#1 Comic of the week: Skyward

Welcome to #1 Comic of the Week, a new series where our comics editor, Susana Polo, tips you off to a neat new story or series that kicked off in comics this week — just in time for some weekend reading.

This week’s issue is Skyward #1, a comic from a surprising new creator that flings us into an absurd anti-gravity apocalypse — but still takes time to ground its story with tidbits of world building and a charming cast.

[Correction: In an auspicious start to this new series, I’ve mistaken the release date for Skyward #1. It hits shelves on April 18. Still, it seems pretty cool. See you next week, to hear about a comic that definitely will have come out in that week. I promise.]

Joe Henderson, Lee Garbett

In the world of Skyward, life on earth was redefined forever on the day that gravity stopped working. Every one in humanity is just a slip and a mistake from flying helplessly off into the sky. Our main character is Willa, a high-flying Ariel, whose adventures begin when she discovers a way to return the world to normal.

Skyward’s fantastical story and kinetic visuals come from the minds of Joe Henderson — writer and producer on White Collar and Almost Human, and showrunner on Fox’s Lucifer, based on the Vertigo comic of the same name — and Lee Garbett, a comics artist veteran of Midnighter, Batgirl, and Loki: Agent of Asgard.

“Skyward is all of my favorite things mashed together,” Henderson said when the series was announced. “It’s a coming-of-age story filled with action and humor, devastation and hope. It explores a world turned upside down, where anyone can leap tall buildings with a single bound … but if you jump too high, you die.”

Together, Henderson and Garbett imbue Skyward’s setting with a real sense of life. 20 years after G-Day, kids are still mystified by artifacts of the ancient civilization that’s only a generation old.

Skyward is an upcoming monthly series from Image Comics. If you can’t swing by your local comic shop to pick up its #1 issue up on April 18, it’s also available digitally.

Lee Garbett