Or - “Astro City!  Qu’est que c’est!  Fa fa fa faaa fafa fafa fa faaah.”

(Five points to the Spoilerite who identifies the source of this review’s header quote, which has been boiling around in my head for over a decade, thanks to faithful Spoilerite Bruce/Prisoner.)  Once again, we have an issue of Astro City in our hot little hands (Is it Christmas?) and this one is doubly compelling, covering one of the most unusual heroes of the AC universe: Beautie, the walking Barbie fashion doll.  I am on record now as saying I will not be making any of the obvious Dream House jokes, nor will I be calling the issue “Beautie-ful” in an ironic fashion.  Astro City deserves more respect than that.  Even though I’m sure some readers (maybe even some of the ones reading right now!) looked over this issue as silly, or thought the character’s look or the mostly pink cover made it a “Girl Comic,” but those readers should always be haunted by the lost awesomeness of the tale herein…

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Or - “It’s Always Darkest Before It Gets Pitch Black…”

Anymore it seems like late books are pretty much an accepted fact of the comics industry, both to the publishers and to the readers.  When Superman and Wonder Woman have story arcs that just STOP, finishing up months later while the title goes off on a new arc, or when it takes a year to get an issue of All-Star $&@%&! Batman, I wonder if we’re really any better off than the days when ‘Dreaded Deadline Doom’ would stick a reprint or filler story right in the middle of Captain America’s run-in with the Secret Empire or Johnny Blaze’s big fight with the Hulk.  On the other hand, we have Astro City, a book that we don’t EXPECT to hit a monthly schedule, but the quality is worth the quarterly schedule.  The Dark Age is projected, if memory serves, as four linked miniseries, so we’ve not only hit the end of this book, but the mid-point of the story proper.

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Or - “Real 1970’s Comics Were Pretty Much This Weird, Too…”

In the “Me Decade,” there was a lot of cultural shifting going on: the civil rights movement was in full swing, a related women’s rights movement got it’s start, and countries around the globe didn’t even realize that they were beginning to create a world culture and economy.  This upheaval was reflected in the comics of the time, unsurely trying to stake out new territory as a medium for “adults.”  We saw Clark Kent become a newscaster and finally give up his blue pinstripe suit, we saw unusual concepts and characters, from Howard The Duck to the Headmen to Man-Bat, the first gay superhero (though Northstar didn’t come out until years later) and we even saw a black solo hero in his own title (Luke Cage, though Dell Comics’ cowboy Lobo had a short-lived series of his own 8 years earlier.)  The 1970’s was a very schizophrenic decade, and it was a strange, dark time for comics.  Since Astro City is as much a story about comics and comic archetypes as it is about soopaheeeroes, The Dark Age reflects that…

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Or - “The 1970’s Never Looked So Good.”

The arrival of an issue of Astro City is one of those rare treats, like a Peanut Buster Parfait, or perhaps seeing your favorite movie on cable on a Saturday night when you’re up anyway, and there’s nothing else on but Skinemax.  It’s quite sad that this kind of quality requires long-term slaving by master-level comic industry craftsmen to create, making the wait between issues much longer than the norm.  Busiek and Anderson’s masterpiece is knee-deep in history, dealing with one of the darkest periods in Astro City’s past, an era of superfreaks, backstabbers, and convoys truckin’ through the night.  Like my friend Bruce says, it’s always darkest before it gets completely *$(&ing black…

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Or - “Kurt Busiek Rocks, But That Title Is A Mouthful And A Half…”

My friend Bruce has been lamenting on the Major Spoilers forums that the comics industry is targeting him, seeking him out, drawing him to their flames like a slightly-drunken moth.  Like Michael Corleone, just when he t’inks he’s out, dey pull him back in!  First Nexus, then Madman, and today I got a (somewhat delayed) new issue of Astro City.  They know you’re out there, Bruce.  And they’re looking…  for your disposable income! 

It has, indeed, been a long time since April of 1995, but the awesome splendor that is Kurt Busiek’s greatest work has returned.  This storyarc finally reveals the events that took place in Astro City in the early ’70’s, a time period that has been hinted at since very early in the series as tumultuous and unpleasant.  The first arc of “The Dark Age” finally explained the story behind the end of The Silver Agent (an incredibly awesome name) and, in a way, the end of his namesake, comics’ Silver Age.  Arc two has begun, and things ain’t lookin’ up…

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