An Astro City Commemorative Special

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Four pages from the latest Astro City issue, in which Astra of the First Family makes some important decisions, as well as two pages from the previous issue...

From last issue, Astra introduces boyfriend Matt to the Gordian Knot:



Long story short, the Gordian Knot is a collection of innumerable universes and realities squished together by a "reverse big bang." Now they're all tangled up and overlapping. There's an extraction team slowly teasing the trapped worlds out of the knot on the order of a couple every year. Both they and the Terran embassy stationed at the Knot have given Astra job offers.

Comments

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

The ex-boyfriend is not only a skeevy slimebag but, considering who Astra is related to, he must have a deathwish large enough to deflect planets in their orbits...

Lovely art though... the Gordian Knot looks marvellous...

[yaseen101.insanejournal.com]

The Gordian Knot? That's an oddly kinky name.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

So, even in the whole multiverse, there is no universe without "Nice Guys."

[akodo_rokku.insanejournal.com]

This is assuming he actually said any of those things. He may have just confided in a friend that they broke up, and then the rumor mill spiralled out from there.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Considering it mentions "an exclusive boyfriend interview" he appears to be personally involved in the process.

[akodo_rokku.insanejournal.com]

Okay, having now gotten my hands on the comic, yeah, that guy's a douche.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I'm gonna have to start objecting to that "nice guy" thing. My brother, who I honestly do not get along with, is going through a period where he's the nice guy interested in a girl who only seems drawn to guys she seems to know are creeps. And as the girl is a friend of the family I know this isn't just his POV.

[superboyprime.insanejournal.com]

That phrase is starting to get overused to the point where people use it to refer to any guy who's an asshole and interested in some woman. This guy in the scan's a douche, but how does he fit the "Nice Guy" label?

The BF

[piglamp.insanejournal.com]

was totally Levi Johnston. haha.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

It's all in how you cut it.

[steve_dash_o.insanejournal.com]

Aw, you should have included the next page. It's the most important one in the whole story, in my opinion:

Astra's frustrated and angry, and it's totally justified... but then she decides it doesn't really matter and just lets it go so she can continue living her life.

Sure, she's graduating from college and has a multiverse of opportunities at her feet, and that's a nice rite of passage, but it's her decision not to let the world's ugly side preoccupy her that really shows she's an adult now.

I was kind of blown away by her strength, personally. The first Astro City comic I ever read was the story of Astra's grade school hopscotch rivalry, and now she's all grown up, showing more maturity than a lot of people twice her age. I feel really proud of her. :)

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

GROAN

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

So is it actually confirmed that he DID knowingly sell her out to the media? 'Cause from what little I've read of this, he struck me as a fairly nice guy, and not really the sort who'd do a thing like that. It's possible that this is just rampant media speculation of the usual sort.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm going to have to agree. I always thought that the "nice guy" thing was more about entitlement of "she should be with me" then any other douche-bagery.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

The boyfriend is giving "Exclusive interviews, so yeah, he's a creep.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

According to a brief news snippet which we don't get the context for, yes. The newscaster could be saying 'earlier, we approached the ex-boyfriend in hopes of getting an exclusive interview', or something like that.

[da_reap.insanejournal.com]

"And there's more! An exclusive BOYFRIEND interview -- Wild Anti-Gravity Sex in a Multispecies Club!"

I'm sorry, you were saying?

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I was just saying that I was inclined to give the boyfriend the benefit of the doubt, 'cause he seemed like a nice guy to me, and the tabloid media has a tendency to stretch the truth to outrageous levels. I'm not necessarily saying that he's innocent, just that he didn't strike me as guilty.