Bottom line: At first you think that Air is simply about a jet-setting stewardess who ends up on one unlucky flight. But by the end of issue 1, Air has set the seeds for romance, international mystery and ill-fated ideals. For that reason I can’t just write Air off quite yet.

Air #1 (Oct 08)
Created By: G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker
Writers: G. Willw Wilson
Artists: M.K. Perker
Cover: M.K. Perker
Vertigo | 40pg. | Color | $2.99 US | Mature Readers

Premise: Ladies and gentlemen, there’s been a change in our flight plan. You may have heard of a group called the Etesian Front — vigilantes dedicated to taking the skies back from terrorism. Sounds like a noble cause, right? But there’s more to them than meets the eye. They’re after someone I know. Someone who is either an average frequent flier — or a terrorist. And he’s got a secret. Something that will change the way we fly — and the way we see technology — forever.

To find him, we’ve altered course. We’re en route to a country that doesn’t exist on any maps. Only one person knows how to get us there: me. My name is Blythe, and I’ll be your stewardess today. So buckle your seatbelts — this will be the flight of your life.

Review: Air starts out at rocket speed. The opening page paints a picture of a well-dressed man and woman plummeting towards the ocean below as a plane crashes behind them. The first line reads “You tasted like the sky. Another sky.”

After the poetic verse, Blythe – a veteran stewardess – returns to herself. A purple bruise on her forehead is the only exterior reminder of the extraordinary events she survived not long before. A coworker comes up behind her, asking about a nameless boyfriend that the reader is currently unaware of. Blythe tells that she just learned of his disappearance on an outbound flight, and her worry kept her from taking off the time granted to her due to the crash.

Time reverses. Blythe’s bruise is gone and we catch her performing the menial tasks of her job. As she collects boarding passes for a departing flight, she notices a man that seems oddly familiar. That familiarity makes her uneasy, and as a result she holds up the line asking canned security questions in order to give her time to think. She runs into the man again on the flight, and this time he hints that he may know her as well. After the brief conversation ends, an older gentleman approaches Blythe, concerned that the mysterious man she was just talking to is a security threat. He explains that he is from a group known as the Etesian Front. The Etesian Front is dedicated to “taking the skies back from terror” and basically amounts to a vigilante group going after hijackers.

The scene changes again. We are now on a different flight. Again, the strange man is on board. Blythe has little time to be concerned by him, as a drunken passenger creates enough commotion to warrant the Flight Marshall to restrain him. After the man is subdued, the Flight Marshall pulls Blythe aside and asks her to deliver a suitcase for him, admitting that he is also part of the Etesian Front.  Promising that the package contains information that will make the skies safer (and who wouldn’t trust him after his earlier stunt) Blythe agrees.

After departing the plane, the mysterious man approaches her, and he urges her to look into the case she currently carries. Her curiosity gets the best of her, and after she brushes him off, she turns down a long hallway and opens the case. Turns out she was carrying instructions on how to hijack on of her fleet’s planes. Unfortunately for Blythe, members of the Etesian Front were waiting for her as she turned the corner. She escapes them with the help of the mysterious man, although they are both eventually caught and taken hostage on a departing plane. As it ascends we learn that her fellow hostage knows more about the situation than he is willing to share, and that he is either a government official or a terrorist himself. Later the pair finds themselves plummeting through the air, with the plane exploding in the background. If you want to know what happened between the two events, you will have to pick up Air #1.

Air is bizarre, and a bit misleading. At first you think the comic is about a jet-setting stewardess who ends up on one unlucky flight. But by the end of the book, Air has set the seeds for romance, international mystery and ill-fated ideals. I can’t just write Blyth off yet. While the writing and art don’t entirely captivate me on their own, something about Blyth and her mystery man are forcing me to pick up Air #2. Looks like for now I can’t quite get enough Air.

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