Air Raiders #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAir Raiders #2 — titled 'Subterfuge' and cover-dated January 1988 — is a modest but historically interesting chapter in Marvel's late-1980s tradition of licensed toy-tie-in comics, sitting inside a five-issue limited series that stands as the sole comics record of Hasbro's short-lived Air Raiders toy line. The issue is notable as part of the only published narrative expansion of the Airlandia universe, a science-fiction world where breathable air is the ultimate scarce resource — a concept that, however niche, gave writer Howard Mackie room to explore character dilemmas and resistance-fighter ethics rarely attempted in toy-comic tie-ins of the era. Its place in comics history is also a footnote in the early career of penciler Kelley Jones, who would go on to define the gothic aesthetic of Batman and co-create landmark work on Neil Gaiman's Sandman before the decade was out. The series as a whole, including this issue, was published first under Marvel's Star Comics imprint before that imprint was shuttered, making issues #1–2 a brief artifact of Star Comics' existence.
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The Air Raiders comic series was commissioned by Marvel's Star Comics imprint — a division created in 1984 primarily to publish licensed toy and television tie-in titles aimed at younger readers — as a companion to Hasbro's 1987 Air Raiders toy line, which itself never received a cartoon series and lasted only a single product wave. Writer Howard Mackie and penciler Kelley Jones (with inker Jim Sinclair) were assigned the project, with Bob Budiansky editing under editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco; Jones was at this point building his Marvel résumé across several sci-fi assignments including Micronauts, Comet Man, and this series. Issue #2, released September 8, 1987 (cover-dated January 1988), was among the last comics to carry the Star Comics banner before Marvel folded the imprint in 1988, at which point the remaining issues (#3–5) were transferred to the main Marvel Comics label, causing a noticeable publication gap in the run.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Title of issue: 'Subterfuge' — the story centers on Air Raider Eeleta being captured on a mission, with her imprisonment revealed to be deliberately orchestrated rather than accidental.
- The issue also features an appearance by Thunderhammer, one of the vehicles/characters from the toy line's lore.
- Written by Howard Mackie; pencils by Kelley Jones; inks by Jim Sinclair; colors by Janet Jackson; letters by Diana Albers; edited by Bob Budiansky; editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco.
- Released September 8, 1987 with a cover date of January 1988; published under the Star Comics imprint (a Marvel subdivision), making it one of the last two issues to carry that banner before the imprint closed.
- Issues #1–2 of the five-issue limited series were published by Star Comics; issues #3–5 were published under the main Marvel Comics label after the Star Comics imprint was shuttered in 1988.
- The series is based on Hasbro's 1987 Air Raiders toy line, which featured air-powered projectile vehicles and two-inch pilot figures, and which had no accompanying animated series — making the comic the primary narrative media tie-in for the property.
- Kelley Jones, the series penciler throughout all five issues, later became celebrated for his gothic art on DC's Sandman and his long Batman collaboration with writer Doug Moench — placing Air Raiders among his formative pre-breakout Marvel assignments.
- The five-issue series ran November 1987–July 1988 and has never been collected in trade paperback or made available on Marvel Unlimited, making the original issues the only way to read the story.
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