Astro City
Written by Kurt Busiek, illustrated by Brent Anderson and
Alex Ross
First published in 1997
Astro City: Confession
·
The story centers on a sidekick character for
the majority of this installment of Astro City: the Choir Boy. He’s the
sidekick of the Confessor, who is a Batman detective vampire character.
·
With the Confessor’s style of justice in the
night, we see the night life and night crimes of Astro City, which is contrary
to the bright and optimistic light of Astro City in the day.
·
Even Jack-in-the-Box, a superhero who has a
gadget and acrobatics motif, isn’t as dark in tone as the Confessor’s stories.
·
The Confessor’s arc brings to mind that no
matter what you are you can be a hero
·
The hero’s journey of Choir Boy brings an
outsider to Astro City who wants to become a hero who in turn learns that there
is more to being a hero than fame and respect, a trend Booster Gold in DC
comics went through.
·
With the alien invasion to discredit the heroes
being prevalent in the arc, we see why they included the alien spy arc in the
first volume.
·
The fact that politicians choose not to bring
heat to heroes in Astro City until this arc highlights how intergraded heroes
are in the Astro City society, to the point that no one questions their motives
or questions that the heroes could turn against the public
·
Again the art is beautiful and the design for
the Confessor is well played, given that he allows his symbol to be a cross in
order to self-punish himself so as to drive backs his bloodlust as a vampire
and channeling his focus into fighting crime.
·
The introduction of the Crossbred, a religious
themed group of heroes like the X-Men, brings to light the discrimination some
groups of heroes may get for their beliefs. Incidentally, they are the most
tolerant of the public’s discrimination against them during the manhunt for the
heroes besides the Confessor.
·
When Choir Boy brushes off side hero plots like
synopses of comic arcs, it highlights that super events in comics to the heroes
that are part of the timeline barely note the happenings of others outside of
general politics, similar to how real people know legislation and armed
conflict in real life but do not put too much thought into it.
·
The story of the Hanged Man highlights that lives
to get changed in timeline altering events in comics even if things seem to go
back to normal, as one man feels empty after a day where his wife ceases to
exist.
·
Choir boy becomes the new Confessor, with the
public’s view of him being renewed as good after the original vampire Confessor
sacrificed himself to save the planet.
·
Overall, I loved the Confession arc of Astro
City, as it shows the underground that the daytime Astro City doesn’t show. It
also shows how people get into the city hoping to get into the hero business
and how dreams can be altered with growth in such a bizarre city of heroes.
Bibliography
Busiek, Kurt, Brent Eric. Anderson,
Richard Starkings, John Gaushell, Steve Buccellato, and Alex Ross. Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in
the Big City. LaJolla, CA: Homage Comics, 1997. Print.
