TRULY GONE&FORGOTTEN : FLYBOY

Well, he's dead.

Revisiting the "Approved Comics' line of adjectivial Boys on the march for freedom and prosperity brings us to Larry Jett, a.k.a. "Flyboy," ace of the skies!

Flyboy and Happy are not cut out for war.

Larry and his pudgy sidekick Happy Holiday (I'm not sure which of those is the affectionate nickname part of the guy's handle, if not both, so I'm assuming it's his Christian name) are air cadets in the American military, learning to protect America's skies but also to use the power of military air power to foil kidnapping and sexual harassment. I'm okay with this.

The only downside is that Flyboy is something of a feckless fuck-up, although his intentions are good. Except for those occasions when his intentions fly in direct opposition to the orders he was given. I mean, those are also good, but sometimes he doesn't do it for much of a good reason.

The most interesting thing about Flyboy is that none of his adventures really happen in the sky, for the most part. He's not in aerial dogfights, he's not racing across country or narrowly escaping big storms. What he DOES do, however, is find a bunch of crooks at their hideout because some Lenny-from-Mice-And-Men type thug manages to idly shoot Flyboy's plane out of the air from a sitting position on the ground. Seems to me the comic should be about the man-child who is depicted literally shooting the heads off of nails at thirty feet. Gunboy!

They never did.

He and Happy manage to pick up some sort of aerial Amber Alert, then buzz a car they believe contains a kidnapped child. They proceed to harass the car, even threatening it with their props, before driving it off the road. The kid actually got out earlier so he isn't dead, but I still think that's kind of a bum way to stop kidnappers.

AND, lastly, Larry gets in dutch with a civilian roughneck working on the camp's laundry detail, on account of Larry kept the knucklehead from groping a female co-worker. I'm on Larry's side, but then I worry about the guy because he didn't seem to notice that the big idiot sewed a bunch of mothballs into Larry's jacket, causing him to have blackouts and dizzy spells during his training flights. Larry's a fucking menace.

What's worse is that he doesn't have a lot to look forward to. If the final story in the issue -- not a Flyboy tale, but a traditional war comic -- we're given a story about a guy who gets into war but doesn't really get off on killing people, then later is a prisoner for a while and ends up being way too enthusiastic about killing people. That's the happy ending in question, that the guy is excited to turn a lot of military wives into widows. Those are even his words. Flyboy would be better served getting washed out of the military and picking up a hack license, I gotta be honest.

Sounds .... great.