Astro City #16 – Review

By: Kurt Busiek (story), Brent Eric Anderson (art), Wendy Broome & Alex Sinclair (colors)

The Story: Even supervillains want to have a sweet sixteen.

The Review: I wouldn’t go so far as to say Busiek has a liberal agenda for Astro City or anything, but there’s no denying he goes out of his way to make his characters as diverse as possible, in age, race, gender, etc. I’m all for it, so long as those things help inform the story instead of being its central fixture. Busiek has been pretty good about this; none of the issues so far have made a big deal about the protagonists’ immutable characteristics, as legal scholars would say.

So you can forgive him for being a little more heavy-handed with the hippy-dippy preaching this time around, especially since he saves it to the end. Make no mistake, however, the social commentary is very pointed and not a little After School Special-y, with superhero Starbright telling young supervillain Simon Says,

“[Y]ou don’t have to do any of this. Just because people look at you, and see something they don’t understand—it doesn’t mean you have to be whatever they see. It’s up to you. All you have to do is… Just be yourself. Figure out who you really are, and be that. Just as much as you possibly can. Light up the world with it.”

And then they hold hands and hug it out. No, they don’t—but they might as well have. Still, it may be a redundant message for us, but it’s something Simon needs to hear. His villainy initially seems to arise from the usual vendetta against his former tormentors and all those like them, but after Starbright’s speech, we see his anger is really self-directed. He may have been bullied for being “awkward. A little different, a little fey,” but he also rejected those parts of himself. So long as he didn’t acknowledge the basis for his enemies’ disgust, he was free to maintain his own irrational anger.

Of course, it helps when he realizes that he’s also guilty of snap judgments, metaphorically spitting in the eye of Chet Markham, the one jock who had compassion for his plight. That Chet was a straight, rich, white boy who certainly had the freedom to be a jerk, but instead was kindhearted, perpetually hopeful, and fatally heroic, makes him seem so implausibly perfect as to turn the story into parable. But his is a necessary character to show that even the popular, cool kids can break the mold.

Maybe Chet also needed to be a little perfect so as to give more weight to Simon’s remorse. Simon is devastated when he realizes he made Chet his archnemesis, more than he would be had he found out the paraplegic, similarly misfitted Rick was Starbright. He could expect Rick to empathize with him, but it’s harder to swallow the idea that he’s consistently preyed on the person who’s tried to help him the most. Simon’s true redemption begins not when he decides to take up the Starbright legacy, but to heed Starbright’s last words to him, leading to his physical and mental transformation at the end.

Incidentally, Busiek reminds us that there is indeed an overarching plan for Astro City, despite its variety of one-shots and two-parters. The nearly forgotten Purple Man returns to show that he’s been keeping watch on all our characters—Ellie, the former Gundog and his lady love, Ned, Silver Adept, etc.—and that all of them will have further parts to play.

There’s a slight awkwardness to Anderson’s art that sort of suits the characters featured in this issue, but lately, I’ve been thinking it might be nice to have a change-up in artist for this series. Anderson does fine work, but the posture and movements of his characters have always seemed ever so slightly off, somehow both too loose and stiff, as if modeled from a wooden marionette arranged by a child.

Conclusion: The message is brought on a little strong, but it’s no less sincere and important to the story.

Grade: B

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – I do like how the “Defy” covers tricked Alex Ross into doing interiors again—sort of.