Astro City

Astro City #2

/ / Comics

Astro City #2Telling peripheral stories to the larger than life heroic adventures in a world populated with super-powered heroes and villains has always been a strength of Astro City. The latest issue gives us a peek at the life of Marella Cowper who answers an innocuous ad for a data position and finds herself working in the super-secret Honor Guard Emergency Contact Line.

Once again the series thinks outside the box to examine the needs of a world filled with super-heroes. A specialized communication hub to prioritize dangers, the regular people needed to staff it, and the precautions to keep its existence and location secret, are fleshed out in this single issue that offers enough possibilities to become its own spin-off. With the need for heroes to only make cameos this would actually make for a cool TV series.

Presented completely from Marella’s point of view, we get her initial awe at her new job, the driven nature and yearning to get that one call to help save the world, and finally the acceptance and understanding of her small role in the larger picture. Without doubt, Astro City #2 is one of the best comics I’ve read this year. Best of the week.

[Vertigo, $3.99]

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Astro City #1

/ / Comics

Astro City #1It’s been three years since co-creators Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson have given us a new issue of Astro City, the series that (much like Planetary) focused on re-imagining of several comic characters while examining how normal people coexist and react to them. With the folding of DC’s WildStorm print, the many character from Busiek and Anderson’s universe find themselves a new home at Vertigo with the start of a new series that includes faces both old as new, and Astro City’s first contact with an alien presence who appears through a rather large door hovering over the city.

Although I wasn’t quite sold on the opening pages of Astro City #1 featuring the character of The Broken Man who narrates the new story, the comic quickly takes off with the introduction of the ridiculously cool American Chibi and the alien ambassador Telseth who comes through the door only after the various heroes and military resources have stopped trying to destroy it. Part Galactus, part Celestial, and with a definite Jack Kirby inspired design, Telseth, much like everything in Astro City is not what you would first expect.

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