Air #1 Slugfest
By Martijn Form
Hello Vertigolovers,
Another Monday, another Vertigo day. There is this song about "Manic Mondays," and I have to confess that I'm not a happy camper when it comes to the first working day of the week. I need an ice cold shower to get me awake, more strong coffee than usual to keep me alive during the day. But this has all changed since we at CB announced that Monday is Vertigo Spotlight day. It makes me smile all day long.
So what do we have in store for you this week? Something special: a Slugfest review of Air #1, arriving in stores on Wednesday. Vertigo very generously provided us with advanced copies of Air #1.
I invited some of my dear colleagues to shine their expert light on Air #1. So allow me to turn the microphone over to Matthew J. Brady, Joey Davidson and Chris Murman.
Air #1Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Artist: M.K. Perker
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Average Rating: 3 Bullets
"Letters from Lost Countries: Part 1"
Matthew J. Brady: 2 Bullets
Joey Davidson: 4 Bullets
Chris Murman: 3 Bullets
Matthew J. Brady 2 Bullets
G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker are both fairly new to comics, with their most prominent work being the recent Vertigo graphic novel Cairo. Even though that book received some unfavorable reviews, either it sold well or DC's editors like the creators because they've been given the opportunity to do this new Vertigo series. Will it fare any better than their previous work?
It's hard to say. The plot of the series follows Blythe, an acrophobic flight attendant who gets caught up in political intrigue and possible fantastical adventures when she meets a strange young man of indeterminate ethnicity and inadvertently becomes involved with a civilian-organized anti-terror group called the Etesian Front. While the plot about the stalker following her around for some reason is kind of interesting, the other half of the story ends up being kind of silly. This group is shown to be over the top in their pursuit of terrorists, and also ridiculously competent, able to stop a drunk German that a flight's Air Marshal couldn't handle. Then they ask Blythe to deliver a briefcase for them, and she's dumb enough to do it without looking inside. When she is convinced to do so by the mysterious stalker, she gets involved in a plot hatched by the Front, and it's all she and her potential love interest can do to stop it.
The problem is, this plot doesn't make any sense. If the Front is trying to recruit Blythe and are testing her, why did they bother to put incriminating documents in the case? Since both the sender and receiver of the briefcase show up together, they obviously didn't really need her to deliver it. And the actual plot, while a good source of action and excitement, is pretty ridiculous and unrealistic. The issue ends up being a weird mix of tones, sometimes addressing real-life concerns, but swerving into goofy action-movie clichés (which include a preposterous sex scene) later. And the structure of the issue doesn't help; an opening action scene leads to a flashback that fills most of the rest of the issue, until it flashes forward again at the end. But it's confusingly done; I had to look it over two or three times to determine the correct sequence of events.
On the art side, Perker does a competent job, clearly laying out the action, giving recognizable facial expressions to the characters, and making spatial movements understandable, but it's nothing spectacular. Nobody is going to be praising this artwork to the heavens; it's merely workmanlike.
Really, I'm not sure what to think of the book. Is it meant to be a satirical look at post-9/11 global politics? The Etesian Front seems like it might be a commentary on the zealous anti-terror stance that the U.S. government has taken, along with its effect on the airline industry, but it's kind of facile, since government actions and regulations are a far cry from civilian protests and plots. There are some hints at future plotlines about a fictional country (that doesn't even exist in the world of the comic) called Narimar, so perhaps some other geopolitical critiques may be raised, but compared to the real-world commentary of other Vertigo books like DMZ and Army@Love, this series seems rather slight. I hate to condemn a series after only one issue, but this book will have to improve by quite a bit to even raise itself to the level of passable.
Joey Davidson 4 Bullets
I have been looking forward to the release of Air ever since I attended Vertigo's panel at the New York Comic Con this year. It seemed like something strange and unique and, like all Vertigo books, oddly authentic. So it's no surprise to me that I was so excited once I received the advance copy. Maybe I was a little too excited. I'm not sure.
Air focuses on an international flight attendant who is caught up in a battle for the skies between an extremist anti-terrorist group and those that combat them. The ones who combat the extremists aren't necessarily terrorists themselves; in fact, we don't really know who they are yet, but as the issue moves forward, they come off as good people within the struggle.
I will give the book points for its opening plot. For a first issue, the movement and pacing felt tight and well directed. There were never any moments when I found myself wondering why the hell we had been taken here. In fact, the story in the first issue was self contained enough to be entertaining from start to finish, and it still provided a few ambiguous moments to give the story some legs.
That was probably what I liked most about the first issue of Air; it never felt forced upon me. Because of the characters and their positions at the beginning of the story, all of the events felt nearly natural, especially the male flight attendant who is clearly a point of comedic relief as he always seems just on the outside of the conflict while still being close enough to deliver a sarcastic or witty comment to anyone within earshot. His presence is something that, like I said, sort of falls into place just naturally.
My only large complaint deals with the issue's art. The version of the issue that we received was uncolored, and a lot is lost because of this. This is a story about airplanes and airports so far. The flight attendant we follow moves from airport to airport on different airplanes. See where I'm going with this? Although she was an international flight attendant, the locations she visited throughout this opening story never felt different. They didn't look unique of one another, and they certainly didn't seem like different countries. Now, I will say that some coloring would probably clear it up perfectly. It's not as if the art is bad. It looks just fine. There are moments when it looks downright great, in fact. But with different color schemes for the separate airports, confusion would disappear as the planes roll up into new gates.
Air is forward thinking and unique. It has started out as a solid book with plenty of plot strengths and ambiguities to deliver a nice arc. Those looking for a controversial title that attacks terrorism will probably be disappointed with the first issue. That is not to say, however, that the story won't provide plenty of controversy later on. Time will tell.
Chris Murman: 3 Bullets
Sometimes, a story is just that. We all can tell them when around the water cooler or at a dinner party. That doesn't make me extra special, just means I can string a few sentences together without sounding like a complete dunce most times. Now, some people tell great stories. They know just when to embellish a bit, and when to tell it straight. They tell a picture so vivid that you wish you could have been there just to experience it. If you aren't capable of telling epic stories, there's nothing wrong with that. I've never heard of anyone begrudging their friendship to someone for being too normal of a yarn spinner. It just means you weren't meant to write the next great standard for literature.
It would appear we have bits of both from the budding creative team of G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker. Other than thumbing through Wilson's Outsiders: Five of a Kind story published last year, I haven't seen much of her work. A little research found that the scribe has much more experience as a journalist than a fiction writer, which makes sense based upon the pacing elements of Air. Things seem to sort of hum along at a leisurely speed even in the midst of heavy action, centered around a flight attendant named Blythe. I envisioned this story being plotted out in an airport as Wilson was waiting for a flight in between Egypt and the U.S., watching the attendants scuttle about from one gig to the next.
"Wouldn't it be interesting if one of them were caught up in an international vigilante organization's plot surrounding a plane?" With that, this series is born.
I do want to compliment Wilson on a few aspects of her story. Even though the commonplace flashback technique is seen quite a bit in this issue, she utilized a tool I've seen used on Lost which is only showing small pieces of the flash before all is revealed. Without spoiling any of the plot points, I will just say that with a single panel here and there, the reader is piqued just enough to keep turning the pages. Also, instead of waiting till the third or fourth page for the first main splash to introduce the heroes of the story, page one just throws it in your lap. At first I was unsure of how I felt regarding this move, but as I've said elsewhere, different is almost always better. It doesn't have to make sense to the reader to do its job.
I foresee Perker getting quite a few more phone calls from publishers in the coming year after his work on this title. He certainly fits the Vertigo style of art, mixing a heavy amount of realism and great facial features. Vertigo may publish a lot of fantasy based stories, but they are based upon the real world. I can only hope that when I see the pages with color on them next week I will feel the same.
Having heaped all of that praise on the creative teams, I would be remiss without pointing out where I differ from the author on direction of the story. There is just something missing from the overall aspect of this title that took me a while to put my finger on. I do not refer to any of the plot points, mind you. This story is just fictional enough to get interesting with a few issues. No, my problem is how the story is written as opposed to what.
After a couple of reads, I found myself feeling nothing for the characters involved. I wasn't upset at what happened, nor was I excited to read more. I was left with an overwhelming sense of apathy that I feel comes from the dialogue used. While it is most likely Wilson sold a ton of articles to magazines with this same pacing and dialogue, it doesn't necessarily work for this genre of literature. As a former journalist, trust me when I say I know the difference. It doesn't mean I feel she doesn't have the chops. I just know how different the reading audiences are. As much as it pains me to say this, we comic nerds need a little more packed into 22 pages. Make me laugh, scream, roll my eyes, snark, etc. Just make me feel anything, for that part.
I think this story is off to a fair start, and with this team being fairly new to the genre I would love nothing more than to pick up issue #2 and gush about how things have picked up immensely. For this initial offering, however, I would put this title in the "check it out, but don't buy it" category. Here's hoping I'm proved wrong very soon.
Martijn here again! I always love to see different opinions and perspectives of the same book. Thanks, guys! Job well done.
In the next Vertigo Spotlight column, I will take a closer look at the Vertigo comics and trades that will be coming out in November and December. And I can tell you that there is one title in particular that got me really, really excited.
See you next week.
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