Review by Frank Plowright
Until now Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson have barely put a foot wrong in their explorations of a new world of superheroes. The content of MetroBook 3, though, is Busiek’s most ambitious story to date, starting in the 1970s, but moving on to a far wider remit, with the focus being two brothers.
Charles Williams protects people both as a policeman and less openly as superhero the Blue Knight, but his brother Royal is a career criminal, and Busiek has their paths diverging after a traumatic childhood incident. That features a hero called the Silver Agent, active from the 1950s to the 1970s, and passing comments during earlier material set in Astro City’s present day have indicated his career ended in shame and disgrace. Seeing how that occurred, then, is an appealing prospect.
However, the title of the original paperback volumes being The Dark Age, gives a major clue as to the mood, and to sustain that Busiek removes one of the series’ unique points. Until now Astro City has been an appealing combination of the innocence and admiration for superheroes found in the comics Busiek read as a child combined with a modern outlook, but there’s little innocence or hope presented here. It means that despite some inventive twists, the atmosphere has more in common with the darkness of contemporary superhero comics.
It’s not only Busiek slightly off form. When this story was originally serialised as comics it took a long time to be completed. Perhaps the reasons for this are noted somewhere online. Whatever they may be, it’s noticeable that Anderson’s art isn’t quite up to the standard of his earlier series work. There are too many flat faces, and whereas previously every page was a treat, here some lack the imagination and flair found in MetroBook 2.
Two strong elements run throughout. Despite being opposite sides of the law, the relationship between the Williams brothers is complex, and ultimately brotherly, and the frustrations each has with the other are understandable. Also admirable is the way the Silver Agent’s story plays through, smartly confounding what people believe about him, and ending with a two chapter epilogue providing an origin of sorts for Astro City. It’s touching and heroic.
However, the good points are too often overwhelmed and concealed by a bloated story that meanders into unnecessary areas, occasionally relies on technobabble and loses focus. The overall rating is pushed above average via the inclusion of the two part epilogue originally not included in the Dark Age paperbacks, but in Shining Stars. Will MetroBook 4 be a return to form?
