Product Description: This first Astro City volume looks at a day in the life of the Samaritan, the worlds busiest super-hero; an invasion of underground dwellers that is thwarted by the super-team the Honor Guard; a small-time criminals growing paranoia as he comes to believe that the colourful hero called the Jack-in-the-Box is after him; plus stories introducing the First Family, the Hanged Man, Winged Victory, and many others.
Good, but... At the time it was released, Astro City was a new take on the superhero genre. But to me, it hasn't stood up well to the years. Busiek broke new ground, but the perspective was rapidly taken up by writers at every level of comics and the novelty has worn off a bit. And without that novelty, I just find the stories of average quality. A modern comics reader who was somehow unfamiliar with the volume and its impact might well wonder what the fuss was.
Uhhh....It was okay. Let me start with this: I am not a big comics fanatic. I read some of these bigger collections from time to time for entertainment, but I've never been to a comic book shop, I don't own a Green Lantern shirt and there's no Superman sticker on my car.
But, I do know what I like and, for me, Astro City was an "okay" collection of new superheroes. This collections includes 5 stories, 2 of which I found tedious. In the intro, Busiek claims to want to get back to basics and stop the "deconstruction" of the superhero. Get out of the superhero's head and back to the action. But, the first and last stories are all about getting into the superhero's head. They were interesting stories, but they went against the spirit Busiek claimed to have been wanting to avoid.
In short, kudos to Busiek for creating a whole new world of superheroes, but this still didn't grab me enough to make me look for further adventures of these new superheroes.
Excellent start to a brilliant series If you like your superhero stories told with a realistic approach and you haven't read Astro City yet, you're in for a treat. The stories range from good to great. I have yet to read one that's complete garbage and I don't expect I ever will. This volume collects the first six issues.
The standout stories being "The Scoop", a greatest story never told, "Reconnaissance", the story of Cracker Jack, the world's luckiest super hero and whether or not Earth is worth sparing, and "Dinner at Eight" where Samaritan and Winged Victory (more or less this universe's version of Superman and Wonder Woman) taking the night off from fighting crime and going on a slightly awkward first date.
Busiek, Anderson and Ross create a unique universe here with a great assortment of heroes and villains. If you're looking for some good superhero action but want something a little different than the DC and Marvel variety of characters this might be just the thing. Give this a shot and then try telling me it's not better than "Heroes". Chances are you'll be paying Astro City another visit.
Graphic SF Reader Kurt Busiek's Astro City is told from a slightly different viewpoint, some of the time. Often we are looking through the eyes of a normal denizen of the City rather than one of the heroes. This book introduces some of the important super characters though, and although homages to Superman, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four and others, they do stand on their own.
Simply awesome super-hero comics All you really need to know about Astro City is that these are some of the most enjoyable superhero comics being written today.
Kurt Busiek has an exceptional talent for combining imaginative stories with believeable characters and intelligent writing, resulting in one of the most original and enjoyable re-imaginings of superheroes since "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen" -- and without a hint of the predictible (and predictably excessive) camp, irony, "grit" or grimness that characterize most of the seemingly-endless parade of imitations being churned out to this day in response to those two mid-80s classics.
Instead, Busiek has produced that oh-so-rare creature: a comic book that captures the "wow" factor we felt reading our first superhero comics as kids, but which we can enjoy as adults without shutting down any significant portion of our brains.
The art (by Brent Anderson) is quite good; not stunningly unique or flashy, but good comic book art that gets the job done without drawing attention to itself. But the real kudos belong to Kurt Busiek for producing one of the few masterpieces of modern comics.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
