Customer Reviews

Astro City: Life in the Big City

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The comic book adventures of costumed superheroes represent a specialized genre of literature that has been around for decades. Every so often a new work comes around that truly represents a new high point in the field. Such a work is "Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in the Big City," an intelligently written and spectacularly illustrated volume that tells the story of a remarkable group of superheroes.

"Life" is actually a collection of six interrelated stories, each of which stands on its own as a fine piece of comic book art. Together the six tales present a stunning portrait of the fictional Astro City, a postmodern metropolis teeming with costumed superheroes, sinister supervillains and other memorable characters. Among the many heroes we meet are Samaritan, the almost godlike caped hero with a tragic past; Winged Victory, a flying superwoman with a feminist twist; the Hanged Man, a mysterious figure who maintains a silent protective vigil; and Jack-in-the-Box, a demonic-looking clown with a number of high-tech tricks up his sleeve.

But just as compelling are the "ordinary" citizens of Astro City: veteran reporter Elliot Mills, legal clerk Marta, and the other working folks whose lives are lived in the shadow of the supermen.

"Life in the Big City" smoothly blends elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and social commentary. Well-written dialogue is complemented by a wealth of memorable images... The stories explore such thought-provoking issues as ethnic identity and the anxiety of assimilation, gender politics, and the psychology of paranoia. One of the compilation's best tales, "The Scoop," is a witty and surprising parable about journalistic ethics.

The book length comic, or graphic novel, is a rich genre whose practitioners have produced some outstanding classics in recent years. The intelligence, visual power, and moral integrity of "Life in the Big City" elevate it to that distinguished company.

For those seasoned veterans of comic book fandom, Kurt Busiek's Astro City series is a breath of fresh air in a stuffy, over-crowded room.

Far from the deconstructionist bent of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, et al, Busiek *loves* superheroes and all the accompanying absurdity. His goal, as eloquently expressed in his introduction to this volume, is to explore the as yet uncharted themes, metaphors and plots while holding dear all of the magic and power of what came before.

While Astro City may prove a bit frustrating for a comics newcomer, it's a warm and inviting destination for the weary superhero fan.

There are many smart people in comics who argue that the superhero genre is totally spent, stuck recycling old stories and old archetypes and doomed to tell superficial power fantasies, no matter how much the hot new creators of the moment try to dress them up.

Kurt Busiek's Astro City proves these critics wrong. In Astro City, Busiek, Anderson and Ross have created a wonderfully rich setting, a city with a history and character of its own that feels as real and as diverse as any American city. The only difference is that Astro City is full of superpowered individuals, and has been for at least 75 years. Some of these characters are allegories for established heroes published by DC and Marvel - analogues for Superman, Wonder Woman and the Fantastic Four (among others) appear in this volume. Others are wholly original creations, allowing Busiek to take various archetypes in new directions.

Each chapter in Life in the Big City is a standalone short story, highlighting different corners of this fictional universe. The city's leading superhero tries to be everywhere at once, and berates himself for every wasted second as he longs for just a moment of his own. A small time hood learns a hero's secret identity, and tries to figure out how to profit from the knowledge. A beat reporter gets some advice from his editor on his first day on the job. A young woman tries to balance the demands of her family with her own hopes and desires. Despite the fantastic settings, the characters in these slice-of-life stories feel like real people, and that gives the stories real power.

Anderson and Ross do a fine job with the visual design and storytelling here; Anderson's style is steady, dramatic without being flashy. The character designs are well-thought; simple and elegant where necessary, flamboyant and even campy where that is a better fit. There are no wildly confusing panel layouts, but action flows nicely from page to page and the characters' faces and body language convey their thoughts and feelings well, so Busiek doesn't need to overscript.

Don't let the spandex fool you. These are stories about the human heart, and they're GOOD stories, well worth reading.

Remember when comics were fun?

Back before the Dark Knights, the relentless violence, the angst? When people donned ludicrous outfits and fought for truth, justice, and the American way?

Kurt Busiek does, and he's provided an all-expenses-paid trip to Astro City, where the superhero comics of yesteryear live anew.

As with Alan Moore's "Watchmen", you won't recognize the heroes and villains, but you know them nonetheless---Samaritan, Winged Victory, Crackerjack, the Honor Guard. Simple, classic heroes who immediately bond to the imaginations of comic fans.

The story here is simple, straightforward, and infused with a joy that would make Garth Ennis throw up. Whatever happened to the comics you didn't mind your kids reading?

If you prefer your comics to be uplifting and life-affirming, as opposed to the relentless bleakness of the various X-titles, stop by "Astro City." You'll be glad you did.

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.

Overall, this is a brilliant collection of stories. Superheroes are (to quote another) a "tired genre" and to see Busiek breathe a breath of fresh air into them impressed me. It is obvious from reading these stories that Busiek loves superheroes, in fact, one could say that he is quite impassioned by them. What is most interesting to see is that he wants to explore more than your cliché Hollywood moments of superheroes (like power generation, family heritage, personal dilemmas, etc) and he has successfully in his "Astro City" stories. I am eager to pick up the second collection to see how those like Samaritan, Jack-in-the-Box, Winged Victory, and even Crackerjack continue to impact their Astro City community and how those within the community react to them. A dynamic circle that impressed me from the first frame!

Grade: ***** out of *****

As the year 2000 dawns upon us. comics have really declined in story quality. DC has pretty much destroyed it's universe, and Image is all artwork and no story. But with Astro City, Kurt Buiesk has restored the fun and sense of wonder from the Golden and Silver ages of comics. The Astro City heroes are written as human beings learnig to use their powers in a constructive manner. They want to do the right thing and the choics are not always easy.It's the humanity of the chareters which makes Astro City so good.

Let me start my review by saying that Kurt Busiek is a great writer, and I know that Astro City is a sacred cow in some circles, but I'm going to give it to you straight. There is only so much you can do with the viginette format, and this trade reflects that.

The stories in here are good but nothing that will make you jump out of your seat or even rush out and pick up the next ones, which is a shame, because Busiek really is a tremendous writer, and Confession and Family Values (full lenght stories) are great Astro City trades.

I hope the three star rating doesn't turn you away from Astro City beacuse there really are a lot of reasons to read it-- it expands your horizons (you're getting more than Batman and Xmen here) and also, Busiek writes super-heroes how the should be, in the idealized version of the word. After Frank Miller and Alan Moore began disecting heroes in the 80s, it seems as though we just kept racing to the bottom making them as facist and as emotionally fragile as they can be. Well Busiek bucks this trend and makes super heroes super again. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad, and some kind of way (hey, he's Busiek) he manages not to write down to us, treating us like where kids. So there are a lot reasons to read Astro City. And even more reasons to read Busiek. But this particular trade, when I compare it to other Astro City trades (Family Album and Confession) and to other Busieks (Marvels, Superman: Secret Identity) and even to other graphic novels out there, is only good.

Read Astro City, it really is good, but there are better ones, but above all, just make sure you read and own, some Busiek.

Due to his work on Marvels, Kurt Busiek became a widely respected, award-winning and critically renowned writer. For those who don't know, Marvels is a masterpiece of the graphic narrative, using the genre of the superhero to explore so much more about the history and social climate of our country. It deserves to be an A+ Graphic Novel in its own right, and it will be someday down the line.

But not today, for today I want to recognize Marvels for another reason than its own genius. You see, without Marvels, Kurt Busiek would never have had the freedom to create the world of Astro City. And without Astro City, the milieu of the superhero would be much less vibrant and exciting.

The Astro City stories, originally published through Image and then moving to DC when they absorbed Wildstorm, each explore a world that feels comfortable, like a place we've visited before, despite still being shiny and new. Busiek and collaborator Brent Anderson take the concepts of super-heroism that we are already familiar with and break them down until nothing is left but the most vital components of the genre. Once the concept of the superhero has been refined to its core elements, Busiek uses these distilled ideas as his foundation and builds the world of Astro City up into something wonderful, a fresh new take on a long-established tradition.

In Astro City, heroes exist not just to get into brilliant battles with each other, but also to offer up insight to us on a variety of themes, including the old superhero standby about power and responsibility. In the very first Astro City story "In Dreams," a superhero known as Samaritan (an obvious Superman analogue) leads a life of emptiness. The only enjoyment in his life is the freedom he gets from flying, and even that he only gets a few seconds of flying each day between the disasters and various other crises he must combat.

That story and five others are collected in the first Astro City trade paperback, Astro City: Life in the Big City, a series of vignettes that each look at life in Astro City in a different way. Each story then also takes a different perspective on the superheroes that populate this metropolis, one the average reader might not be used to. From a newspaper reporter who witnesses a crossover-style event to a thug who discovers a hero's secret identity, this book takes the point-of-view of the average men and women in a world full of the extraordinary. We can connect with these narrating characters, identifying with their unique viewpoints on these virtual gods they share the world with. We share their feeling of awe and wonder at these "Marvels," yet they also feel commonplace.

And that's the great thing about this series; it reads on many levels. Longtime comic fans will enjoy hunting for the many Easter eggs and in-jokes Busiek and Anderson dropped into the background of each issue. They can also look at certain characters in the context of analogous archetypes and analyze what aspect of the superhero is being commented upon. Yet it is also the type of superhero book you can give to the totally uninitiated to prove the merit of the genre, that it can offer more than fistfights and spandex, that it can be meaningful and even beautiful.

Try it and see. Pick up Astro City: Life in the Big City. I dare you to read it and not fall in love with superheroes all over again. And when you then go out to pick up a copy of the next collection, be sure to loan this book to a friend, especially one that thinks heroes are for kids. That way, you'll not only have found a great series for yourself, you'll finally be able to prove your friend wrong.

I haven't enjoyed a Graphic Novel series so much since Sandman. Astro City is an unsung great of the superhero genre, a pure and distilled rendering of the archetypes immediately familiar to anyone who has ever read a superhero comic book. But the real magic of Astro City is this - fine writing combined with fine visual quality.

Astro City is what superhero fiction is all about. You really need to simply read it to understand what I'm getting at, the closest I can get to a universal explanation is this... "Astro City is Just Plain Good Art!"

Astro City is nearly unique among superhero comic books because Kurt Busiek treats the superpowers and costumes as little more than a backdrop to tell stories about people. If you want to see a lot of action and fight scenes, Astro City is definitely not the series for you to read. This compilation presents compelling tales about people who seem very real and happen to live in a violent, colorfully costumed world.

Astro City itself is a rich setting with a lot of references to other heroes and events that would be worthy of a long established universe such as Marvel or DC. You'll meet Samaritan and discover how precious time is to a hero with the power of Superman. And a story featuring Crackerjack shows that not all "heroes" are truly worthy of the name. In addition, there are stories told from the perspective of ordinary people whose lives are affected by these larger than life figures.

Life in the Big City gets my highest recommendation. Even if you aren't a comic book fan, these are stories well worth reading.