Lilly Fowler has her own adventure in Skyward No. 12

A dozen issues in, Skyward continues to ramp up the chaos.

DC and Marvel tell some great stories, but the lack of creator-owned content means that only certain kinds of stories will get told, in certain ways. There’s no way either of the Big Two would ever run a story about a woman’s adventures in a world where almost all gravity disappears on Earth but, over at Image Comics, that kind of singular focus on a character and their unique environment is par for the course, which is likely why Image does so well. Skyward, from Lucifer producer and writer Joe Henderson, with art from the talented Lee Garbett, colors from Antonio Fabela, and letters from Simon Bowland, tracks the growth and travels of one Willa Fowler, whose father is mysteriously tied to the loss of gravity and who has been following clues in his journals with hopes of fixing the world.

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Skyward explains what happened to Willa’s mother all those years ago

In the last issue, Willa and Barrow made it to the “x” on her father’s map only to discover that it was an underground city, and that Willa’s mother was living there; two heavy reveals that made the future even more full of questions and possibilities. This issue of Skyward is mostly an accounting of what’s been happening to Willa’s mom, Lilly, for the last twenty-one years. We learn that she and her husband knew about the underground city almost two decades before “G-Day” because Willa’s dad and the government knew a “gravitational event” would occur and so decided to build the city of Crystal Springs.

Image Comics

Finding animals and raising children in Skyward

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Back in the first issue, we thought Lilly disappeared into the sky, along with millions of other people, but it turns out she managed to get out of the city, zero-g floating her way to a gas station across the river, where she finds a dog that she names Stranger. The duo have various adventures, as they head to Crystal Springs and, when they finally get there, they are greeted by Randy ,who is very scared of the outside. Lilly is the first person to arrive at Crystal Springs besides Randy, and the two apparently spend the last twenty years falling in love, dealing with the passing of Stranger and dealing with the mayoral responsibilities of running the underground city. We find out that Lilly is a schoolteacher, and that some of her young students have a contraband radio, on which she and they hear an announcement about Willa, which causes Lilly to demand to leave Crystal Springs, and for the ruling body to decide against it. She sneaks out anyways and witnesses the aftermath of the bug attack on Kansas City, gets to the farm minutes too late to connect with Willa, and ends up finding her at the entrance to Crystal Springs with Roger Barrow, who was an enemy of her husband.

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Nervous Randy, in a deluded move, blows the only exit to the city, trapping Willa, Barrow, and everyone else in Crystal Springs for theoretical eternity. Now, we know that won’t be the case because there’s too much plot for Skyward to discover outside of the underground city. Although, it’s feasible to have several issues of hi-jinks before the focus of the story moves outside of Crystal Springs. This issue sets up a whole array of possibilities, now that we know that Willa’s mom is married to the mayor and that he’s a whackjob who just trapped everyone in a giant makeshift coffin. 9/10, highly recommended. Let us know what you thought in the comments section below.

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