Air #1

August 22, 2008

Air #1 (DC Comics/Vertigo)
By G. Willow Wilson & M.K. Perker

At this point, I’m willing to try almost any Vertigo comic for at least an arc. Sometimes I stick with them, sometimes I give up, but the imprint has enough currency that it’s worth a read. Air #1 may be the most intriging first issue since Fables. We’re met with a stewardess, Blythe, who suffers from severe acrophobia — the fear of flying. The issue flashes back to her earliest encounters with the man she ultimately falls in love with, a man whose identity and nationality changes as often as his underwear, and winds up joining his fight against a radical group dedicated to eliminating terrorists — at all costs. While this is almost certainly a book that wouldn’t have been as effective pre-911, it’s not a book that really capitalizes on that tragedy either. The tenor that air travel has taken on in the past seven years is essential to the backdrop, but the book really feels like it’s about something more than that. I’m not really sure what just yet, but I’m certainly interested enough to come back for issue two. Vertigo has more than convinced me that this may be their next book to watch.

Rating: 9/10