The real joy of Astro City isn’t in the powers or the costumes, but in the characters you encounter. Whether hero, villain or normie, every volume features a take on superhumanity that most stories wouldn’t (or couldn’t), and gives grounded, realistic moments amid the capes, tights and mythical beings. If you asked who my favorite Astro City character was, I’d probably be swayed by the last volume I read, meaning that right now it’s Steeljack, but in a week it could be The Confessor, Astra Furst or one of the various Bouncing Beatnik types, leading us to today’s Busiek/Anderson/Ross query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is right this very instant gonna say Crackerjack, but ask me again in half an hour, asking: Which Astro City character is your favorite unconventional comic book protagonist?
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I’m going purely by looks, because I don’t know much about characters: Cleopatra.
It’s not the most recent for me, but once you go Steeljack, you never go back. It’s the most humanistic character story without the confusing kind of bits that got woven into the Dark Age.
The Confessor due to his great costume and interesting backstory. I like how Busiek took the Batman archetype and changed it in a very interesting way.