Astro City: Life in the Big City

A nice change from the usual ponderous crap that's so often issued by the Big Two. Of course, this isn't from the Big Two, which is probably why it's not crap.

There are a number of thinly-disguised re-takes on classic superhero characters; this has practically become a genre in itself. I almost wonder if DC and Marvel might eventually start publishing their own thinly-disguised re-takes of their big properties, just to get in on the action!*

Anyway, the book consists of a series of mostly-unrelated superhero stories, offering a different and more "realistic" take on the genre. It reminds me very strongly indeed of [b:Common Grounds|238690|Common Grounds|Troy Hickman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266503304s/238690.jpg|231214], but to tell you the truth, I think Common Grounds did it better. In fairness I should note that Common Grounds also came out years after Astro City.

The stories are thought-provoking, but some of them fall a little flat. There's a slight feeling of...I'm not quite sure how to put this. The stories are good, but they're just not as masterfully written as the works of...well, I hate to always be bringing him up, but Alan Moore. They just feel as if they're aimed slightly lower, somehow; they don't dazzle through sheer virtuosity.

But they're fun, and thought-provoking, and the art is good. In a fractional system I'd give Astro City a solid 3.49, and I'm definitely going to look up other books in the series. If I was still subscribing to comic books, I'd doubtless subscribe.

I wish GoodReads would change over to a ten-star or fractional system! Five stars is MUCH too restrictive.

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* - They probably have - and if they have, I'm sure Steve will tell me. :D ( )

Busiek himself sums up this book in his brilliant introduction:
.. a wander off the main thoroughfare of a superhero world and see what stories have been waiting in the shadows to be told, what we can discover if we stop heeding the siren song of what happens next and start wondering what else is there..

He fulfils his aims brilliantly in a series of tales set in the same world. Busiek has a great eye to tales hidden between the dramatic fights and dramas of the superhero world and he has the skills to bring a short story to life. And although he protests of too much reality in the superhero genre, making a reader connect with it, making it believable is something that makes this comic shine. The world is deep and rich, with some joyously weird superheroes and it is exciting to think there is a whole series here.

You don't need to be a superhero fan to enjoy this (I'm not) and the standard tropes are all you need to know to enjoy. So we meet a superhero who never has time just to fly for the love it, a petty crook who finds out someone’s secret identity or an amusing look at journalistic ethics.

Highly recommend for comics lovers and those who are want to see past those superhero flicks. ( )

The first volume of Astro City, probably my favorite superhero series of all time. This volume is a collection of seven shorter stories all set in Astro City, introducing Samaritan, Jack in the Box, Crackerjack, Winged Victory, and a bunch of other characters. ( )

"Astro City" is an inventive take on the superhero comic book (which is tough to find and rarer to pull off successfully.) The book doesn't follow any one hero or team, but is rather an anthology that focuses on characters and plots that are usually delegated to the background. The work schedule of a superhero, a journalist trying to prove a team's adventure, a woman commuting from a haunted neighborhood, these are the kinds of small, personal stories that the artists have so brilliantly conceived and executed that give a whole new look at a world filled with super-powered people. ( )

Kurt Busiek's Astro City is a wonderful, thought provoking look into what life would be like in a world with superheroes. As Busiek, himself, says in the forward to the book,

For the past decade, starting around the time of the brilliant "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns", the prevalent mode for "serious" superhero creators has been deconstruction... but it strikes me that the only reason to take apart a pocket watch, or a car engine, aside from the simple delight of disassembly, is to find out how it works. To understand it, so you can put it back together again better than before, or build a new one that goes beyond what the old one could do. We've been taking apart the superhero for ten years or more; it's time to put it back together and wind it up, time to take it on the road and floor it, see what it will do.

And that is exactly what Busiek does right from the first page of "Life in The Big City". He shows us superheroes from a new angle that I've never experienced before, well with the exception of Busiek's first collaboration with Ross, "MARVELS", which is a look at key formative moments in the Marvel universe... through the eyes of a photojournalist. In Astro City, he continues and develops upon the style...

If mere mortals dream of the joy of flight, what might the dreams of a superman-like hero be?

What is it like being a rookie reporter in a city full of superheroes and villains?

Do you really want to learn a superheroes identity?

Is living a life where you are at ease with the surrounding vampires, demons, and various other things that go bump in the night... any scarier than a life that is surrounded by superheroes and villains?

How would an alien sent to covertly scout out the earth for invasion, react to a world filled with old ladies' petty bickering, flakey teens, and immature superheroes?

How would the most powerful man and woman... or rather superman and superwoman in the world step aside from saving the world to take a date... and how would it go?

These are the questions that are asked in the six stories (collected from KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY Vol 1 #1-6) that compose the first Astro City trade paperback. The stories are brought to life in vivid, dramatic fashion by artist Brent Anderson, and the beautifully painted covers by Alex Ross are collected in the back of the book, along with development sketches of the creation of the city and characters.

I originally read these stories a few years ago, and I enjoyed rereading "Life in the Big City" just as much as I did then... and I'm really looking forward to rereading and reviewing the rest of the series to date. ( )