Astro City #1 - "Through Open Doors (Part One)"

[arbre_rieur]

Three years after the Wildstorm imprint was shuttered, ASTRO CITY finally returns, now under the Vertigo umbrella.

It's about time too. I recall Busiek mentioning on twitter once that he's stockpiled enough unpublished scripts that they could put out three new trade paperbacks.









The Broken Man shifts our attention away to an ordinary man named Ben Pullam. Long-time readers will remember him as the protagonist from way back in the first issue of the previous volume of ASTRO CITY. Back then, he was someone who'd just moved to Astro City with his two young daughters.

However, since the series progresses in real time, he's now a much older man, and his daughters are both adults:





Elsewhere, that giant door opens. And this guy walks through:











(8 pages and one variant cover from a 24-page comic)

Comments

[thezmage]

I don't see how this could end any way but well.

[alan_smithee]

Actually in Astro City it more than likely *will* end well.

[freezer]

Marvel: He ends up a Herald of Galactus or prisoner/test subject of some alien power or other. Or blown up in the crossfire of same.

DC: Gets snapped up for parts unknown. Possibly shows up in the LoSH timeline, the Fourth World or a Crisis Crossover.

Astro City: The chances of him getting put right back where he started are as likely as anything else.

[thezmage]

Well, it's less that I'm expecting him to disappear and more that I'm expecting him to unwittingly sell out the human race.

[icon_uk]

Meant to post some more from this myself, so nice to see it here! Love the Kosmic Kirby Guy turning the volume down on his remote! :)

[nate_abril96]

I have never read an Astro City story (except for the one that focused on the Samaritan), so would you say this would be a good place to start?

[randyripoff]

As good as any. While having some knowledge of what has come before is good, it's not required. Busiek makes sure that anyone can pick up an Astro City comic and understand what's going on.

[captainbellman]

Some of the facial expressions here are really goofy. I'm fairly certain that close-up panel of the guy in the white costume with the gold eagle is heavily photo-referenced from pictures of modern-day Leonard Nimoy.

In fact...yes, the panel where we first see Bill Pullam and the panel where he decides to become the herald (just under the word "Crossroads") is using the same face, horizontally flipped. Probably the original face in that panel was too unrecognisable (what the hell is happening to those two girls on either side of Bill?), and the editor had them do a quick photoshop job to cover it.

[icon_uk]

(what the hell is happening to those two girls on either side of Bill?),

They're his daughters, and they're probably looking right up Telseth's skirt!

[lonewolf23k]

Y'know, I can see the logic being Telseth's requests. An ordinary, unpowered citizen would likely be the least likely to have an "Agenda", making for an unbiased opinion.

[silicondream]

Although the grumpy progressive in me says, "How...unsurprising that Earth's representative human ends up being an upper-middle-class American cis straight white guy." And you'd think that if Telseth didn't want to hang out with superheroes, he would have chosen pretty much any spot on Earth other than Astro City to show up...

[freezer]

Well, Astro City would be the place on Earth least likely to trigger a full-on panic/military response in the wake of his appearance.

[big_daddy_d]

So if I'm correct, Astro City is about pretty much a literal City of Heroes and Villains?

[randyripoff]

Not quite. The vast majority of the citizens of Astro City are normal, unpowered human beings. However, much like Marvel's New York, there is a large gathering of superhumans, both heroic and villainnous.

There are other cities in the Astro-Verse that have their own heroes--we just don't see them very often.

[cainofdreaming]

So, it's like City of Heroes in that regard. Majority of citizens in it are (or maybe I should use were now... rassum frassum) also normal, unpowered human beings. It's not as apparent in the game, but the comics portrayed it as pretty much the same as any other city populated by superpowered beings, it was just the place for them. Much like Astro City.

[randyripoff]

If you were looking for something like that, check out Top Ten.

[silverhammerman]

I really like the design of that Kirby-esque alien, it's super cool, especially on that variant cover. Applying photorealism to it really drives home the otherworldly aesthetic.

I also dug the interaction between Samaritan and American Chibi, though you didn't post it, I thought it was a really good veteran hero and rookie interaction.

[mola_ram]

I wonder what kind of recipees Telseth has in that cosmic cookbook of his...
(seriously, can't wait to pick this one up =) )