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Summary: For Those Who Like Their Heroes 'Caped'
Review: A workaholic Superman-type; a read-between-the-lines newspaper story of a superhero battle;a 2-time loser thinks himself straight; a supersticious woman contemplates moving uptown; an alien passes judgement on the human race; and 2 caped heroes (well, 1 caped, 1 winged) go out on a date...these 6 stores bring you into a world not so different from the comics you grew up on and maybe only slighly different than the city you live near.Astro City is bright, clean, the good guys work around the clock protecting the innocent and they generally prevail. This is not the city the Dark Knight resides in by a long shot. Unlike Alan Moore, who tends to turn the superhero genre on its ear, Kurt Busiek instead embraces the best of the 'capes' and makes you fall in love with them all over again. For those burnt out on endless soap opera plotting or dark, cynical anti-heroes, Astro City is a perfect remedy. ....
Rating:
Summary: Brillent Work
Review: As the year 2000 dawns upon us. comics have really declined in story quality. DC has pretty much destroyed it's universe, and Image is all artwork and no story. But with Astro City, Kurt Buiesk has restored the fun and sense of wonder from the Golden and Silver ages of comics. The Astro City heroes are written as human beings learnig to use their powers in a constructive manner. They want to do the right thing and the choics are not always easy.It's the humanity of the chareters which makes Astro City so good.
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Summary: A great writer, A great series
Review: Astro City is a great idea to come out of the comic book genre in years. Kurt has created a city where superheroes and the average persons live side by side. It's a city full of wonder and many untold stories. This trade paperback gives us a viewpoint of what it's like to live in Astro City and it is very well written, Restoreing the fun and sense of wonder to comics is what Kurt does best and he done it here with Astro City, along with the Avengers and Iron Man, which are currently the comics he writes for Marvel Comics.
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Summary: Puts the hero back in superhero
Review: Astro City is nearly unique among superhero comic books because Kurt Busiek treats the superpowers and costumes as little more than a backdrop to tell stories about people. If you want to see a lot of action and fight scenes, Astro City is definitely not the series for you to read. This compilation presents compelling tales about people who seem very real and happen to live in a violent, colorfully costumed world. Astro City itself is a rich setting with a lot of references to other heroes and events that would be worthy of a long established universe such as Marvel or DC. You'll meet Samaritan and discover how precious time is to a hero with the power of Superman. And a story featuring Crackerjack shows that not all "heroes" are truly worthy of the name. In addition, there are stories told from the perspective of ordinary people whose lives are affected by these larger than life figures. Life in the Big City gets my highest recommendation. Even if you aren't a comic book fan, these are stories well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Puts the hero back in superhero
Review: Astro City is nearly unique among superhero comic books because Kurt Busiek treats the superpowers and costumes as little more than a backdrop to tell stories about people. If you want to see a lot of action and fight scenes, Astro City is definitely not the series for you to read. This compilation presents compelling tales about people who seem very real and happen to live in a violent, colorfully costumed world. Astro City itself is a rich setting with a lot of references to other heroes and events that would be worthy of a long established universe such as Marvel or DC. You'll meet Samaritan and discover how precious time is to a hero with the power of Superman. And a story featuring Crackerjack shows that not all "heroes" are truly worthy of the name. In addition, there are stories told from the perspective of ordinary people whose lives are affected by these larger than life figures. Life in the Big City gets my highest recommendation. Even if you aren't a comic book fan, these are stories well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Astro City is Astro Fun!!
Review: Busiek/Andersen/Ross---How can you go wrong with talent like this? My friend Dan the man has been pestering me for awhile now to read this title. I always hesitated until he gave me an issue. Of course I was hooked immediately. Solid story-telling and excellent artwork plus intriguing characters. This trade paperback collects the first six issues of the original series with some extras like Alex Ross pencil sketches. I enjoyed every story especially the "everyman" aspect. Normal humans interacting with superheroic individuals. My favorite characters were Jack-in the-box and SilverAgent. There is so much negativity in comics these days so it is a pleasure to read the adventures of Astro City. Kurt Busiek continues to amaze with his storylines and I will continue to read them.
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Summary: The best of the superhero genre
Review: Due to his work on Marvels, Kurt Busiek became a widely respected, award-winning and critically renowned writer. For those who don't know, Marvels is a masterpiece of the graphic narrative, using the genre of the superhero to explore so much more about the history and social climate of our country. It deserves to be an A+ Graphic Novel in its own right, and it will be someday down the line. But not today, for today I want to recognize Marvels for another reason than its own genius. You see, without Marvels, Kurt Busiek would never have had the freedom to create the world of Astro City. And without Astro City, the milieu of the superhero would be much less vibrant and exciting. The Astro City stories, originally published through Image and then moving to DC when they absorbed Wildstorm, each explore a world that feels comfortable, like a place we've visited before, despite still being shiny and new. Busiek and collaborator Brent Anderson take the concepts of super-heroism that we are already familiar with and break them down until nothing is left but the most vital components of the genre. Once the concept of the superhero has been refined to its core elements, Busiek uses these distilled ideas as his foundation and builds the world of Astro City up into something wonderful, a fresh new take on a long-established tradition. In Astro City, heroes exist not just to get into brilliant battles with each other, but also to offer up insight to us on a variety of themes, including the old superhero standby about power and responsibility. In the very first Astro City story "In Dreams," a superhero known as Samaritan (an obvious Superman analogue) leads a life of emptiness. The only enjoyment in his life is the freedom he gets from flying, and even that he only gets a few seconds of flying each day between the disasters and various other crises he must combat. That story and five others are collected in the first Astro City trade paperback, Astro City: Life in the Big City, a series of vignettes that each look at life in Astro City in a different way. Each story then also takes a different perspective on the superheroes that populate this metropolis, one the average reader might not be used to. From a newspaper reporter who witnesses a crossover-style event to a thug who discovers a hero's secret identity, this book takes the point-of-view of the average men and women in a world full of the extraordinary. We can connect with these narrating characters, identifying with their unique viewpoints on these virtual gods they share the world with. We share their feeling of awe and wonder at these "Marvels," yet they also feel commonplace. And that's the great thing about this series; it reads on many levels. Longtime comic fans will enjoy hunting for the many Easter eggs and in-jokes Busiek and Anderson dropped into the background of each issue. They can also look at certain characters in the context of analogous archetypes and analyze what aspect of the superhero is being commented upon. Yet it is also the type of superhero book you can give to the totally uninitiated to prove the merit of the genre, that it can offer more than fistfights and spandex, that it can be meaningful and even beautiful. Try it and see. Pick up Astro City: Life in the Big City. I dare you to read it and not fall in love with superheroes all over again. And when you then go out to pick up a copy of the next collection, be sure to loan this book to a friend, especially one that thinks heroes are for kids. That way, you'll not only have found a great series for yourself, you'll finally be able to prove your friend wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Breathing new life into a tired genre
Review: For those seasoned veterans of comic book fandom, Kurt Busiek's Astro City series is a breath of fresh air in a stuffy, over-crowded room. Far from the deconstructionist bent of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, et al, Busiek *loves* superheroes and all the accompanying absurdity. His goal, as eloquently expressed in his introduction to this volume, is to explore the as yet uncharted themes, metaphors and plots while holding dear all of the magic and power of what came before. While Astro City may prove a bit frustrating for a comics newcomer, it's a warm and inviting destination for the weary superhero fan.
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Summary: Wow!!!
Review: I bought this book just to see what all the talk was about. Everyone said Busiek's Avengers was secondary to his work on Astro City. Being a huge fan of the Avengers I decided to try this book out. Wow, the storytelling is amazing. This is what Super Hero comics should be like. The best was that the stories travelled throughout Astro City showing the whole picture rather than just one character. Now I am going to get the other Astro City books because Comicbooks like the Astro City Series are why i started collecting. True superheroics in a very great setting, none of the dark violence that took over comics for a while just solid story telling and classic art worrk. Alex Ross also did the covers that are simply amazing. Strong recomendation to anyone, the harcore comic fan and the person just looking to have some fun.
Rating:
Summary: Look, just try it.
Review: I haven't enjoyed a Graphic Novel series so much since Sandman. Astro City is an unsung great of the superhero genre, a pure and distilled rendering of the archetypes immediately familiar to anyone who has ever read a superhero comic book. But the real magic of Astro City is this - fine writing combined with fine visual quality. Astro City is what superhero fiction is all about. You really need to simply read it to understand what I'm getting at, the closest I can get to a universal explanation is this... "Astro City is Just Plain Good Art!"
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