By: Jonathan Hickman (writer), Nick Pitarra (artist) and Rachelle Rosenberg (colorist)
The Story: Imagine a war with weapons and soldiers that can travel in time.
Review: I’m a huge fan of Hickman’s creator-owned work. You won’t find a series that is more of a raw, punch-in-the-face than Nightly News or as mind-bending as Pax Romana or as creepy and layered as Transhuman. I didn’t love Red Mass for Mars, but it was more that I didn’t love it in comparison to the other series. Red Mass is still probably a 7/10 story. I even re-read all four series over the 4th of July holiday to get my mind “warmed up” for the release of Red Wing.
Re-reading was probably a mistake because although Red Wing is a perfectly fine comic, it does pale slightly in comparison to a re-read of those four finished works. It isn’t as brave as Nightly News and it isn’t as high-concept as Pax Romana, so it is hard to not be a little disappointed. It is probably a little unfair to judge a new #1 issue versus completed stories where the issue-to-issue story beats fade away. But, having put myself in that mindset before reading, it was hard escape. Folks coming at this fresh may view the comic very differently.
But, Hickman does have a very interesting concept: What if time-travel was discovered and it became routine to fight wars by using time travel technology? How would such a war be waged? What happens to pilots flying temporal fighter planes that get shot down in the past? Even though this first issue spent a lot of time laying out the technical ground rules, I remain very confident that Hickman will ace this story in the long run. I just can’t imagine the brain that has given us Nightly News and Pax Romana and Transhuman failing to make a tasty dinner with these ingredients. Hickman also gets bonus points for not getting bogged down in the “rules” of time travel: “Be careful what you change in the past or you could wipe us all out of existence.”
As for the art, Nick Pitarra does a really nice job with the storytelling. Everything is clear, crisp and concise. You never wonder about what is going on in a panel and his technology designs are compelling and futuristic looking. From a style perspective, it is very Geof Darrow looking. I’m not the world’s biggest Darrow fan because it usually goes hand-in-hand with the type of shaded coloring that I don’t enjoy, but I’m in the minority on that front. So, you Darrow fans out there will LOVE how this comic looks.
Conclusion: This comic didn’t blow my socks off, but I was probably expecting too much out of the #1 issue and I really don’t have any doubts that we’ll have a fun story before the series wraps up. So, although this issue isn’t getting a stellar grade, the series is in NO danger of being dropped. If anything, I’m frantically looking forward to the rest of the series because that’s where the cool reveals will be.
Grade: C
-Dean Stell
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