Everybody wants to find sleeper hits in the comics industry. Will they jump up in price over time? Will they turn into TV or film properties? The big question: will they be something you’ll want to read again after you close the back page? In the case of Airboy #1, one can’t exactly picture this making a big-screen leap or getting bold print in the Overstreet price guide, but it might be one of the secret best books of the year.

One of the smartest things Image did around the release of Airboy was solicit it as a limited series. There is no way this could successfully hold an ongoing. That is a plus. We’re losing sight of the valor of the finite story in today’s marketplace, and this looks like it’ll be a perfect ‘read in a sitting’ sort of story. If nothing else, this first issue gives us so much to run with that there’s no excuse not to come back for the rest.

The concept is pretty simple: James Robinson is asked to do a reboot of the Golden Age hero Airboy. He doesn’t want to, because he thinks Airboy sucks. Problem is, his career at DC Comics (mentioned by name) is floundering, he feels like his audience is vanishing, his drinking is getting out of control, and his wife doesn’t seem to like him very much anymore. He takes the job for the sake of taking the job, but comes up dry on ideas. What follows is one of the best reads of the year.

After Robinson meets artist Greg Hinkle, Airboy devolves into a whirlwind of sex, drugs, and… well, mostly sex and drugs. None of this is presented with any glamor, which is greatly refreshing. It’s all done gritty, but with a sense of humor that you wouldn’t expect; the book, despite its dark tone, is deeply funny, with some laugh-out-loud moments every other page. Robinson manages to keep the tone light even though there’s a lot of nudity, drugs, and, frankly, serious things happening on every page.

The art can only be described as revelatory. Greg Hinkle has a long future in comics to look forward to. One could make comparisons to Chip Zdarsky with the amount of detail that goes into every page, but the linework is closer to old pros like Phil Hester or Darwyn Cooke. There’s a lot going on, but the pages never feel too crowded. Robinson is an old pro himself, and knows when to slow down on the word balloons and let the book breathe. Everything about this collaboration makes it look like the two of them are having a lot of fun putting the book together.

(A fair warning: James Robinson would tell fans at conventions that said ‘I’m looking forward to Airboy‘ that he was glad they were looking forward to seeing his genitals, so if you’re malign toward the male anatomy, this book might not be for you.)

The question is asked in a sideways fashion in the book, but fans have been asking for a while: what happened to the James Robinson that wrote Starman or JSA: The Golden Age? Frankly, what happened is, the man changed. He became the guy who’s writing Airboy, and we’re lucky for that: we’ve got a sleeper hit on our hands, and it’s another credit to the Image catalog of books that look like nothing else out there.

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