0:00:08: JOHN: Hello, and welcome to the Astro City Spotlight on the Comic Book Page podcast. My name is John Mayo. In this episode, we'll be discussing Kurt Busiek's Astro City series. In this Astro City Spotlight, I'm joined by James, and we're going to be discussing Kurt Busiek's Astro City From the 1996 run and we're covering issues 3, 4, 5, and 6 this episode. At least that's the game plan. James, how you doing tonight? 0:00:48: JAMES: I'm great. How are you doing, John? 0:00:50: JOHN: I am doing well. Now I took notes this time, but I took way less notes than I did previous times. 0:00:57: JAMES: Okay. 0:00:57: JOHN: And I was just kind of, you know, getting a little more sucked into the story and some stuff like that. And we've got issue 3 here. That's the continuation of a 2 parter we started last time. 0:01:07: JAMES: Yep. 0:01:07: JOHN: And then the other 3 are kinda like the first half of an extended arc. And I'll be honest, I had forgotten that arc started this early. 0:01:15: JAMES: Oh, okay. Alright. And this is my first time reading that arc. 0:01:18: JOHN: It's the first time in a long time since I've been read some of these things because I read them all as they came out. I honestly don't know other than the first mini series, if I've gone back and reread most of the run. 0:01:31: JAMES: Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you what, though, the story stuck with my memory because this issue, the first one, the third one, kind of picks up from the second issue. With Astra running away. And so, it took me a second. I was like, oh, yeah. That's what was going on. So it's good. It stuck in my mind even though the last time we recorded, I don't know this going up was you know, probably like a month back. 0:01:53: JOHN: Yeah. It was about a month in recording time. I'd have to see how long it'll be between. It'll probably be about a month in, when the episodes are released. 0:02:00: JAMES: Yeah. So but, I mean, and that's a good sign that when the story sticks in your head like that, that it's engaging enough to where you're reading it because sometimes I've mentioned stories and, like, oh, did we read that? And you're like, we did it a Back Issue Spotlight. Oh my god. 0:02:15: JOHN: Yeah. 0:02:16: JAMES: That means it was not good. 0:02:17: JOHN: Well, I've said this before, but I had times when I would, you know, particularly when I was reading a lot more comics and stuff, not that I'm immune to it now, but I'd be reading a whole stack of comics. I would take one out. I would read it. I'd put it back in the bag and the board, flip it over, grab the next one, And by the time I had opened that next one, I'm like, what did I just read? It was a street level hero. Okay. So it could have been Nightwing, Batman, it could have been Daredevil. It could have been Spider-Man. It could have been, you know, and it it just had something that it's like, I've seen that or read that basic sort of story at a high level so many times before that it just it wasn't standing out. 0:02:54: JAMES: Yeah. It's just kinda it goes into, like, the abyss almost. You've read the story tropes. You're like, okay. I get the idea and, you just gotta file it away into nothingness. 0:03:04: JOHN: Well, I don't even file it away. And that's when I'm for kind of, you know, entertainment versus, like, when I'm reading for this, I've got a notepad open. I'm taking some notes as I go. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And I think the advantage, Astro City has over a lot of other things, a young girl going off to have an adventure, you know, to learn hopscotch or something, That's not something we've seen before. 0:03:27: JAMES: Yeah. That's true. You don't see stuff like that very much. I mean, this girl, Astra, she reminds me so much of Valeria. You know, it's not even funny. It almost makes you wonder, I don't know when Valeria came out if, like, one was, you know, like, the inspiration for the other, but I'm assuming Valeria came first, but, you know, she this could have been the first character. I honestly don't know. 0:03:48: JOHN: I have to go look that up. I'm not sure. And even if Valeria did exist, I don't think she necessarily existed as the super genius she became. 0:03:58: JAMES: Yeah. It there's a couple of times where I noticed stuff like that. And it makes you wonder. You're like, I wonder if this character was the inspiration for Valeria. And, actually, I literally just looked it up online. I went to Wikipedia. She was 1999, March of 99, Valeria. 0:04:13: JOHN: And and we're sitting here at 1996. 0:04:15: JAMES: Yeah. So that lets me know the Astra was almost the inspiration for a later character that I really like in the Marvel Universe, even though she's a non entity in the current Fantastic Four, I really liked her. 0:04:27: JOHN: Well and it's interesting because this whole thing is such a riff on the Fantastic Four that Astra is as much a riff on Franklin as Valeria. 0:04:35: JAMES: That's true. That is true. Yeah. And she's definitely that super genius, little girl, almost like the chip off the old block. And at the same time, a little bit unruly, because of her super intellect. 0:04:49: JOHN: Well, she's really smart, but I wouldn't say she is the super genius, like, you know, Top dozen people in the world kind of thing that Valeria is. 0:04:58: JAMES: Yeah. Correct. Probably not the smartest, but definitely in that genius level. 0:05:02: JOHN: Well, definitely well above the average for her age by a huge margin, probably smarter than the average teacher of children of her age, you know, kind of thing. Cause and she shows just what what I loved about this issue is it showed so much of her personality, how she can get very competitive at times, but not in a bad way. Yep. She's very resourceful. 0:05:25: JAMES: Super resourceful. I like that about her. 0:05:28: JOHN: And she's got the aspects of being a young kid, but you can see the potential for where this character could grow. 0:05:36: JAMES: Yes. 0:05:37: JOHN: And we will see her again. 0:05:39: JAMES: Yeah. And her competitiveness that's shown here in the comic It's almost like the competitive, you know, and a superhero type of a frame because she's the good character, almost being the person supporting her friends against the bully of the school, the one who kind of picks on everyone, especially her at this point. 0:05:58: JOHN: And she does it in a way of not I'm trying to beat you because you're a bad person or deserve it, but because I wanna be the best me I can be kind of thing. 0:06:07: JAMES: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. She's the person who is going to put in the work. 0:06:12: JOHN: Yeah. 0:06:13: JAMES: And that's very different from the smartest person on Earth. Like, you get Who's that girl? Moon Girl. He's just like, oh, I'm a genius. I can do anything. I sometimes have oh, I don't even say sometimes. A lot of times I have more respect for people, even outside of comics, that their intelligence level, whatever, they put in the work to get to the goal. Versus people who it just comes to him easy just because maybe they have a photographic memory. You know, I think it's a lot more respectable when you can be like, man, you really grinded it out to get to that goal to get to achieve that thing. And that's who she is. 0:06:47: JOHN: Well, and there are some people that have just a phenomenally good memory in a literally abnormal way. I would put Mark Waid in that category of I mean, he's done this trick where you could show him the bottom half inch of a Silver Age comic, and he can tell you which comic it is, title and issue. 0:07:06: JAMES: That's definitely a photographic memory. You wanna know what? What's weird? I've hired two of them in my office, and they're years apart, and it is the most freakish thing. They will take a sticky note right down a phone number, and they have, like, a whole, like, folder, basically, of all these sticky notes of phone numbers, and they can pull out any phone number and be like, oh, that's John Smith.I talked to him about this and this on this date. Their mind just works like that. 0:07:31: JOHN: And the post it notes, just the the memory jog? 0:07:34: JAMES: Yeah. Just a phone number on the post it note, and I'm just like, that's insane. That's a photographic memory. 0:07:40: JOHN: That's great until it stops working. At which point, all you have is this number you don't know what is. 0:07:44: JAMES: Exactly. I'm like, eventually, that's gotta fill up, you would think. 0:07:47: JOHN: Well, and what gets me is there's some people who have that kind of skill that basically are just jerks about it. And there's others that it's a cool party trick. And, again, they're willing to show off by being really good at trivia or whatever, but they don't lord it over you. 0:08:03: JAMES: Yeah. 0:08:04: JOHN: And there's a definite personality trick there to do that. And that's one of the things I thought Kurt Busiek really pulled off here with Astra is she is so much more capable than all of these other students in this school that she kind of finagles her way into, yet she just wants to be one of the kids there. 0:08:23: JAMES: Yeah. She just wants to be one of the kids. She even kinda disguises herself at one point because she's shown up on all the milk cartons as the missing kid. Which that's a total eighties reference, you know, and not nineties reference. But, like, so she showed up as the missing kid. She's just kinda like, they're like, this looks like he's, no, that's not me. That's not me. Because like you're saying, she just wants to fit in, and she wants to experience the life as a normal girl and being the best at what it in this case, hopscotch. 0:08:50: JOHN: What was funny is when she was called out on that by her friend? I think it was Lisha. 0:08:55: JAMES: Yeah. Lisha. 0:08:56: JOHN: And she's like, no. I'm not Astra. And she's like, no. No. Of course not. But you look just like her. And she mentions a TV show. I guess she's twins or something. That's the equivalent of a Patty Duke or any of these other kind of sitcoms, where you've got either twins or people pretending to be twins. 0:09:11: JAMES: Yeah. That's funny. 0:09:13: JOHN: You know, it's it's a comedy trope to a degree for sitcoms. So I thought that was an interesting kind of a deal. To kind of toss that in. And, again, it's the little things like that that slowly build up the rest of this world. By the time certain things happen, it's like, yeah. We've had enough hints of of certain things that it makes sense. 0:09:32: JAMES: Exactly. And this issue, I imagine most people who read this Astra's gonna become very endearing to you, and you're gonna like her for who she is and what she represents at the end of the issue. That's how I felt. I felt like I came out of this. I'm like, man, I really like this girl. And she was at inspiration. And then when she gets to the I won, and she just turns into... 0:09:56: JOHN: Yeah. She powers up. 0:09:57: JAMES: Yeah. That was awesome. They're like, wait a minute. 0:10:00: JOHN: Needs to do a little better on that whole secret identity thing, but I get it. 0:10:04: JAMES: Yeah. That was so funny, but it it it was this was such a good issue. You came out of feeling good. 0:10:10: JOHN: Yeah. I found that part really enjoyable. And then kind of the other thing that we keep cutting to and from, is the First Family searching for her. 0:10:19: JAMES: Oh, them. 0:10:19: JOHN: Convinced she's gone to hang out with her grandmother or she's been taken by somebody or whatever. And we get just this sequence of quick scenes, and you can see how they're referencing so many Fantastic Four-ish sorts of things. You know, her father Rex looks like an aquatic version of the Thing. 0:10:41: JAMES: Yep. 0:10:42: JOHN: And we get Monstro City, which is essentially Atlantis because it's, you know, underwater and stuff. And we've got that whole backstory referencing kind of a Namor and some things like that, we then go to Caspian of let's see what was he, of the Beast Men, who's her grandfather. And I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be who exactly that was supposed to be? There are a couple of different possibilities. Obviously, I think a riff on Black Panther kind of sort of potentially is an option. 0:11:13: JAMES: Yeah. Possibly. 0:11:15: JOHN: And what I like about this is these things are iconic and painted in the same sort of a style as a Marvel/DC universe sort of a thing. But they're not just carbon copies. Well, yep. Well, clearly, that's a Magneto or that's got to be so and so or whatever, but they're similar enough that you see, oh, they kinda fit that position in the universe, but do it differently. 0:11:36: JAMES: Exactly. It reminds me a lot when I read this. Like you said, not a carbon copy. But at points, I feel like I could be reading the Amalgam Universe because sometimes some of the characters will have that, oh, this is like a DC guy, but also kinda like this Marvel guy. And it doesn't really matter, and it doesn't change his story because it's his guy or girl or whatever character he's using. And but like you said, this has a total Bronze Age, Marvel, DC feel. So if you like the Bronze Age, I think you'll love Astro City. 0:12:06: JOHN: Yeah. I think so. And it's got enough for the Golden and Silver Age type stuff too that I think It's good for fans of that. This issue in particular is your fans of the Fantastic Four. This is a good one to kind of get a quick fast forward tour through the equivalent corners of the Astro City universe to that. I mean, I loved whom we got to Lord Volcanus' Magma Palace and stuff. 0:12:29: JAMES: Oh, yeah. I would love that. 0:12:31: JOHN: And it's like he's kind of sort of Mole Man, but not quite. 0:12:35: JAMES: That's what I was thinking too. Mole Man, but, like, wearing almost like a Aztec mask. Yeah. 0:12:40: JOHN: Well, and clearly volcanic and stuff like that, and they're lava men versus Molemen or whatever, but he's got the army of support and stuff like that and some things like that. It'd be fun if Kurt Busiek and the rest of the creative team were to do kind of a behind the scenes kind of a book or whatever of, you know, when we put this character together these are the characters we were riffing on. Here's why we decided to go this way versus that way, you know, and maybe they were pulling from different areas than, thinking in certain times. Either way, it all kinda works. It feels right. 0:13:15: JAMES: It does feel right. 0:13:16: JOHN: And and that's the surprising part, particularly when at times, it does feel like they may mix, you know, kind of Marvel and DC, which is, you know, peanut butter and chocolate and stuff. Both are good, but kind of separately. Mixing them together can be kinda dicey. 0:13:29: JAMES: It can be at times depending on who did it, but I felt like this was I don't wanna say like a perfect issue, but it's a lot of fun. And I think anybody who's an old school, Fantastic Four fan would love this issue. They'd be like, oh, this has that feel. It has that look. It has that almost that teamwork and the adventure in there. And like you said, Astra is the star, but you get a lot of the core members of the First Family almost adventuring the whole time trying to track her down. 0:13:56: JOHN: Yeah. 0:13:57: JAMES: It was just a lot of fun. 0:13:58: JOHN: Well, I think anyone who is a fan of the Marvel and DC universes want something that is more kind of self contained, has a lot more meat on the bone per issue, Astro City fits the bill. 0:14:12: JAMES: It does fit the bill perfectly. So now what was interesting to me is we read that issue, which was kinda like the follow-up to the last issue. So it's like a 2 parter. 0:14:21: JOHN: Definitely a 2 parter. Definitely. 0:14:23: JAMES: Yeah. And then the next issue that we get into, this is, I guess, a bigger arc and once again, you it's almost like a complete different jumping on point here. 0:14:33: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:14:33: JOHN: A lot of the issues are jumping on points where you can just jump into it has nothing to do with the First Family, even though you kinda see them in the background, one of the issues. 0:14:40: JOHN: There's enough things that tie the series of adventures together, stories together that it's not like it's a I mean, it is, and it isn't an anthology series. 0:14:51: JAMES: Yeah. I agree. 0:14:52: JOHN: We switch lead characters. I mean with #4 here, we get essentially an orphan kid who's run away to Astro City. 0:14:58: JAMES: Yep. 0:14:58: JOHN: And he wants to get into the hero scene, even if it's just being a bus boy at a bar and getting to hang out with them or something. 0:15:06: JAMES: Yeah. 0:15:06: JOHN: And so from that perspective, very different lead character than we had in the previous two issues and all of the previous ones before that, yet we get some of the members of the First Family showing up at the bar. We get some other things to tie into other things we've seen, so it doesn't feel like we've kind of, you know, just we're starting from scratch every issue either. 0:15:27: JAMES: Yeah. Exactly. And I felt like this issue, particularly 4, we could introduce to a lot of new characters, even though they're just in the background. Like, you start seeing, you know, groups that you might have seen, but they get a little more screen time, or you just get introduced to characters that you've never seen, like.. 0:15:44: JOHN: Well, like the Crossbreed. 0:15:46: JAMES: The Crossbreed. Exactly. And they were calling them? What are they calling the Jesus? 0:15:49: JOHN: The Jesus freaks because they are the bible thumpers. 0:15:51: JAMES: Yeah. Which was hilarious. 0:15:53: JOHN: What I found particularly funny about this is they're hanging out at the bus station there. Or whatnot. Now you've never been to San Diego Comic Con. 0:16:01: JAMES: No. 0:16:02: JOHN: I've gone for years and years and years. I've missed it since the pandemic or whatnot, but there's the convention center. There's Harbor Drive. There's the trolley tracks for the San Diego trolley and stuff. And then kind of there's 5th Avenue that takes you into the Gaslamp area. So just about everybody has to cross Harbor Drive and the trolley tracks to get to the Gaslamp that has the hotels, the bars, the restaurants, most of stuff. Okay? 0:16:28: JAMES: Okay. 0:16:28: JOHN: And invariably on the Harbor Drive right next to the trolley track stuff, there are people that are preaching the good word and trying to save your souls. Whether, you know, you really feel they need it or not. 0:16:41: JAMES: That's funny. 0:16:42: JOHN: And there's so much of what these people are saying here as the Crossbreed that I've got to wonder if that was part of the inspiration. 0:16:49: JAMES: That's funny. It makes you think and like I said, if the like you were saying, if they expounded in this or had, like, notes on the side, an annotated version, where they, like, hey,my experience is going to Comic Con. You always see this group of characters, and they kinda reminded me. I know I'm not saying this is who they're supposed to be. But just their costumes and the one with the wings and the one with the tiger face, almost like the X-Men type characters, you know, with Beast and Angel. 0:17:15: JOHN: Certainly Beast and Angel. I would agree with that. And we've got what could be a token female there. 0:17:21: JAMES: Yep. 0:17:21: JOHN: So that's gotta be you know Marvel Girl's equivalent. 0:17:24: JAMES: Yep. 0:17:25: JOHN: One that maybe, I don't know, the gray face or maybe stone or something. So maybe, an Ice Man type. I don't know. 0:17:33: JAMES: Yeah. It could be. That's where I'm like, I a few of them were kinda off. You know? 0:17:37: JOHN: Yeah. Again, it's not a direct one for one. 0:17:40: JAMES: But that's who I reminded me of a little bit. 0:17:42: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:17:43: JAMES: Yeah. So I got that vibe. And that was funny because, like, they're literally yeah the bible thumppers. And the guy's like, I'm not that religious trying to get away. It was just it was funny how it all played out. 0:17:54: JOHN: Well and it's funny because they're treated as a bit of a nuisance, not because of their religious message, but because they're just a little in your face. 0:18:03: JAMES: Yeah. 0:18:04: JAMES: And they're actually treated as good people because when this kid basically has somebody kinda shoe off the the Crossbreed one of the other members of the Crossbreed basically comes down with a lightning strike and tells the person who's helping the kid, give him back his wallet. 0:18:20: JAMES: That was really cool because that's where you see the superheroism versus just the preaching on the street. And, yeah, give the kid back his wallet. And he's like, thank you, sir, uh, you too. 0:18:32: JOHN: In other words, you may not like what the Crossbreed is doing with their religious message and stuff. And the whole thing is they believe their powers come from god for it's their duty to use them in his service. It's like, okay. That's an interesting approach. It's very similar to the whole being a mutant means certain things in the Marvel universe 0:18:51: JAMES: Yep. 0:18:51: JOHN: Some people think their powers mean something here in the Astro City universe, but they're also treated as good stand up people. 0:18:58: JAMES: Exactly. There's someone that you feel a little bit safer walking down the street because you're there. 0:19:02: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:19:03: JAMES: And despite the message, you wanna hear it or not, you can feel a little more comfortable that they got your back. And they are superheroes. You know, they're looking out for you, like, even pick pockets, which was nice. It doesn't have to be a world ending apocalypse be something that's a street level crime. They're just there to make it sure everyone's safe. 0:19:18: JOHN: Exactly. Exactly. They're trying to save your soul and your wallet. 0:19:22: JAMES: Exactly. Old school superhero. 0:19:24: JOHN: I thought this one was fun. I will admit when I started reading it, I'm like, you know, who is this kid gonna be? I wonder if he's going to be who he turned out to be. But, again, it's been long enough since I've read it. It's not like, oh, yeah. I know who this is gonna be going in. 0:19:39: JAMES: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know who it's gonna be. I mean, I'm saying, yeah, but I was thinking, what's the significance of this kid? Why are we focusing on him? And you just get the whole super heroics thing. And then at the end, his boss because he got the job at the bar where he, by the way, he saw a lot of background superheroes, which was cool. One looked like a train, which was that was just kinda neat. I think it was called Ironhorse. Yeah. Ironhorse. I remember now. 0:20:03: JOHN: Yeah. The human locomotive. 0:20:04: JAMES: Which is funny. But the the guy, the owner of the bar is, like, hey, you're too smart to work here. You have potential and hands him the card, and the card says Butlers. And you look, and it looks almost like he's going to an an Avengers mansion type thing. But technically, the Butler, he came off as either a Jarvis, but he also could be an Alfred. I mean, it could have been either... 0:20:25: JOHN: Definitely of that ilk. Yes. 0:20:27: JAMES: Exactly. He reminds you of both of them, his mannerisms and all. So he's the de facto butler, and there you go, which was kinda cool. 0:20:34: JOHN: Well, and he goes from working at the bar for K. O. Carson, who was the Black Badge, and that's just, you know, the watering hole for the the super powered types. 0:20:46: JAMES: Yeah. 0:20:47: JOHN: To butlers, which is the upper end kind of posh place. 0:20:53: JAMES: Yes. 0:20:53: JOHN: And we basically have somebody come in and try to rob the place it's Glue Gun is gonna go do it. And this just reeked of a cross between Paste Pot Pete and the Condiment King of here's a guy who's gonna try to cause some trouble, but he's not too smart. And then, sure enough, this bus boy takes him out. 0:21:16: JAMES: Yeah. 0:21:16: JOHN: And this is what gets him noticed by a hero who's gonna take him on as a sidekick and train him up. 0:21:23: JAMES: Yeah. At first, he was a little bit shy because the people were kinda laughing, but they weren't laughing at him. They were laughing because that guy got taken down, and they're like, that kid has moved. He's actually pretty good. Look at him. And, yeah, that got him recognized and jealousy from the other coworkers. 0:21:38: JOHN: I was gonna say he goes, as he leaves, all of the other busboys, like, hey, you took our chance. 0:21:44: JAMES: Yeah. 0:21:44: JOHN: And he's ready to take them all on. 0:21:47: JAMES: Yes. He is. And he does get saved though, and that's the big reveal at the end. 0:21:52: JOHN: One of the superpowered denizens of Astro City shows up saying I'd like to talk with this kid. I don't know that we ever found out exactly what happened to the other bus boys if they just kinda scammed or what? 0:22:03: JAMES: Yeah. Because you get his reveal, then you don't see any follow-up on that. It kinda... 0:22:07: JOHN: They don't even name the character on the last page here. 0:22:10: JAMES: Exactly. So we're left there and you're like, who is this? That's a cool looking character with his big cross. I'm like, is he one of the Jesus Freaks. Like, what is going on here? 0:22:19: JOHN: Now I do wanna point out we had a quick appearance of Jack-in-the-Box. 0:22:24: JAMES: Yes. Jumped in the building. That's true. 0:22:27: JOHN: If we go back to the first bar 0:22:30: JAMES: Yes. 0:22:31: JOHN: When he is waiting tables and stuff, there is a sailor kind of a guy in the background 0:22:36: JAMES: Okay. 0:22:37: JOHN: With really beefy forearms? 0:22:39: JAMES: Yes. 0:22:40: JOHN: That's gotta be a Popeye reference. 0:22:42: JAMES: Oh, now that you say it, that's definitely Popeye. That's funny. 0:22:46: JOHN: That's the kind of stuff where I could just get lost in some of these issues for days. Of, okay, who are they riffing on here? What are they paying homage to and some stuff like that. 0:22:56: JAMES: Yeah. Because Kurt Busiek he strikes me as the type of person that he's writing about his experience in life and things that he likes and enjoys and has seen because even when you get into later issues that we're gonna talk about, you know, the trouble and this neighborhood and what's going on there, and the heat. It just reminds you the stories like back in the eighties when they had the brownouts and stuff. They talk about out of the seventies and the heat and how the crime would go up and the Son of Sam, all that stuff, you you can feel those references, even though none of it's mentioned and it's not identical. 0:23:28: JOHN: Well, the other thing that's interesting is we're in familiar places. We've seen bars that heroes and villains hang out in. 0:23:36: JAMES: Exactly. 0:23:36: JOHN: We've seen higher end establishments and whatnot for the same kind of dealor whatnot. We haven't seen a kid getting recruited as a sidekick through that kind of a story. 0:23:45: JAMES: Oh, yeah. That's true. Yep. So this is definitely different. 0:23:48: JOHN: I mean, he's Kurt Busiek is a master at, I mean, he's worked at Marvel and DC and other other companies as well. He's been doing this for for decades now and had done it for quite a bit by the time he started this twenty some odd years ago, thirty years ago, whatever. And he knows what areas have been stripmined and what areas are still fertile ground to tell some new and different stories. If you just look at the environment of a superhero city, the tropes, and stuff like that, from a little bit of a different angle. And that's part of what I love. If you want just who's fighting who and and a big fight scene and stuff? This is not the title for you. 0:24:26: JAMES: No. Definitely. This is definitely not that title. It feels familiar, but not copied. It so fresh and unique just because of the perspectives the stories are told from. And how they're told. So everything's fresh and yet it feels like something comforting to the heart, like a look back at my youth, even though this wasn't from my youth. 0:24:45: JOHN: Well, I mean, the final page we've got here, we've got this guy pretty much dressed all in black and stuff. His his cape has a little bit of a collar that goes up behind him and stuff. And it gives off vibes of certain types of characters. 0:24:59: JAMES: Yeah. There's quite a few he could be. 0:25:01: JOHN: So, again, it's using the, a iconography of comics that we're familiar with, but not just well it's clearly this guy, and that's it. 0:25:09: JAMES: Exactly. And what's funny is when you get into the 3rd issue, you have a or the 3rd issue. 5th issue. 0:25:15: JOHN: Issue #5 0:25:16: JAMES: Yeah. Our 3rd, but the 5th issue. You get a big time jump because the kid is his sidekick at that point. 0:25:22: JOHN: Yeah. 0:25:22: JAMES: And we finally get told, oh, this is who this is. And this to this character as the sidekick, and they just have some real religious connotations there. It's just hilarious how it all plays out to me. I'm not saying religion is hilarious, but how it will end up at the end when we get there? 0:25:38: JOHN: Well, we've got the Confessor and Altar Boy. 0:25:41: JAMES: Altar Boy. I know. I was like, oh my gosh. What are we doing? 0:25:44: JOHN: And there's a very clear Batman and Robin kind of a riff going on here. 0:25:49: JAMES: Yes. That's what I got. 0:25:50: JOHN: And not at all in a bad way. 0:25:52: JAMES: No. It was it was good. It's just it's Batman and Robin with a lot of religious icon. So and but made me think, as he tried to tie Daredevil into this, but then if it flips for me at the later on. 0:26:05: JOHN: Well, there is an aspect when we first see the Confessor the way he's kind of perched on on that ledge and stuff like that. That feels very Daredevil-ish. 0:26:15: JAMES: Yes. It does. It's like a Daredevil/Batman type. 0:26:17: JOHN: Yeah. Again, street level hero, a different kind of a take on that that sort of character. 0:26:22: JAMES: Exactly. Yep. That's what I was getting, that total vibe. 0:26:25: JOHN: And there were times that this kid who becomes Altar Boy, he reminds me a little of both Jason Todd and Tim Drake. 0:26:36: JAMES: Yeah. I can see that. I definitely can see there's similarities to both there. For sure. And, you know, I really liked the kid I felt bad for his name. I'm like, Altar Boy is just not a good hero's name, but we'll go with it. Cool. 0:26:48: JOHN: Are are you gonna tell the Confessor you wanna change the name? 0:26:51: JAMES: I would not tell him that. He's a very serious man. 0:26:55: JOHN: Now the assumption I've got is he's the first Altar Boy. Yes. But because he gets the costume and he gets the name. And it's not like, well, it's been used before, so you're stuck with it. So that was kind of interesting. 0:27:09: JAMES: Yeah. It was. It was kinda cool because you basically see them jumping into action and they're like, the Confessor. That's where we get that's literally the first page. You're like, oh, so that's who we're looking at. And Altar Boy, and you get to see them working together as like a duo with street level crime. And it it played out very nice It felt like an old Batman and Robin team up book. 0:27:30: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:27:30: JAMES: And I really enjoyed it, and I liked the training aspect that they went into heavy in here that music did. 0:27:37: JOHN: Well and I also liked not only that we see this kid getting trained up and learning some of the stuff. But even when we see him just walking the streets, pausing in front of the TV store and stuff, and we get the the talking head news stuff is a little bit of an you know, exposition dump and him kind of, hey, they mentioned me, or maybe they didn't that kind of a deal. But we get some things dropped off there. We get another reference to the Honor Guard and and Crackerjack and some stuff like that. And some of this is just to fill the moment in an appropriate way, but also some of this sets the seeds for later aspects. 0:28:12: JAMES: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It really does. And speaking of which, you were talking about that one scene where they get the info dump with the TV screens. 0:28:19: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:28:20: JAMES: The next page where they have that beautiful drawing of the church. 0:28:23: JOHN: Yeah. 0:28:24: JAMES: The cathedral. What do they call it? Enzio Grandenetti. Okay. For some reason, I'm just like, Busiek uses things. And not use these things, but he references things. And so for whatever reason, I went to Google, I'm like searching for you know, cathedral or or, you know, whatever. And there is a cathedral named almost Grandenetti, but it's over in Italy somewhere and so it's a real place. It's not wherever this is in this town, but I was like, that's kinda cool. It makes me think that maybe he visited Europe, but sometime it was inspired and want to use it in his comics. 0:28:57: JOHN: Does it have a similar backstory where the the architect just felt it wasn't enough and kept building? 0:29:02: JAMES: I did not get that deep into it. I just saw it, and I had a lot to read. And I was running out of time so I was like, that's kinda cool. We just kinda took it as a one off. 0:29:10: JOHN: Now the other thing that's interesting is not only do we have that nice establishing shot of it. 0:29:14: JAMES: Yeah. 0:29:15: JOHN: In the background, you can see Mount Kirby. 0:29:17: JAMES: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. 0:29:19: JOHN: Go back a page. 0:29:20: JAMES: Okay. 0:29:21: JOHN: The very last panel off on the right. 0:29:23: JOHN: Yes. 0:29:23: JOHN: The guy in the green shirt? 0:29:25: JAMES: Yes. Oh! 0:29:26: JOHN: Sure kinda looks like Jack Kirby. 0:29:28: JAMES: Oh, yeah. He throws in all kinds of little Easter eggs here and there. Very cool. I like that. 0:29:34: JOHN: Again, this is something that if you just want the surface story, you can have a good time. If you wanna dig a little deeper, there's stuff to find. 0:29:41: JAMES: Exactly. Like, I read it, and I probably just said, oh, there's a a guy on the side. But now that you mentioned it, yeah, that's definitely probably an inspiration and boom. 0:29:51: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:29:51: JOHN: And would this be in his creation he had go in there and just have fun that him and the artist? I can't remember the artist name. 0:29:56: JOHN: Brent Anderson. 0:29:57: JAMES: Brent Anderson. They can just go in there and play with it and drop characters in Easter eggs wherever they want, which makes it a lot of fun. 0:30:04: JOHN: I've got to imagine that was a Brent Anderson thing. But I could be wrong on that. I'd love to see whatever scripts Brent got from Kurt on this. Not just this issue, but as much of Astro City as they'd be willing to release because I think that'd be a ton of fun. 0:30:18: JAMES: Exactly. There's a hard cover that needs to come out with notes that go along with the stories, and I think that you would love that. 0:30:25: JOHN: I would do it as a series of of trades that that mapped to the different trades or whatnot, but, yeah, you know, just the the behind the scenes, the sketch stuff is as they've designed the characters. I mean, the look of the Confessor, that didn't just come out fully formed because they had to have some back and forth. I'd love to see some of that. 0:30:41: JAMES: Me too. I think it'd be cool. I'm just an addict for the big books, so that's why I always going with the hardcover. 0:30:46: JOHN: Yeah. Well, that works too. You know? 0:30:49: JAMES: Yeah. Yeah. But this was a lot of fun. And like we were talking about, the training in there, I love how the Confessor keeps telling an Altar Boy whenever something happens, look. Look for the clues. Look for the clues. I just love that part because even reading it, you don't really look at the clues, but when he starts telling Altar Boy to look for the clues you and I as a reader, we start looking for it. What are the clues? And then when he knows is you're like, oh, yeah. There it is. Ha ha. 0:31:15: JOHN: Well, and look for the facts, see what fits, and what doesn't, and then figure stuff out from there. 0:31:20: JAMES: Yeah. That made it a lot of fun. I just love that. 0:31:23: JOHN: Well and again, what I love is not only does it have the depth to hold up to that kind of scrutiny. There's also just some little Easter eggs that are nothing but I think just jokes. 0:31:33: JAMES: Exactly. Yeah. 0:31:34: JOHN: You know, when they're looking at the cops and the the squad cars and stuff after the robbery and whatnot, car 54 Where are you? Like, it's right there. 0:31:43: JAMES: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. 0:31:45: JOHN: You know, and then we get when this kid's been enrolled into a school so he can actually learn some book things. He's staying at Spring House, Dick Spring, of course, a Batman key creator from the early days. 0:31:58: JAMES: Yep. 0:31:59: JOHN: So little Easter eggs like that. And as he's walking around, he's trying to think it's like there's parts of this of the Confessor that don't make sense. Let me figure this out. We're getting references to Crackerjack. We're getting referenced to the Shadow Hill murders. So all the little stuff in the background, again, it's building to things So we don't just come to a story point, and it's like, well, that's out of nowhere. 0:32:21: JAMES: Exactly. Because Altar Boy's biggest I don't wanna say his biggest concern, but one of the concerns he has he's like, I don't even know your name. Who are you? I don't know anything about you. And but then at the same time, takes the lessons that he's been given by the Confessor to try and track down who this guy really is or figure out who he is, which is really kinda cool. He's also always breaking the rules, you know, the Confessor will say stay here. And, of course, he doesn't stay there ever. 0:32:49: JOHN: Yeah. Again, that's a bit of the Jason Todd in him. 0:32:52: JAMES: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But this was, like, a lot of fun. Like, I was looking at the they were looking at Crackerjack. And it in this issue, Crackerjack was being set up. 0:33:03: JOHN: Well, he was robbing banks. Yeah. 0:33:05: JAMES: Robbing banks. He's the criminal. People are like, oh, this Crackerjack guy is no good. And they start looking. He's like, wait a minute. This guy doesn't move exactly what he's saying. Wait a minute. 0:33:14: JOHN: It's not they. It's just Altar Boy. 0:33:16: JAMES: Just Altar Boy. Yeah. I'm sorry. Altar Boy. Oh, wait a minute. The rope's not wrapping around the pole when he's swinging. And there's a clamp that's clamping on. That's not him. 0:33:25: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:33:26: JAMES: And then he's like, I'm gonna confront this guy because he's setting up Crackerjack who's actually a good guy. Even though he's an arrogant guy, he's a good guy. 0:33:33: JOHN: Yeah. Well, Crackerjack kinda had it coming, but still, this isn't Crackerjack. So... 0:33:38: JAMES: Yeah. He's not a criminal. He's just a megalomaniac. 0:33:41: JOHN: Yeah. Now when we get that whole scene in the Astro Mart, the the mini mart or what? 0:33:48: JAMES: Yeah. 0:33:49: JOHN: I thought there were one or two things that were just kinda funny in a kinda Easter eggy kind of way. Again, we've got a comics rack there. 0:33:55: JAMES: Yep. 0:33:55: JOHN: When we see Zot!, we see Groo, we see Air Ace. Those are all real comics. We see Spin World, which I think was one of Brent Anderson's. Sin City. So any comic book that's not a superhero comic, because those didn't do well in this world, apparently, plus, you know, some stuff on First Family and whatnot. So that's just kind of fun background kind of stuff. But then when the fake Crackerjack is kind of revealed to be who he is? 0:34:21: JAMES: Yeah. 0:34:22: JOHN: Did you recognize him? 0:34:23: JAMES: At first, I didn't until I saw him change, and then I recognized him. He was from, like, one of the first issues. Wasn't he? 0:34:30: JOHN: He was Bridwell. The alien that summoned the invasion fleet because he was kind of ticked off at humanity. 0:34:37: JAMES: Exactly. Was that the first or second issue we reviewed? I can't remember. 0:34:40: JOHN: I thought it was more like the 4th or 5th. I think it was the 5th because that's where we got Crackerjack and stuff. 0:34:48: JAMES: Yeah. The good sign was for me is that when I saw him transform, I knew who he was. I was like, oh, that's a guy we read about a long time ago, the alien who was all ticked off, and so I'm like, here he is again, and he's taking out his revenge by setting up Crackerjack. Awesome. So it's kinda like a wink and a nod and a pat on the back long time readers, but if you didn't read those issues, you didn't really need to know it that background to read this and enjoy it for what it was. 0:35:15: JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. It's self contained, but it does have the stuff that builds to the bigger whole. I mean, if all you read is this issue, you get enough of Altar Boy. He has the little takedown of the fake Crackerjack, you come out of it satisfied. 0:35:29: JAMES: Oh, you really do. And my favorite part of this whole issue I and I don't wanna say favorite part, but it kinda was it's Crackerjack going to the media and totally, like, taking credit for everything after Altar Boy did it all while the little alien escapes. That was just fantastic. 0:35:45: JOHN: Well, and then we get the news coverage afterwards basically pointing out that he managed to lose custody of the dopplergaber only minutes after capturing him. Kind of, you know, the the media, I think, is wise to Crackerjack isn't all he claims to be. 0:36:00: JAMES: Yeah. Altar Boy was just like, he took all the credit. Well, don't worry. He's taking the lumps now that the guy got away. 0:36:06: JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. 0:36:07: JAMES: So that was just funny. I really liked that issue. And then I think the 6th issue, I don't wanna say it was my favorite because I'd like the Astra issue out of the four that we read. I think I liked that the most, but I liked the hook at the end of issue 6. I really enjoyed that. And that's the issue we're gonna be talking about next. 0:36:24: JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. I think there was a lot going on here because at this point, it's unclear how much more time has passed, but we start getting a little more into the politics of superheroing and stuff. 0:36:35: JAMES: You really do. It really changing, and it gave me the total flashbacks to Civil War and the registration. Did you get that vibe? 0:36:43: JOHN: Oh, yeah. Totally. 0:36:44: JAMES: Yeah. I was like, oh my god. Marvel was like, totally, like, I'm not saying they did this because lots of writers have lots of ideas, and they're very similar. But I'm like, were they reading this and being like, hey, let's do this. Let's just make it a big I mean, of course, you didn't have the superhero team separating, but you have the government saying, hey, we need to register these guys. We need to register all these superheroes because of what happens. 0:37:07: JOHN: And we'll start just with the mystic powered ones first. 0:37:10: JAMES: Yeah. Exactly. 0:37:11: JOHN: But, you know, it's gonna expand from there. 0:37:13: JAMES: Yeah. This issue, issue 6, was the total Son of Sam or whatever kind of type of murderer, but back in the, you know, seventies, eighties, sixties, when you have a mass murderer on the loose, and you didn't have all the cameras and people filming and you didn't have DNA. There was mass panic. Nobody knew who you trust, and it just become completely horrifying and terrifying things. People could be arrested just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time because this is a different world. This is what we're getting into here in Astro City, and I really thought this was pretty powerful this issue. 0:37:48: JOHN: Well, and this is the Shadow Hill killings they'd been mentioning for an issue or two. 0:37:51: JAMES: Exactly. We saw that when the girl was leaving the town looking for work, I can't in the city. 0:37:57: JOHN: Well, we'd seen Shadow Hill at that point, but even the last two issues were mentioning killings going on in Shadow Hill and stuff. 0:38:05: JAMES: Exactly. Yeah. 0:38:05: JOHN: So this was a ramp up of that. And this kind of goes back to, like, the Paul Levitz writing style, introduce something, then focus on it, and then give it that epilogue or whatever, over the course of different issues, to give kind of a narrative threads that braid together. 0:38:22: JAMES: Yeah. And this totally worked. It was awesome. And when I first got to that the first page in this issue, and it says Sara-Lynne Felton died. And you see this picture? I'm like, oh my god. She looks like Astra. Please don't tell me Astra died. And it's not her, but she did remind me of her, but and it's the gathering dark. And this is, like, a very dark issue because it gets to the worst of society and panic and fear that you see played out a lot of times with different things. 0:38:48: JOHN: Well, and just in the course of this issue, we get some definite movement on the the Shadow Hill killings. You know, we've got the whole registration stuff introduced. We've got the E.A.G.L.E. Troopers coming in, and they're clearly a riff on S.H.I.E.L.D. and stuff, and we get a reveal on some backstory of of the Confessor and stuff, some questions answered there. And all of that just in the span of of this issue. 0:39:14: JAMES: There was so much that happened here. I mean, you can get that weird guy and introduce Mordacai Chalk. 0:39:20: JOHN: Mhmm. The monster hunter. Yeah. 0:39:21: JAMES: The monster hunter. And I'm like, oh my gosh. This guy looks like a cyborg. He almost looks like the Terminator mixed with the Punisher. I don't know. Mixed with Cable. And he's brought in, basically, because we can't trust, and we don't know who these heroes are, who they really are, let's send him out to kinda clean things up and police things. 0:39:41: JOHN: Yeah. He is kind of a mishmash of Ulysses Bloodstone, the monster hunter over at Marvel, Cable, maybe Deathlok. 0:39:49: JAMES: Yep. 0:39:50: JOHN: I'm trying to think what would be kind of DC references because they don't have quite as many. 0:39:54: JAMES: Cyborg. Yeah. 0:39:55: JOHN: Cyborg. Yeah. With the face. Certainly, there's the look. 0:39:57: JAMES: Yeah. I saw the Cyborg with the face and then and almost, like, the Punisher with the guns. That's what I got from him. You know, he looked like a military type dude, but not sure. 0:40:07: JOHN: Again, between that and the arm, I'd go a little more Cable, but, yeah. 0:40:10: JAMES: Yeah. 0:40:11: JOHN: Clearly the monster hunter riff. 0:40:13: JAMES: Exactly. So you're like, this is an ominous character. What is he going to play in the future? I'll tell you what. This issue was so cool because, like, you almost get the set up for Civil War, especially when you get to oh, I'm trying to remember her name the Wonder Woman, Winged Victory and her stance. Hey. I'm not gonna let you guys find out anything. I'm not showing up to register. You know, basically in front of everyone, and you get a dividing of a society. Some people are like, these are our heroes. Why are we implicating them? And other people like, we don't really know who these guys are. They could be the ones doing the killing, and you see, get that divide. Boom. 0:40:48: JOHN: Well, it's kind of funny to see these heroes being interviewed by the TV news. 0:40:53: JAMES: Yep. 0:40:54: JOHN: That's not something I think we really see much in Marvel and DC. 0:40:56: JAMES: Not at all. 0:40:57: JOHN: And we get that with Winged Victory. We get that with the Jack-in-the-Box. I'm curious how much more of this Mayor Stevenson that we see down the line? 0:41:06: JAMES: Me too, because he definitely plays a role is almost like it seems like he's gonna be meddling and making things difficult for the heroes in the future. 0:41:15: JOHN: Well and he certainly ramping up his tactics little by little from, you know, we need some information. We need some cooperation to these people are now a threat. We need to register them all and whatnot. So, again, it's been ages since I've read this arc. I don't remember exactly where it goes. It feels like the predictable route is he's somehow tied into the Shadow Hill killings in some way, shape, or form. Even if he's not doing them, he's at least aware of them in a way that he can be leveraging it politically. 0:41:46: JAMES: You know what? That's actually good. That could be it because by implicating the heroes or even making putting the word out there to implicate some. It's taking the focus off him. 0:42:57: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:42:58: JAMES: It's taking the focus off maybe if he's in kahoots with someone off of that group or whatever. So, definitely, I see where you're going with that. That's a very good observation. And I'm I'm interested to see where it plays out. 0:42:09: JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I am too because, again, I read this stuff back when it was coming out, and this is, by this point, I think we're into early 1997-ish. 0:42:18: JAMES: Exactly. And it's so interesting because you see things where, like, the Honor Guard and other hero groups, they're they're fighting off threats. You know? 0:42:27: JOHN: I love they're fighting the Frigians and the Thermians. Basically, ice people and fire people fighting. 0:42:33: JAMES: Exactly. The Frigians, Thermians. That was funny. 0:42:36: JOHN: It's like, I wanna see more of them. 0:42:38: JAMES: I know. I wanna see this fight. And the people are protesting more people got killed. Do your job. You know, where were you? Just like and then you got the other's people. Catch the killers. Not their heroes. Registration for zeroes. 0:42:52: JOHN: Yeah. And on the page, we've got a cameo by the First Family. We've got the Crossbreed again. So these things are being put back in there to fill out the universe and make it feel like a more real place. 0:43:04: JAMES: You know, you totally felt that, and it's unfortunate but you almost see these people have to barricade themselves into their little neighborhood. You literally see barricades put up and you see the heroes there protecting the people in the Hill, the Hiller they call them the Hillers. And we've seen that I'm not saying I'm gonna say this exact thing. But we've seen this in society when people are afraid or people are upset and people are suspicious. 0:43:31: JOHN: Yeah. It does not bring out the best in people. 0:43:33: JAMES: It doesn't. You see police having to surround a mosque to keep it from being attacked. You know? The people that go there. Because people are afraid after 911, it's gotta be all of them. There's people, and then there's these people. They they didn't do it. And that separation, a lot of people can't distinguish, and fear consumes them and the worst comes out. 0:43:56: JOHN: Yeah. 0:43:57: JAMES: Yeah. And that's what we're seeing here. So I'm like, oh my gosh. I've seen this so many times in society. You just see this over and over and over where people get they they won't admit its fear, but it's a fear that drives them to react violently almost 0:44:10: JOHN: Well, and just seeing the events ratchet up over the course of this issue to make these events believable versus It didn't seem that way last issue or something. 0:44:21: JAMES: What was weird is I felt like this was a deeper story right here, what I'm reading from Kirk Busiek, and it's an awesome story. But at the same time, just maybe I appreciate it, but I liked issue #3 just because I came out of it and I was happy. I was like, oh, that was fun. That was very charming. That was so light. 0:44:37: JOHN: Well, there's really good and there's enjoyable, and they're not always the same thing. 0:44:42: JAMES: Exactly. This is good, and it's so heavy and dark. Yeah. And it just shows you the breadth of he's like, I'll take you to the very dark place, and I'll take you to a nice charming wonderland where kids are playing hopscotch and it's the same book and the same stories. Just awesome. Just just fantastic. My hat's off to him. 0:45:00: JOHN: Yeah. Again, I think it's some of his best work. 0:45:03: JAMES: Yeah. And at the very end, we where we get Confessor and Altar Boy, they're chasing that guy, the cowboy guy. I can't remember his name for the life of me. 0:45:11: JOHN: Gunslinger. Is it Gunslinger? 0:45:14: JAMES: It might be Gunslinger. He's basically looks like a cowboy type with some prosthetics, we'll say. 0:45:19: JOHN: Yeah. It's Gunslinger, and he's clearly across between Deadshot over in DC, particularly his early appearance, and Bullseye, I'd say. 0:45:30: JAMES: Yeah. Exactly. That's a perfect analogy. Yeah. Exactly. But dress like Western style. 0:45:36: JOHN: Yeah. 0:45:36: JAMES: And, bit this is where you really if you're reading it properly. Not properly, but when you on reread when you get to the end of this issue, where the hints are definitely there because he takes some potshots, the Confessor. 0:45:49: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:45:50: JAMES: And he doesn't, you know, get taken out he's like, basically, you shot him in the chest. I shot you dead center. Why are you not dead? And then he grabs his pistols and crushes them in his hands. And you're like, okay, this dude has some strength to him, but he's a street level character. And I start thinking, what the hell is going on? And the same thing with, Altar Boy, he's thinking, What the hell is going on? 0:46:10: JOHN: Yeah. And when he they would go into the Shadow Hill area and some stuff happens, it gives Altar Boy quite a bit to think about, and I like how we get kind of that confrontation there at the end of you've been keeping stuff from me. And again, Confessor is like figure it out. And I thought this was a nice scene when it's like, ah, you have figured it out. Going back to what we'd seen, I guess, last issue of put the pieces together, don't just ask for the answer. Figure it out. 0:46:42: JAMES: Exactly. Because you get so many things because he's thinking he saw him crush the guns. He saw him get shot point blank, and then we almost get a look. This city almost looks like it could be like Istanbul, Turkey, or something. And there's, like, there's fires on Shadow Hill that night. You know, fires are the doorways that produced a strange, a pungent smoke. And at first, something, why what the hell? Why is there spoke? Why is it pungent? But then it all starts making sense later on as you get to the reveal. And you're, like you said, you're also getting them set up for S.H.I.E.L.D. in here, for the mayor, what's gonna be happening, and are we gonna tell the readers what the big reveal is? 0:47:19: JOHN: No. Let's give him a reason to read the issue. 0:47:21: JAMES: Alright. Read the issue, but it was kinda cool because he figures out who the Confessor is. And he's like, well done, Brian. And it's like, yeah. I'm like, I didn't expect it. Did you? 0:47:33: JOHN: I knew. 0:47:34: JAMES: You knew? 0:47:35: JOHN: There's certain parts of, you know, it's hard to forget certain aspects of the story. I may not remember all the minutia. 0:47:41: JAMES: Yeah. 0:47:42: JOHN: But the reveal for the Confessor's backstory and stuff. Yeah. That, I remember. 0:47:46: JAMES: Yeah. I started thinking. I was like, how did he crush those guns and stuff like that? But when he says what it is, I didn't go that way. And so it was a big surprise to me. So it gets you a little bit excited. 0:47:56: JOHN: Mhmm. 0:47:57: JAMES: Wow. And, you know, here's this, like, ultra religious icon. What's going on. And so your head starts spinning and it gets you excited to read the next issue, which I know we're gonna be doing another, four issues. 0:48:08: JOHN: Another four issues that'll cover the rest of this arc, And then I think a done in one issue, it's hard for me to remember which are the multipart arcs and which aren't and stuff. 0:48:18: JAMES: It's okay. I mean, it's fun. And whenever we do this stuff, I always have a good time with you. Even if we in mid arc like we did with, I'm gonna say Valeria, but Astra. 0:48:26: JOHN: Astra and stuff. 0:48:28: JAMES: Well, and again, it worked out. 0:48:29: JOHN: We had a month long pause, and it was easy to get into that issue because Kurt Busiek reset the scene. There were some very good visuals too. It's like, oh, yeah. First Family, they're kinda like the Fantastic Four. You know, the the memory jogs are in the issue. And I think even if we had only read issue 3, it still would have held up. It would have been a little perplexing of why does she wanna learn hopscotch? But if you can take certain things and just run with it, again, this is, I think, some of the best written comics out there, and it's exploring different areas of superhero reality than I think they typically do at Marvel and DC. It's it's part of why I've I've loved this series over the decades and wish we would get more of it. 0:49:11: JAMES: Yeah. I agree. It's fun and accessibility can't be emphasized enough because, like you said, you could have started with issue 3. And you would have been like, okay. What's this whole hopscotch thing that the issue would have made complete sense and you would have understood just as well as I did. You just didn't know why she was starting to win at hopscotch maybe. But beyond that, I mean, this has been just fantastic because I'd love the just the breath of I can go super light and airy too. I can go dark and dystopic. Within the span of four issues. It just boom. And I can introduce people here and there. Oh, in the background, you may not remember this one, but and it just callbacks to, like, that little character that chain the alien who hated the the humans. 0:49:53: JOHN: Mhmm. Bridgewell. Yeah. 0:49:54: JAMES: I didn't think we see him again, and here I was. I saw him again, and I remembered, and that lets me know this is a good story. This is nice. This is fun. 0:50:01: JOHN: Well, that issue ended with him signaling for an invasion. So I figured we'd get the alien invasion, which implied he might show up again, but I didn't think, you know, necessarily, certainly when I was reading it originally, would not have expected him to show up in this arc the way he did. 0:50:15: JAMES: Exactly. 0:50:17: JOHN: You know, framing Crackerjack. That's just mean. 0:50:19: JAMES: Yeah. What a what a mean guy. Hey, Crackerjack. He's, like, the hero that you love to hate. 0:50:26: JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. He's, again, like, a Booster Gold gone wrong. 0:50:29: JAMES: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, this is just like top shelf stuff. A lot of fun. And I'm so happy they're doing the the Metro books. Will we get more stuff? Who knows? I'm just thankful that we're getting the reprints right now. 0:50:41: JOHN: Well, they teased the start of an arc, so we're gonna be getting more stuff. It's just a question of when. 0:50:47: JAMES: Yeah. That's true. 0:50:48: JOHN: And I have no idea what's holding it up, and I hope whatever it is gets resolved. 0:50:53: JAMES: Me too. Cause I know they're not like, really, really aged, but they're not young, you know, spring chickens either. And so I'd like to see him revisit the property and put it get in some issues if they really have it in them. Before they get to a point where they just don't wanna work anymore. You know, you get to a point I'm assuming seventies, eighties where you just you don't want the grind, you know, unless you really just want to do something to keep you busy. 0:51:16: JOHN: I don't think they're at that point just yet. I think they've got another decade or two, but nobody lives forever. 0:51:22: JAMES: Exactly that too. 0:51:23: JOHN: Even if they die of extreme old age, there will come a point like you said where maybe they don't have the the energy to do it or the memory to do it or Brent Anderson, I think his art continues to improve over the years. There does come a point when you get old enough where that stops happening and it goes the other way. You know? So I'd rather get more out of them now. 0:51:43: JAMES: Yes. 0:51:44: JOHN: But, you know, when they tossed out that Astro City: That Was Then Special #1, and that's been year and a half now, and it was teasing a Teen Titans-ish arc. 0:51:54: JAMES: Yeah. 0:51:55: JOHN: It's like, man, it looks like so much fun. We just haven't gotten it yet. 0:51:57: JAMES: Yeah. I'm hoping for more of that, and this is completely unrelated, but another thing that makes me very sad at times is I would love to see some Greg Rucka either do Lazarus or do something. I just I mean, he did that magazine issue, which and that wasn't very good for me, but I missed that property and I was just like, man, can't we go back there and just play in that world some more? I just... 0:52:19: JOHN: We are gonna get more of Lazarus. He just wants to build up the issue so they can release it like clockwork because they realized they were having some schedule problems, and it wouldn't surprise me if part of what's taking a little while for more Astro City is they've got this arc they wanna tell, and they wanna be able to release it on schedule without any possibility of delay. And I respect that and I agree with that. It's just frustrating having to wait. 0:52:42: JAMES: Yeah. It is. I wouldn't be surprised if they build up, and this is just me speculating, you know, something like a year or 18 issues so that they can release them almost monthly and pump pump pump pump pump and then come out with a collection and give them some time to get it all done. And the wonderful thing is they have the luxury of to do that, and a lot of creators don't have that luxury unfortunately, you know, they if they're not writing, they they're not making any money. 0:53:09: JOHN: In fairness, for Kurt Busiek and team to have that what you call a luxury and stuff, they went and did this as a creator owned property and took some risks to do that. 0:53:21: JAMES: That's true. 0:53:21: JOHN: It paid off for them. It doesn't always pay off for everybody. 0:53:24: JAMES: That's true. Yep. 0:53:25: JOHN: You know, I've talked to a lot of people who did some stuff through Image in the earlier years. And even in the later years where they did good on the first issue, but a second issue never came out, and it turned out that if they had, they'd have lost money on it almost guaranteed based on what their orders were, what it would cost to print and some stuff like that. 0:53:44: JAMES: Wow. 0:53:45: JOHN: So for a creator owned property like Astro City to go for, you know, a 112, 113 issues over the span of granted decades. That's still pretty impressive. 0:53:55: JAMES: It's very impressive. So I'm happy we're reviewing this. This one and Warlord both make me very happy. And and I'm having a lot of fun doing these episodes with you. 0:54:06: JOHN: Yeah. I'm enjoying it a lot. I haven't reread either of the series of that in ages, And this one, I don't know that I've reread it since I had read them originally coming out, and they are such different series, yet such fun you know, each of them in very different ways. 0:54:21: JAMES: Exactly. And the benefit for me being your co host is I don't feel like I'm out of my league when I'm doing Astro City. Versus the Legion of 3 Worlds. I'm like, making up names for characters left and right because I don't know who's who. 0:54:33: JOHN: Yeah. I think Astro City is the kind of book that be fun to do with a book club of very widely read people. Yeah. Because I'm sure there are a ton of references I am completely missing. In this series just because I'm not well steeped in certain eras of Marvel or DC or or other comics and whatnot. 0:54:51: JAMES: Oh, yeah. If you had people who are very passionate about, well, let's say, seventies Marvel and DC or whatever. They probably will see stuff like Chris Myers, he was reading before us. And he probably would point out things, oh, that's so and so. Be like, oh, oh, that's cool. I didn't know that. 0:55:09: JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. I just wish I could find a Marvel series that I think would be as fun to dive into for the long haul. As Astro City or Warlord or the Legion. 0:55:19: JAMES: Oh, okay. So we're gonna do Peter David's hulk. I'm just kidding. We're not doing that. That's way too much. 0:55:25: JOHN: That's a very narrow chunk... 0:55:27: JAMES: That's true. 0:55:28: JOHN: ..of the Marvel stuff is the thing. 0:55:30: JAMES: Exactly. Now we gotta find that evergreen fun type property. I mean, we did Kurt Busiek's Avengers, and that's kind of in that vein, but it only went for 12 issues. 0:55:41: JOHN: We did Avengers Forever. 0:55:44: JAMES: Avengers Forever. What did I call it? 0:55:45: JOHN: Avengers. He did a run of Avengers with George Perez that was phenomenal, and it went for longer than 12 issues. 0:55:52: JAMES: Exactly. I was talking about the Avengers Forever. My bad. 0:55:55: JOHN: But I think part of it would be finding a Marvel property that would be fun to do, but is also self contained enough that we could just do that for an extended run. 0:56:05: JAMES: Yeah. You know what? I'm gonna give that some thought because I know that book exists. And if the listeners know something in that vein, maybe they could tell us on the Slack channel, send us an email and let us know what that property is. So maybe we could do a back issue type series on that. Yeah. Whatever that is. 0:56:22: JOHN: Yeah. I'd be game for doing another long haul kind of a series. Just do it, you know, 4 issues at a chunk or something if we could find that right Marvel property. 0:56:29: JAMES: Yeah. 0:56:30: JOHN: And I just I don't know what it would be. 0:56:32: JAMES: And to your point, I always like these kinds of podcasts, and I'm doing one now with you, but I told you I'm a big Judge Dredd fan. There's a podcast where they did I think they called them drock, d r o k k. That's what Judge Dredd always says, drock. And they did every one of the complete case files, like, 40 volumes, which is insanity, but it was kinda fun to listen to. But that's a lot of Judge Dredd. We're not doing that. That's a bit much. 0:56:57: JOHN: Yeah. We're we're not doing that. I'm not not really a Judge Dredd fan. 0:57:00: JAMES: Yeah. I did think so. 0:57:01: JOHN: One that would be an interesting possibly one to do. I don't know if it'd be the right pick, though. Would be Mark Gruenwald's run on Captain America. 0:57:09: JAMES: Oh, that is a good pick. 0:57:11: JOHN: That's fun. Because he was on that forever in a day, and he used that as a chance to take certain characters kind of out of the closet. That just hadn't been used for a while. It's like, let's bring him back out and do something with them for an issue or two. 0:57:24: JAMES: Isn't that where we got the werewolf Cap at one point? 0:57:26: JOHN: I'm trying to think if it was certainly Cap was the one that had that. I just don't remember if Gruenwald was still writing at the time. 0:57:32: JAMES: Yeah. I can't remember, but... 0:57:33: JOHN: He might have been. I just I don't remember. His run went for just forever. 0:57:38: JAMES: Yeah. We can research that because if that's the pick, I'm down for it. I think that's fun. And When it's good Captain America, I love Captain America. And, unfortunately, recently, we haven't been getting really good Captain America. 0:57:49: JOHN: Certainly, during Mark Gruenwald's run. It's classic, Captain America. 0:57:53: JAMES: Yeah. That'd be fun. 0:57:54: JOHN: But it also has the point where somebody else takes over as Cap and you just let the stuff. So if people would Be interested in that. Let us know. If there's another pick at Marvel that might be a better one, let us know. Cause I'm I'm kind of liking having the rotation of Astro City Spotlight, Warlord Spotlight, Legion Spotlight, and then just keeping the Back Issue Spotlight going. But having these others more long term things, makes it a little easier to kind of plan out and stuff because it's like, well, we know what the next few issues of Astro City are gonna be because they were the next few released. 0:58:23: JAMES: Yeah. Exactly. And what's funny is if I'm gone for whatever vacation or I'm out for a while, we know, hey, you've been out of town for a week or a week and a half, we tend to focus on Warlord because it's much lighter read, easier read. And then when we have a little bit more time, we move to Astro City for this. And it really works. And like you said, the planning out, it makes our lives easier recording this stuff. 0:58:46: JOHN: Well, and I do wanna point out to listeners that there are three potential reading orders for Astro City. There's the order they were released as issues, the order they were released in the trades, and the order they were released in the Metrobooks. They do not match exactly. 0:59:01: JAMES: Nice. 0:59:03: JOHN: We're following the issue order release. 0:59:06: JAMES: Exactly. 0:59:07: John: So it's a ton of fun, and I'm enjoying all this stuff. So, hopefully, the listeners are too. 0:59:12: JAMES: I am too, man. Tons of fun. 0:59:14: JOHN: Cool. Anything else? 0:59:15: JAMES: Nah. That does it for me. 0:59:17: JOHN: Cool. 0:59:22: JOHN: Recording clips for the Previous Spotlight episodes is easy and we've got an open submission policy for these episodes. Please send in clips to support the comics you love as often as you can. If you'd like to get email reminders for the Previous Spotlight episodes, you can join the emailing list on the main page of the ComicBookPage.com website. The deadline is typically the 2nd Saturday of the month at 9 AM. Check the main page of the website for more information and the exact deadline for the next Previous Spotlight. Now Previous Spotlight #193 for the December solicitations we're going back to the regular format. Those are gonna be due 9 AM, December 9th, the 2nd Saturday of December. And, again, regular naming convention, pick something out of the current catalogs, etcetera. For that one, if there's something from October, November, you just feel people have to know about, we could probably squeeze those in too. Just be sure to tell people that it's from one of the previous months. 1:00:17: JOHN: The show notes and forum for this podcast can be found at wwww.ComicBookPage.com under the podcast and forum section of the website. Please email us at TheGuys@ComicBookPage.com, and let us know what you think of what was discussed in this episode. Thanks for listening.