Ellis puts it in gear with Ignition City #1

What if all the high-flying, sci-fi, space heroes of the '40s and '50s were real? And what if those real heroes lived in a real world where politics and international conflict took all the fun out of being a space hero? Where do the space heroes go to die? Why, they go to Ignition City where all these questions (and more!) are answered!

Avatar's Ignition City #1, by Warren Ellis and Gianluca Pagliarani, drops us into a 1956 where the great age of space exploration is rapidly dying. All those brave rocket men and women shooting off into space brought nothing but trouble for the Earth, so the world's governments have shut them down. Space launches are prohibited almost everywhere and, where they are allowed, they are strictly under government control and supervision. Ignition City, an artificial island covered with launch gantries and landing pads, is the last place on the planet where spacecraft can still launch, but it is a sad remnant of it's former self. It really is the place where the washed up space heroes go to drink themselves to death, wallowing in memories of their former glory.

When young adventuress and frustrated space explorer Mary Raven finds out her beloved father (former space hero Arthur "Rock" Raven) has died there, she knows she has to do whatever it takes to get into Ignition City and find whatever scraps of her father's life he left behind. It is a sad place, filled with washed-up heroes, drunken failures, and petty bureaucrats. It quickly becomes very obvious to Mary that she isn't going to like anything she finds on this bleak, hopeless island.

Most of you have probably heard of this Ellis fellow by now, so you know that nobody does dark humor quite like he does. (Well, maybe Garth Ennis.) This is not for the faint of heart! Ellis puts his hilariously foul-mouthed characters through their paces, giving readers the scoop on what happens to your poop when you live off of futuristic food pills, how to deal with alien lizard diarrhea, and what would really happen to a heroic space pilot who finds himself 500 years in his own past. Plus, the ridiculously violent bar bouncer Vanderkirk demonstrates the intestine-steaming effects of a space ray-gun on the human body. All this in just the first issue! Could you possibly expect more entertainment than that for four measly space dollars? I think not!

Fuel up the old rocket pack and junior bird-man your way on over to Four Color Fantasies, space cadet! You can try out life on Ignition City for yourself all week, with no risk to life and limb and no need for alcohol poisoning. Just watch out for the puddles of space lizard poop. That stuff NEVER comes off of your shoes.