“Red 10 standing by.”

“Red 3 standing by.”

“Red 6 -“

Oh, wait. I’m thinking of a different “red” squadron. Can you blame me? The moment you see a crew of fighter pilots in a circular conference room crowded around a guy lecturing from a holographic console, I defy you not to think Wedge Antilles should be there. When picking up The Red Wing #1, think of all the fighter-pilot action (and the hero-with-absent-daddy-issues motif) of Episode IV, add a healthy dose of TimeCop, sprinkle some Top Gun and you’ve got a rough idea of what this story’s about.

Or maybe you don’t.

It’s Hickman at the helm, after all, so we can definitely expect the unexpected from this book. So far it’s a fun mess of science fiction — fantastically drawn by Nick Pitarra — that throws dinosaurs, ancient Mayans, giant robot beach balls and big concepts about time and space into one issue. All I know for sure is that, apparently, time travel makes a “Fwoop!” sound. And the rest is enough to keep me intrigued — and standing by for issue 2.