NB of the Week

The Red Wing #2 (of 4) - Learning to Fall
I'll be honest, this one may be a hard one to describe. It's a future where space pilots fight and travel through time. Issue one saw young Dom trying to follow in his father's footsteps and joining the flight program. Cutting between that story, we also learn the true fate of his father, Robert, in that he was shot down and began traveling back in time, stranding him in the far past.
Issue two starts with Dom finally passing and "getting his wings". Cut back to Robert in what appears to be ancient Mayan land and we find out that for over a year there, he has been teaching their leader to speak, telling each other of their stories and becoming a part of them as he waits to see when he will be rescued, which is when his tracker starts flashing. Excited, he runs out to be greeted only to suddenly look scared. He turns and runs into the forest, knowing that the tracking beam that grabs him was inevitable.
Move back (forward in time) to Dom as he and his friend talk about piloting and how Dom is having a hard time grasping it fully. He begins talking to the man who not only recruited him, but also his father many years ago. He is given the speech about how flying rules don't apply to time and how you have to just let go of what you know and that's the only way to understand it.
Back (into the past) at Robert, he is strapped to a platform by doctor looking figures, while an armored figure threatens with his plans,
"Out harvesters will strip this century bare. We will take and take and take until nothing is left. Until the world here is as the one we came from."
As Robert yells for them to free him, the armored man approaches and begins telling him about the broken future not being what people had promised their sons and daughters it would be. As he opens his masked, we are left with the face of Dom saying.
"Time to answer for your sins, father."
This may not be the best reasoning for you guys, but this book reminds me of the first time I watched Back to the Future. Even through the confusion of time travel and not quite knowing how things were connecting, I still had a sense of a full story. I knew something was coming and I could feel it starting to connect, I just wasn't quite sure how. That's Red Wing for me. Hickman writes a story that is confusing me but also building to a high crescendo and even though I may not see where this is going, I want to be there on the journey when it does. Time travel is always a hard thing to write and an even harder thing to read, but Hickman is pulling it off rather well so far. Two more issues to screw that up, though.