Astro City #12 – Review

By: Kurt Busiek (story), Graham Nolan (art), Wendy Broome (colors)

The Story: Clothes make the villain.

The Review: Every time I read an issue of Astro City, I always think to myself, with no small degree of wonder, this is a superhero series. It gives hope to the entire genre that Busiek can deliver, month after month, a series featuring characters in the same ridiculous costumes as their peers over at the Big Two, engaged in the same endless battles, yet still possessing dignity, originality, and depth that outstrips practically everyone else in the genre. Lavish praise, I know, but mostly deserved, I think.

It’s true most Astro City issues lack the primal thrill of its mainstream peers, but what it does have is longer-lasting. For one thing, you can always count on Busiek to give his characters real motivation, by which I mean they have needs and desires that heroism and villainy only partly fulfills. It’s amazing how often this basic principle of fiction is either neglected or completely ignored by Big Two writers, leaving their characters forgettable from the moment you stop reading. Busiek characters stay with you, even after one issue, memorable as the stranger you spend a bus ride talking to, never to meet again.

Edward James Carroway, nee Fred Glosman, known to his friends as Ned, is another such character. Part of Busiek’s secret is his amazing economy of style, able to convey a lot from just a few, well-chosen words. Consider Ned’s brief rant about his early life, starting with his birth name: “Fred Glosman. Not even ‘Alfred.’ Fred. That’s as much as my parents could think of. I grew up in the sweatshop. And not one of the nicer parts. No money. My father didn’t work often enough for that.” All in one, you get a vivid picture of Ned’s early life, its effect on his psychological makeup, and his bitter, street-wise voice, the kind of things mainstream writers ignore or sweat over, only to deliver only a fraction of what Busiek offers in two or three panels.

While I’m not of the school that believes that all characters need to be relatable—because what does that mean when you have an audience of thousands, each with completely life experiences—but Busiek always finds a way to connect you to his characters in a real, personal way. For me, it’s Ned’s complex about feeling poor and powerless because of the Goodwill clothes he had to wear. That’s a very specific, complicated emotion from a very specific, complicated experience, but one I can immediately relate to and one that others can easily sympathize with.

From there, Ned can do pretty much anything he wants and we can believe it, no matter how ridiculous it gets. We can believe that he’ll develop an obsession with fine clothing, which is really a manifestation of his desire for control, one he can only satisfy by preying on others. That’s the power of a credible motivation. It allows you to accept the finer, more outlandish details, like his various criminal affiliations: a barbershop quartet of burglars called the Sweet Adelines, the Gambling Men, the Gatsbys, Mount Rushmore Four, the animal-themed Menagerie Gang.

Busiek’s not entirely immune to generalizing, however. Ned’s entire inner conflict arises from his love for a good woman named Alice (and later, his daughter Jill), yet that whole relationship is only thinly developed. As compelling as his divided loyalty to his family and to his obsession is, the fact that his love for Alice and Jill is taken for granted leaves us in no doubt as to which side he’ll eventually land on. But even with this weakest point of the issue, Busiek executes it with such conviction that you can stay onboard, especially when Ned realizes that his obsession with control has given him anything but control, yet he still can’t help himself.

I don’t know what it is about Astro City that makes it so at home with old-fashioned artists—maybe its focus on old-fashioned storytelling—but its quality is such that even a really unremarkable artist like Nolan can’t bring down the story much. It’s very much the typical DC house art, pleasant, serviceable, straight down the middle, but without much effort to stand apart. Considering the importance of clothes in the issue, we could’ve used an artist with greater attention to design, texture, and detail to bring Ned’s whole reason for being to life, but alas. You can’t have everything, I suppose.

Conclusion: Even when the art and script has their failings, you can always count on Astro City to provide a memorable read.

Grade: B+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – “I was fastidious, left a place as neat and tidy as I’d found it. Tidier, some of them.” That’s a good robber to have.