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| One of my favorite scenes from issue #50: Airboy meets the Flying Dutchman; (Art by Andy and Adam Kubert) |
The Eclipse run of Airboy (featuring the son of the Golden Age Airboy as the main character) remains one of my favorite comic book series of all time. I remember finding some in a cheap grab bag from HPB back in the early 1990s and falling in love with the characters very quickly. I eventually tracked down the full run of the series (which was a bit difficult as this was before the rise of eBay) and most of the spin-off and crossover books featuring various characters from the Airboy series. Eventually – once I landed a real job that paid decent money – I started to buy "reader" (G/VG) copies of the Golden Age Airboy issues that were published by Hillman during the 1940s and 1950s. I have quite a few Golden Age Airboy/Air Fighters issues these days and I'm hoping to complete the full run someday (probably many, many years from now).
The Eclipse-era Airboy books often featured a bit of between-the-lines commentary on the political order of the day. As the stories were both published and set in the 1980's, the foreign policy of the Reagan Administration was a favorite (and deserving) target of critique in a few prominent plot lines. One of my favorite storylines from the Eclipse run saw the cast journey to the fictional country of Bogantilla to do battle with – and eventually topple – a right wing dictatorship run by a Reagan crony. Great, great stuff! Several years ago, I scored a page of original artwork from one of the Bogantilla issues. The page features a great sequence in which Skywolf meets his feamle counterpart, Lupina. It's an absolutely stunning piece of art and story.
The final Eclipse issue of Airboy featured a rather unfortunate cliffhanger ending. I had a quick re-read the book it last night and some of the scenes in this creepy, pulse-pounding yarn still give me a chill. To this day, I remember reading the book for the first time. It was, ironically enough, one of the last issues I needed to finish off the series for my collection and I finally tracked it down at a comic shop in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The story itself was pretty phenomenal and it included guest appearances by the original Airboy and the legendary Flying Dutchman. I recall getting to the final page and learning that the series would end with Airboy having been trapped in a kind of Limbo. I remember thinking, "Noooo! It can't end this way!!" But it did end that way, and most of the characters have remained in (in my mind, anyway) in a sort of holding pattern ever since. To my knowledge, the only Airboy character who has been resurrected to date is The Heap. McFarlane and Image Comics tackled that particular character several years ago and I think it's sufficient to say that the results left a lot to be desired.
The Eclipse Airboy series met its untimely demise in 1989. The final issue was Airboy #50 and in that issue's editorial page, Eclipse Editor cat yronwode wrote a bit on the demise of the series. It was a bittersweet eulogy of sorts. In the mid 1990's, I actually ordered some of the remaining issues for my collection directly from cat and I had a pleasant phone conversation with her in which she told me a bit more about the rise and fall of Eclipse. She probably doesn't remember the phone conversation, but to this day I am glad to have had a few minutes to express my admiration and appreciation for her work at Eclipse.
Also in that final issue were some comments by cat regarding some of the ideas Chuck had in store for Airboy and company before the cancellation of the series. On possible tale she mentioned saw Skywolf (one of my favorite characters) fighting in the Cuban Revolution...on Castro's side. I would love to read that story, for sure!
I am not sure if Chuck will deal with the unresolved business from the Eclipse run of Airboy, nevertheless, if his past work is any indication of what we can expect this time around, we're in for a sweet ride, indeed!
