Is It Good? Airboy #1 Review

James Robinson and Greg Hinkle begin a wild meta adventure of rebooting a Golden Age superhero. Is it good?

Airboy #1 (Image Comics)

James Robinson has no desire continue being the ‘Golden Age’ guy. He also hates Airboy. Unforutnately, the offer from Image comes at a time when Robinson’s available money and self-respect are in short supply.

He takes the job and gets teamed up with artist Greg Hinkle. The two hit San Francisco for a wild night of debauchery, which leads to a little soul searching along with the actual appearance of the Golden Age Hero himself.

Is It Good?

I absolutely love the writer/artist team on this one, so I was a little disappointed at how thin the actual story was. Don’t get me wrong — Hinkle’s pencils (particularly his facial expressions) are out of this world. Robinson’s dialogue was great and even laugh out loud funny at places.

But after only 17 pages of story, the first issue really doesn’t get us anywhere that the preview synopsis for the book didn’t already cover. While the set up and subsequent wild night to have offers plenty of good dialogue, the direction it takes the reader starts to feel a little redundant.

By the time Airboy actually shows up, I wasn’t sure whether the issue was too long or too short (I’m sticking with too short at 17 pages). Fortunately, the fantastic dialogue by Robinson and Hinkle’s wonderfully expressive art gives us plenty of reason to believe this will quickly become a very fun series to read.