Astro City

Astro City 1-5

Here we go into the back half of Astro City.  It’s a mixed bag:

The Broken Man is a crazy, annoying version of John Constantine, the person scheming behind the scenes to stop a threat that no one else can see.  Issues one and five: Meh.

The high tech hotline handling all of the Honor Guard’s incoming calls is a really neat idea.  Kurt Busiek fleshing out the organization to a very satisfying degree, but the human element of a call center worker wracked with guilt over a botched call gets tedious fast.

Issue four brings back a minor character from Volume 2 issue 22.  Awesomely, she’s perfectly happy as a minor character, someone who has powers but zero interest in any kind of superheroics.  This traditional comics-adjacent world is the kind of thing that Busiek excels at writing.

Oh yeah, Mister Cakewalk seems very problematic.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No (Yes for 4)

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine through Pretty good