She Could Fly vol. 2: The Lost Pilot

Here’s a follow-up where its ceiling and floor are closer together in terms of quality.  Where vol. 1’s strength was in its portrayal of protagonist Luna Brewster’s mental issues, vol. 2 loses a little bit in that regard.  It’s been a year since the conspiracy-fueled bloodshed at her house, and Luna is now back at school after a stint in a mental hospital.  She’s seeing three mental health specialists and is on a ton of meds, but she’s still delusional.  While that’s consistent with her issues from the previous volume, writer Christopher Cantwell has tacked on some new ones, like her talking eyeball, that feel more like he’s just cranking up her crazy a notch.  That could be down to the fact that Luna is still obsessed with flying woman Mayura Howard and spends most of the volume looking inward to find answers.  Things don’t get better until she thinks to look outward, and find Mayura’s surviving family, for answers.

Surrounding Luna’s story is the kind of story and character quirkiness that threatened to derail the previous volume towards the end.  That includes some bad foreign terrorists and familiar ex-government operatives who are trying to get their hands on the jetpack, said jetpack creator Bill who is stuck in prison (but not for long), Luna’s former counselor Dana who is now homeless as she tries to protect her former patient and who winds up falling in with a homeless group run by the quirkiest of all returning cast members.  It’s hard to say if all this is better written this time around, or if I’m better acclimated to it given that I now know to expect this kind of stuff in the world of “She Could Fly.”  Which is to say that all this didn’t bug me as bad as it did last time around.  Cantwell and artist Martin Morazzo do manage to actually bring it all together into a quasi-climax that actually sort of works.  Both as an ending for Luna’s story, or just this volume if they decide to pursue a third volume down the line.