Review by Frank Plowright
In 1994 Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross took what was then a relatively untrodden path by viewing a world of superheroes through the prism of ordinary people in Marvels. It was a method Busiek considered had greater mileage, and so he created Astro City, a feature he owned along with artist Brent Anderson and primary character designer Ross.
That was just the starting point, though. Astro City itself features several distinct districts, with the shiny modern centre adjoining areas where, for instance, magic is commonplace. Some heroes created to populate the series are barely disguised versions of very well known creations, others, such as the Hanged Man, came with a mood and individuality. Cleverly, Busiek also introduced hinted at back stories. Superheroes in the present day referenced past events, some of which were stories later told. An intention from the beginning was to investigate portentous lines of dialogue dropped in these earliest stories.
The Astro City MetroBooks take a different approach to curating the series than the previously published paperbacks by, in the first three volumes at least, reprinting the stories as chronologically issued as comics. This collection combines three of the original paperbacks, in this case Life in the Big City, Confession, and almost all of Family Album, indicators of how the series would progress as short stories precede a multi-chapter investigation then revert to short stories. Busiek suggested the look of characters to Ross, who refined the designs for use by Anderson’s actual art. Anderson’s choice is for relative realism, combining a very recognisable world with superheroes either as bright, gleaming anomalies or dark fearsome beings barely glimpsed in the shadows. It’s particularly important over the opening five stories in which the Marvels formula is extended into five different locations. There would be later similar explorations, but the theme is at its purest in the first five stories.
Darkness is the default state for the six chapters of ‘Confession’ investigating stand-ins for Batman and Robin via the arrival in Astro City of a teenager determined to be superhero’s sidekick. Fate involves him with the brooding efficiency of the Confessor. All these years after publication one can still admire the adept way Busiek drops clues, yet conceals a fundamental truth only revealed late in the game for what’s a procedural mystery about a string of murders that inflates into something far larger.
Busiek’s strength is imaginative plotting, and the narrative voices of his characters can sound very similar, although the egotistically confident Crackerjack is an exception. However, it’s a minor note about a consistently entertaining series, now available in bargain priced compilations.
MetroBook 2 has roughly the same balance between longer and short stories.
