Written by: Jonathan Hickman
Illustrated by: Nick Pitarra“LEARNING TO FLY”
To stay alive in the future, the best fighter pilots in the world not only have to perfect their skills and master their aircraft, they also have to know how to travel through time.
Brought to you by award winning writer JONATHAN HICKMAN and possibly the best new talent of the year, NICK PITARRA, the Red Wing is the story of the greatest battle in the history of the history of three worlds.
Today marks the release of a brand new creator-owned Image Comics project for Marvel architect Jonathan Hickman. With the massive acclaim for his previous Image works and the excitement tied to his efforts on Fantastic Four and SHIELD, this was a book to watch from the moment it was announced. Especially with new talent Nick Pitarra blowing people away with his preview art.
And it lives up to every bit of pre-release hype. This book is the real deal people.
Find out my thoughts after the jump.
“Time is not linear. There is no paradox.”
That is how The Red Wing #1 transitions into the main story, with a two page, mostly blank splash page highlighting those eight words. Eight words that challenge the foundation of your average, everyday basics of time travel theory. Quite the way to start a comic, but really, if someone is going to tell a story in which the basics of theoretical scientific tenets are put into doubt, it’s going to be Jonathan Hickman.
Hickman has been making a living for the past few years doing just that: telling stories that challenge and provoke readers into expanding their minds and approaching both stories and concepts from an entirely new direction. And that’s not just on creator-owned work like The Red Wing – Hickman has been doing this on his Fantastic Four/FF run as well. And he’s been telling damn good stories to boot.
The Red Wing is no different, but in some ways, it is also very much different. To me, this is a natural step in the evolution of Hickman as a writer. His narrative, somewhat predictably given the concept, shifts time periods rather consistently while aggressively challenging readers with a ton of scientific jargon and concepts. But this is all married to a central story that has universal themes for any reader – fathers and sons…the struggle to survive…following what you believe in. These are ideas are ones that any reader can relate to, and Hickman delivers them and the overall concept with confidence and in a cohesive manner.
From page one, readers are engaged with the story of a time lost father and the son following in his footsteps a generation after he disappeared. We do not know any details of the war both father and son are involved in, we do not know what their relationship is, but we do know this: lead character Dom believes that his father is alive, and he’s willing to challenge the foundations of everything they know (even if statistical implausibility does mean practical impossibility) to find out if he’s right.
Rooting a high concept like the one Hickman gives us in a core relationship is Sci Fi 101, but something that is rarely executed this well. The pacing is spot on, and there is a palpable sense of the unknown: I genuinely did not know what would come next after I turned the page.
For me as a reader, to get a book that tells an original story in a surprising and well-executed way is something that doesn’t come around that often. But The Red Wing has all of that in spades.
It also has one of the best finds of the year in newcomer Nick Pitarra. As soon as I finished reading the first issue, I implored the rest of Multiversity’s writing staff to check out this book simply for the purpose of seeing his art. While you see his influences fairly readily (Frank Quitely stands out the most), it isn’t in a derivative way. You see the artistic vocabulary Pitarra has developed by studying his favorites, but it is all delivered in a way that is entirely his own.
Continued belowAnd the story he’s given to tell is a cinematic one, and one that he brings to life in a way the very best in the business would be proud to lay their name on. This is a widescreen adventure, filled with battles through time, splash pages, elaborate time-travel related deaths (there is a one page death sequence that will make your jaw drop in this issue) and all kinds of other exciting sequences. He nails all of that while balancing those out with a real sense of humanity in the quiet, conversational visual sequences we’re given between Valin and Dom, the two green legacy pilots that the first issue focuses on.
Pitarra is a talented guy, ably delivering everything Hickman asks of him and more in a fully rendered, hyper detailed fashion that will make art fans squeal with glee when they see it.
I’m tremendously excited about this book. The Red Wing feels like the type of idea Warren Ellis would have brewed up circa The Authority and Planetary, and Nick Pitarra in a lot of ways feels like a next generation Quitely or Hitch (on his first book?! Unfair!). Hickman and Pitarra completely nail this first issue, and I for one cannot wait to see more of of it.
The Red Wing is a must buy book for all comic fans – don’t miss it.
Final Verdict: 9.5 – Buy
