Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in the Big City (Paperback)

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!"

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.

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.