which means you probably don’t buy into all that jingoistic crap you’ve been taught to recite. Nah, for you to be this fired up, I’m thinking you’ve got some skin in the game. I’m thinking you and this Marko character have some history.”
Gwendolyn: “Absolutely not.”
Lying Cat: “LYING.”

“Won’t be able to pick up the chase until we finish making repairs, but at least we know what we’re looking for now.”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Saga #1-18. Saga is a science fiction/fantasy comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples and published by Image Comics.

Helper(s): Darci, Ethan Roe.

Writeup completed on the 29^th of September, 2014.