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.
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.
A fun read...!! A DC-reading friend of mine has been after me for years to check this title out... So I *finally* did, and it's great fun. Kurt Busiek, who brought the Marvel heroes down to earth in the acclaimed "Marvels" series, again looks at the capes through the eyes of the regular citizenry, but this time it's in the fabled streets of Astro City, a place with more superbeings per square mile than anyplace ever seen before. Busiek revels in the giddy, kitschy, high-flying storytelling style of the classic comicbooks of yesteryear -- if you read DC or Marvel in the 1960s or early '70s, these stories will have a familiar feel. "Astro City" cheerfully riffs on numerous superhero archetypes, with parallels to Superman, Wonder Woman, The Fantastic Four, etc. -- all playfully tweaked into a new, all-fun, irony-free universe, where it's clobbering time all the time and all the streets are named after comicbook artists, publishers and the like... Long story short: I'm hooked. Bring on the next volume!
Look up in the sky! It's a bird ... no, it's a plane ... I cannot seem to shake these stories. In each of the handful of Kurt Busiek's stories about a superhero infested city, I felt connected to the people surrounded by these modern marvels. I love stories that have a point of view away from the typical angle. One of my favorite films that I watched this year was one called The Baxter. It is a love story as told by the other man, the one dumped by the end of the film. It was compelling and original to see a familiar story told from a different perspective. It was bold to see the emotions and tribulations of a man that we, as typical audience members, seem to regard as unimportant or irrelevant. That is exactly the emotion that Busiek was able to obtain, bottle, and distribute in this epic graphic novel about a metropolis known as "Astro City". Am I too bold in stating that this is the first time that a writer has taken our beloved superheroes and chosen to focus the attention away from them and into the gazing faces of the population? While this seemed original while I was reading this book, I probably don't think it was a new concept, but what I loved about Astro City is that Busiek made it feel like a brand new concept.
Superheroes are important. They are a staple of our community, but one must remember that without the community, there would be no need for a superhero. So (and rather genuinely), instead of giving us the point of reference from the almighty being in the sky or the haphazard destruction of the world from some guy with metal claws, we are privy to seeing what "normal" life would be like for citizens. Those who see the heroes in action daily, as well as those caught within the carnage as well. This book or introduction to the "city" was ... for lack of a better word ... phenomenal. With Busiek's skills we are given a glimpse of a sister city to Metropolis or Gotham, and the citizens that dwell within. What makes Busiek's stories so entertaining is that there are more superheroes within the city than one person can count, giving us the opportunity to feel like nearly every other comic we ever read. There are those that remind us of Superman, Batman, Iron Man, and even the Fantastic Four. He blends these characters into entirely new heroes. Ones that we are not familiar with so that our focus, the reader's focus, isn't on the heroes (cause that isn't what his stories are about), but instead on the people.
It has been nearly four days since I finished the first chapter of "Astro City" and I cannot wait to begin the next. As I glance back through this innovative novel, the stories that stick out the most are "The Scoop", "Safeguards" as well as "A Little Knowledge". The remaining three stories are good, but the do focus a bit too heavily on the heroes themselves, which is not my passion for these stories. I loved "The Scoop" due to the realism. I loved reading the paper the next day and allowing my imagination to wander. After reading this story one couldn't help but be impressed with the local news and question if you don't have your own superheroes living in your Smalltown, USA. "A Little Knowledge" was a psychological piece of which I have never experienced before. One that has seen several superhero films was always under the misconception that nobody knows the secret identity of heroes, but alas, that isn't the truth. With amazing tension, torn nerves, and a exciting nail-biting twist, Busiek gives us a dilemma like no other. He gives us simply an image that will tear a small time man apart. Then there is my favorite, "Safeguards", which places a random person in the middle of some chaos. It is here that we see firsthand the destruction of the villains, the power of jealousy, and an eerie level of comfort coming from those that do reside in the shadows. It was a story of poverty and truth, and it shook me to my roots.
Again, the other stories were great, but these were the three that stood out the greatest. My only downfall of this book was the ending chapters. I agree that it is somewhat important for artists to show how they got from point A to point B, but for these stories, I feel that it took quite a bit of impact away. Personally (and I think this is where my issue lies), I don't like seeing the "this is how I got there" portion of the story, I like finishing a story and feeling like I just was allowed a glimpse into the mind of another. I can make my own assumptions and connections; I don't need someone blue-printing the bulk of the stories for me. Would a writer include their rough drafts - all scribbled and tattered - at the end of their novels? My answer is "no", and I definitely didn't need to see it here. That was the only complaint I had of this entire collection.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
