I waited an unnecessarily long time to read this after purchasing it. It came up in my search for more things written by Brian K. Vaughan after reading Saga. It is inspired by a true story:

“In April of 2003, four lions escaped the Baghdad Zoo during the bombing of Iraq. The starving animals were eventually shot and killed by U.S. soldiers.”

I find it pretty amazing to base a whole comic on two sentences, imagining the situation these lions and other animals from the zoo were in. We follow Zill, Safa, Ali, and Noor from just before their zoo was bombed (leading to their escape) up until their end. This is a really beautiful story; Vaughan does a great job imagining how the animals would think and act and some impressive obstacles come up on their journey to being free. There are also some thought-provoking mentions of being wild vs. being free. Plus the illustrations are amazing!

4/5 Stars