Many of my most-loved comic books—especially the collected 10 volumes of Preacher and Transmetropolitan—are Vertigo comics, and so I pay attention when a new Vertigo series launches. Unfortunately, Vertigo is also home to some of the hackiest hackwork—especially Fables and anything created by Neil Gaiman that’s not written by Neil Gaiman—to ever mar the comics medium. Air certainly doesn’t feel like the latter, but it’s not yet close to the greatness of the former, either.
Blythe is a stewardess who fears heights. Exactly why she became a stewardess isn’t exactly clear as of yet, but a lot of things about Air are unclear. Is Blythe falling in love with a spy? Is that secret antiterrorist organization secretly a terrorist organization? How do you get to a country that the rest of the world willfully forgot? All but one of these questions are virtually ignored in this first volume, but it feels as though author G. Willow Wilson actually has a plan. The story moves quickly and involves a flying city, a mystical serpent, and a mysterious figure from the history of aviation. It’s a good, strong framework for a science-fiction story.
It’s a shame that artist M. K. Perker isn’t up to the task. The
artwork is stiff and ugly, riddled with unnecessary feathered lines,
and his characters’ lack of expression makes it hard to want to get to
know Blythe. Which, of course, is not the position a reader wants to be
in as he begins a novel that will take years to serially unfold
(imagine if Dickens was bad at dialogue; this is an analogous problem).
Air travel is a subject that many great writers have explored, but few
have gotten beyond the superficial level of a bad standup-comedy
routine. The huge canvas of possibility in Air—a look at
the entire history of aviation, as told through a battle between secret
societies—holds great potential. Hopefully it won’t get grounded
by the ugly artwork. 
It’s actually not that rare for flight attendants to be afraid of heights oddly enough. It’s pretty common to tell the truth. Perhaps it has something to do with being up high, but in a hermetically sealed tube that makes it work. (I speak a as a former flight attendant myself)
That’s really interesting. I wonder if the author of Air knows that, or if it’s a happy coincidence.
If you think about it though, most Vertigo titles don’t answer most questions in the first year. So in that regard Air is no different. It’s still a good book, and keeps getting better. As for the art, read Cairo (by the same team) and then come back to Air and it will have improved in leaps and bounds. By the way, if you like the Vertigo stuff… Read Scalped.
PS, G. Willow Wilson lives here in Seattle