Astro City #39 - "The Party of the First Part"

[laughing_tree]

"Too many modern superheroes just superhero all the time. They don’t have a context in which their life has texture and connections beyond the adventures. Heck, Batman is often like that, treating Bruce as an afterthought that doesn’t much contribute to stories. But if you decide — hey, Bronze Age Batgirl became a Congresswoman, so her thing that makes her different is politics, you’ve got a direction to send her whether she’s an adult, a college student, whatever. She’s an activist as Barbara; that gives her texture. Kara/Linda being an actress, or being in education, is texture, it’s specifics. You can pick one and run with it, even if it’s just an interest, not yet a career. It gives the character roots outside the action, outside the superpower kabuki show." -- Kurt Busiek

Comments

[icon_uk]

The storytelling is as solid as ever, and it's really nice to see Marta again, but of all the characters in Astro City I didn't want a backstory for, The Hanged Man was pretty much the top of the list.

[locuatico]

is this a backstory, though? i read it more like he so often takes someone's body as a host, but the person who had previously owned the body doesn't become Hanged Man, the entity known as Hanged Man remains the same.

[zapbiffpow]

Wait...by 'again', does that mean this was the lady from Local Heroes aged real-time? Because that's awesome. That mini was years ago.

[locuatico]

Yes, Astro City's timeline is real time.

[burkeonthesly]

Not from Local Heroes. Marta here comes to us from the original six-issue run. Her litany of rituals, tapping the crucifix and whatnot, is an echo of her introduction on the first page of her issue there.

[zapbiffpow]

Holy crap, so it is. Hat: tipped.

[leoboiko]

Finished this story and how come Astro City is so goooood

[burkeonthesly]

Because Kurt Busiek loves and understands comics, and is a really good writer.

[glprime]

It always ranks among my best of all time, "this is how you do superhero comic" / "this is how you comics as narrative fiction" lists.

[zylly]

I love how much Astro City works as a fully-realized super-hero universe. Because in a universe where supernatural gods and ghosts are a thing, of course you're going to be able to involve them in their own wills.

Even more so than Marvel or DC, the whole of the universe is fully adapted and changed by the presence of super-beings... while still being recognizable.