1167 ( )

I'm more into horror, fantasy and humorous graphic novels, but boy do I love this superhero series. I'd rather read Astro City than any other superhero books, except maybe PS238, which is also a sideways approach to the genre.
The POV in this series is often a regular Joe, and the regular Joes in Dark Age are two brothers, one a cop and one a criminal who both resent the "Masks." The transition from one point of view to the other was seamless, thanks to the color-coded speech bubbles, and their motivations for choosing their different paths are conveyed sympathetically on both sides.
If I knew more about comic book history, I would have proof of this, but I have a feeling that as the story moved over the course of about 20 years, the types of superheroes emerging in the 60s and 70s paralleled what was happening in comic books in reality during those decades. And that's pretty cool.
I'm looking forward to Dark Age part 2. ( )

Life Despite Superheroes

I never particularly enjoyed superhero comics, but as a youngster, the two that I enjoyed were "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen." Their deconstruction of superheroes and the superhero genre was novel. Those style of those two comics, with first-person narrative and moral challenges, were then copied and hacked to death.

Rather than deconstructed the superhero genre, "Astro City" comics try to construct it by placing heroes in a living, breathing world where life goes on not because of their heroic actions but despite their heroic actions. The focus of Busiek's best stories is on the citizens who look up at the heroes briefly and then carry on with their daily work. They are irritated by the distractions superheroes cause or, perhaps, they are themselves super-powered folk who use their abilities to further their careers rather than save lives.

In "Astro City: The Dark Age," Charles and Royal struggle with their relationship to superheroes in Astro City. Their strained relationship is centered on their mutual distrust of superheroes and villains. Superheroes come and go throughout the book in a rather blasé manner as Charles and Royal evolve. The two books in the series unfold slowly over the course of about twenty years with flashbacks and shifting narrative perspectives.

Because of the dull, repetitive stories in the superhero genre, I have ignored it. However, I was attracted by the lovely and often incongruous painted covers of "Astro City." Fortunately, the stories were equally interesting and equally engaging. ( )

100 stars ( )

Everybody who’s been following me the last few years know I love Astro City. It’s quite frankly the most clever take on Superheroes since Watchmen. Perhaps it’s even better, for Busiek and his team manage to find new perspectives constantly – more often than not focusing on the everyday people who only sometimes see the heroes fly by up in the air. Here the action is set in the 70ies, a time of racial tension, political unrest and a growing suspicion of vigilantes in masks. That the Silver Agent is charged with murder of a foregin head of state isn’t helping either…

This is really work on an epic scale. Our main characters are two brothers taking very different paths in life after a tragedy in their childhood, and we follow them for a number of years. A lot of things only hinted at in earlier Astro City albums are beginning to come together now, and if there was ever any doubt Busiek knows exactly what he’s doing, it’s time to let all doubts go. This universe is solid, nothing is put in by chance.

I’m very very eager to read the second part. For now, my feeling is that this is absolutely up to the ridiculously high standard Busiek sets, but perhaps not the pinnacle a lot of people paint it out to be. For me, so far, the overflow of brand new perspectives on a small scale he tossed out in “Local heroes” still holds the fort. I’m prepared to be convinced otherwise though, and can’t wait to see how this big storyline unfolds. ( )