Astro City, Vol. 5: Local Heroes

Astro City #5

by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson (Illustrator), Alex Ross (Cover Artist)

A graphic novel looks at the citizens of Astro City, including a defense attorney, a hotel doorman, and a comic book writer.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Science Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2004

About the author

Kurt Busiek is an American comic book writer notable for his work on the Marvels limited series, his own title Astro City, and his four-year run on Avengers.

Busiek did not read comics as a youngster, as his parents disapproved of them. He began to read them regularly around the age of 14, when he picked up a copy of Daredevil #120. This was the first part of a continuity-heavy four-part story arc; Busiek was drawn to the copious history and cross-connections with other series. Throughout high school and college, he and future writer Scott McCloud practiced making comics. During this time, Busiek also had many letters published in comic book letter columns, and originated the theory that the Phoenix was a separate being who had impersonated Jean Grey, and that therefore Grey had not died—a premise which made its way from freelancer to freelancer, and which was eventually used in the comics.

During the last semester of his senior year, Busiek submitted some sample scripts to editor Dick Giordano at DC Comics. None of them sold, but they did get him invitations to pitch other material to DC editors, which led to his first professional work, a back-up story in Green Lantern #162 (Mar. 1983).

Busiek has worked on a number of different titles in his career, including Arrowsmith, The Avengers, Icon, Iron Man, The Liberty Project, Ninjak, The Power Company, Red Tornado, Shockrockets, Superman: Secret Identity, Thunderbolts, Untold Tales of Spider-Man, JLA, and the award-winning Marvels and the Homage Comics title Kurt Busiek's Astro City.

In 1997, Busiek began a stint as writer of Avengers alongside artist George Pérez. Pérez departed from the series in 2000, but Busiek continued as writer for two more years, collaborating with artists Alan Davis, Kieron Dwyer and others. Busiek's tenure culminated with the "Kang Dynasty" storyline. In 2003, Busiek re-teamed with Perez to create the JLA/Avengers limited series.

In 2003, Busiek began a new Conan series for Dark Horse Comics, which he wrote for four years.

In December 2005 Busiek signed a two-year exclusive contract with DC Comics. During DC's Infinite Crisis event, he teamed with Geoff Johns on a "One Year Later" eight-part story arc (called Up, Up and Away) that encompassed both Superman titles. In addition, he began writing the DC title Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis from issues 40-49. Busiek was the writer of Superman for two years, before followed by James Robinson starting from Superman #677. Busiek wrote a 52-issue weekly DC miniseries called Trinity, starring Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Each issue (except for issue #1) featured a 12-page main story by Busiek, with art by Mark Bagley, and a ten-page backup story co-written by Busiek and Fabian Nicieza, with art from various artists, including Tom Derenick, Mike Norton and Scott McDaniel.

Busiek's work has won him numerous awards in the comics industry, including the Harvey Award for Best Writer in 1998 and the Eisner Award for Best Writer in 1999. In 1994, with Marvels, he won Best Finite Series/Limited Series Eisner Award and the Best Continuing or Limited Series Harvey Award; as well as the Harvey Award for Best Single Issue or Story (for Marvels #4) in 1995. In 1996, with Astro City, Busiek won both the Eisner and Harvey awards for Best New Series. He won the Best Single Issue/Single Story Eisner three years in a row from 1996–1998, as well as in 2004. Busiek won the Best Continuing Series Eisner Award in 1997–1998, as well as the Best Serialized Story award in 1998. In addition, Astro City was awarded the 1996 Best Single Issue or Story Harvey Award, and the 1998 Harvey Award for Best Continuing or Limited Series.

Busiek was given the 1998 and 1999 Comics Buyer's Guide Awards for Favorite Writer, with additional nominations in 1997 and every year from 2000 to 2004. He has also received numerous Squiddy Awards, having been selected as favorite writer four years in a row from 1995 to 1998,

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Astro City universe is nicely fleshed out with this volume starting with a look back at the City's inception, to a clever little tale about the newest heroine Flying Fox. This volume really gives a lot of history up from the early days of the Blue knight, stuff around the Atomicus' years, and lots of hints around the big Silver Agent story yet to be told.

A very unconventional move on from the previous volume that works pretty well. The Alex Ross covers are a delight as per. 8 out of 12.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astro City is home to lots of interesting people: a doorman who never managed to leave the city, a comic book writer struggling to write about real super heroes, a lawyer who has to defend a man whom is most certainly guilty, the would-be girlfriend of a super hero, an actor who plays a hero on tv, a girl forced to spend the summer with relatives in the country, and an old super hero who steps up when no one else is available...

Here we are, another visit to my favorite city. It's hard to keep finding new things to gush about. As with the last four volumes, there's a tremendous sense of history. What the hell happened with the Silver Agent, Kurt? Anyway, the familiar song is playing in the background instead of blaring in our ears and the humans take center stage.

The doorman's story in the first issue in this collection is a great slice of life tale. I wasn't as fond of the second one, mostly because I'm uneasy about super hero comics in a super hero universe. It was still good, though. The story of Atomicus was probably my second favorite of the book, a tribute to all those stories where Lois is trying to figure out Superman's identity. Leave Atomicus alone, bitch!

The Crimson Cougar's tale was good. There was a nice "coming to Jesus" moment near the end that I liked quite a bit. When the Samaritan is disappointed in you, it's time to rethink things. It ended nicely. Pastoral, the middle story in the book, was easily my favorite. It was the story of a girl from Astro City experiencing small town life and a small town super hero, much to her chagrin. It rang true on so many levels. So good.

The lawyer's tale was an interesting look at what a lawyer's life might be like in a city of super heroes and showed how broken our legal system can be at times. It would have been a little depressing if not for the Blue Knight. Supersonic's tale, the tale of an old man without a whole lot left to give, was another emotional one. Who can't relate to getting older and not being as capable as you used to be? The story wrapped with a tribute to 9/11 and it was short but sweet.

I see a lot of people bitching about Brent Anderson's art not being typical superhero fare. I don't think it should be since the story focuses more on the human characters. I think it suits the stories perfectly. Also, he hides things in the background. Check out Josh's reflection in lawyer story.

As with the previous four volumes, I feel like there are decades of old comics set in Astro City just waiting to be read in a storage area somewhere out there. I think the reason I like Astro City so much is because it doesn't keep rehashing the same tales of guys in costumes punching each other we've all been reading for decades. Instead, Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson go for the human approach. Four out of five stars.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories hearken back to Busiek's and Ross's Marvels where we get an anthology of normal people living amongst superheroes. I think my favorites where the story about the doorman, the comic book publisher and the one about the lawyer who uses all the madness of the superhero world such as shapeshifters and mind control to get his obviously guilty client off. I really like how the different stories invoke various time periods in comics books like the story about the lawyer showing the distrust of people in the 70's or the Lois Lane type woman who was always trying to reveal the identity of her superhero boyfriend.

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

nostalgia porn minus the guilty feelings afterwards, and of course minus the porn. that perfect sort of nostalgia that makes you wish the world now was like the world then. idealistic yet still realistic, not annoyingly naive. a sweet and appealing template that I can return to again and again. Astro City is a great series!



a panorama of heroes, both super-powered and ordinary. but hey what's ordinary? you can't live in Astro city and be ordinary. there's a publisher facing down hero and villain alike. an actor who plays a superhero strives for something greater. a feisty political aide falls in love with a superhero and unwittingly torments him with her ceaseless attempts to prove his identity. a rebellious teen forced into the countryside for the summer finds the unspoken rules governing super-powered and ordinary relationships are quite different from the big city. a defense attorney learns that applying the rules created for heroes and villains to his gangster client will reap an unpleasant reward; a terrifying superhero known as the Blue Knight cuts a bloody path through the underworld. an old man dons his old costume, rises to the occasion, saves the day - and is still an old man. a young boy thanks his rescuer, an ordinary firefighter.



these are all short stories; Local Heroes is a series of vignettes depicting a range of time periods rather than one overarching narrative. the tone is bittersweet, which is typical for the series. Brett Anderson's art is delightfully retro. Alex Ross' covers are beautiful. the whole thing is mournful and hopeful and wonderful. on to the next one!

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Kurt Busiek, and love some of his stories (Superman: Secret Indentity) but this series just isn't hooking me.

So we have a bunch of stories of different people all relating to superhero times. One guy is an actor trying to be a hero, and starts being heroic, only to realize real super villains can end that quick. We have another guy who's a bell clerk for a hotel for superheroes. So on and on. Basically mundane storylines of regular people interacting with heroes. Which is the point of the series but this one just doesn't click with me.

Good: The art as always is really solid. Kurt has a real knack for giving us real dialogue. You have the cheesy superhero feel at times but besides that, everyone talks like they're actual people, which is nice. I also think it's easy to jump around each story since they all only loosely relate.

Bad: I don't get attached. I really want to love a character, or characters, but it's hard to really do that when it's pretty much on the outside looking in at all times. None of the heroes or villains are memorable and trying to capture the essence of superhero stories I think that's important.

Overall, another good volume, but not great. I dunno if I'll continue this one because I don't like giving it just a decent rating while I think others would love it. I might try the next arc just because it looks like it has a overarching story, but we shall see. A 3 out of 5.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superhero slice of life. This one is more ground level than some of the more recent Astro City stories have been. The story that opens the collection, about a hotel bellman, is one of the better ones. It's take on how people would really feel about living in and visiting a city full of superheroes is, I think, true to life. Some of the other stories aren't as good. I was unimpressed by the two part story about an Astro City teenager going to spend the summer in the country, which was more to do with the obnoxious narrator than anything else. But the young lawyer who uses superhero precedents (Evil twins! Mind control! Shape changers!) in a normal criminal case makes up for it by being sympathetic despite his sleazy tactics. And the last story, about a boy thanking the fireman who saved his life, is authentically moving. Overall, slightly uneven, but far better than not on the balance.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Local Heroes so much more than the first volume Astro City Vol. 1: Life in the Big City. I'm still not lovin' the art, but I'll get over it.

[Little Timmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astro city is a very human look at superheroes and villains. Here we see they have much of the same problems we have. Highly recommended

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always happy to read a volume of Astro City. Kurt Busiek has a knack for writing the superhero stories we imagined we read growing up. I'm honestly not sure how his writing comes across to those who didn't grow up reading comics. His stories are layered with emotional complexity and nuance, filtered through a warm, nostalgic glow. He doesn't just write a Superman story, but the Superman story you've always wanted to read, even if you didn't know it. Obviously, DC owns the copyright to Superman, so, in Astro City, it would be Samaritan. You get the idea. There's a certain comfort and satisfaction I get from reading Astro City that I don't recall experiencing with any other writer.

This volume is composed of shorter stories, tales that only took one or two issues of the comic book to tell. A young girl spends the summer with relatives on the farm, and discovers that they have superheroes too (and I love the name of the town, Caplinville, a tribute to the creator of Li'l Abner.) A lawyer comes up with a novel defense for his client, with unexpected consequences. A soap opera star tries his hand at playing hero. A comic book publisher must deal with real supervillains annoyed at his depiction of them in his comics.

Sadly, as always, this visit to Astro City is over all too soon. As long as Busiek keeps writing them, I'll keep reading them!

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The grand re-read continues. Though I'm pretty distracted by the election week counts. This didn't work for me quite as well on this time through. Maybe because the characters felt more old and defeated. Maybe because I've liked the longer stories on the re-read better. The city girl visiting the country was probably my favorite this time through. Drop the review from 4.5 down to a 4.

Another great book. All good stories, all different and unexpected. Real characters, good writing. Maybe a little bit too heavy on living in a superhero world as a non superhero, but hey I like that kind of thing. Even the city girl visiting the country worked better than expected and showed a possible difference in the rural superhero world. 4.5 of 5.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

This was really good. Several different scenarios explored from a retired hero who finds himself back in action to the changes required in a courtroom trial when the world has shapeshifters and mind control issues on a regular basis. Just a really good volume that pretty much is the Astro City series in a nutshell. This is a really good and unique series, looking forward to continuing with the next volume.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back to the episodic format, as opposed to the last volume where the entire thing told one story. I had been thinking as I read that it was great that none of it felt dated at all, unlike some of the science fiction I've read that doesn't hold up even a bit more than a decade later. Until the girl in one of the chapters was sent to live with her country relatives for the summer and was shocked and appalled that they only had one telephone line and she'd have to wait for it to be available to be able to use their dial-up internet connection. Reading that in 2016, it's hard to remember when I had to worry about things like that. But other than that, part of the style is the way the stories all have a bit of an old-fashioned feeling, a very classic comic book style that makes it feel timeless, and I bet they will hold up well into the future. I liked all of the tales in this volume, although only one really moved me. The book felt like it was part of a plan to continue filling in the big picture of what Astro City is, one piece at a time. This book showed a lot of how living in Astro City affected some regular people, in all sorts of interesting ways. The best chapter by far was "Since the Fire," which was first published in volume 2 of 9-11 The World's Finest Comic Book Writers and Artists Tell Stories To Remember. Everyone from the talent, suppliers, printer and distributors all donated their time and efforts and all profits from that book were donated to several 9/11 victims charities. The Astro City team of Kurt, Brent, Richard, JG, Alex Sinclair and Alex Ross created a wonderful short story about a little boy who wanted to thank the fireman who saved him. The fireman lost most of one leg when he went back into the building to save some other people after he rescued the boy, and the boy wondered if he regretted going to work that day. It's only a few pages long, but it's one of the best examples of the art of comic books I've seen, so moving, so effective. The team who created it worked together perfectly. I sobbed, of course. The book in it's entirety was good, solid Astro City stories, capped off by a little masterpiece at the end.

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite excellent. Most people seem to enjoy the later volumes which focus on a single story, but I quite like these random volumes with self-contained and separate stories more because they let me see the world and characters from a variety of angles.

[Venus Maneater · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astro City is one of my favorite series, reading it feels like an actual visit to the Superhero-infested city, and it's the best. Doesn't matter what volume, the art is always top-notch and the storytelling is engaging, thrilling and pokes fun at the golden era of superheroes, without it feeling like actual satire.

This volume is a little more down to earth than it's predecessors, literally - there's very little flying, because we follow four average citizens of Astro City. Each of them tells us their story of superhero encounters, and how it changed and shaped their lives.
Some of their tales are heartbreakingly sad, like the one told by a collector of superhero paraphernalia, who had and lost her very own hero. And some are heartwarming, like the story of an Astrocity teenager who gets shipped off to the 'boonies' as she calls it, only to find out that even small towns have their own heroes.

I just finished reading and miss the busy city life already.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I dunno, I like Astro City okay? The one-and-done aw-shucks Americanism of it wears me down a little, but the idea of what it wants to be is just excellent. I don't know.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series. Volume 5 was another swell collection of stories.

[Jiro Dreams of Suchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now this is on me - none of these stories felt great. They are all fine, interesting at times and full of nice comic art and design but I can’t really say a single story from this collection stood out to me. The final story (not the 9/11 one) about the old hero coming back and not living up to his past was my favorite but I really think there is a BETTER version of that exact story somewhere that’s a few issues longer. This is a fine read and all of Astro city is worth it, this is just a little behind the rest.

[Carlex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astro City continues to provide good stories.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I think I have to take back what I said in my review of volume 4. Up to this point, I'd been far less impressed with all the one-off stories of Astro City than I had been with the bigger arcs, which I'd loved. But then this came along. While I'm still underwhelmed with volumes 1 and 3 of this series, 5 really knocked it out of the park. It's a great collection from beginning to end, every single story engaging, thrilling, and very original. I think by this point Busiek had really figured out what his favorite part of Astro City was: the people.

Volume 3 focused heavily on the superheroes of Astro City. It did a decent job of telling some just-above-average, humanized superhero tales, but that's still all they were. In Local Heroes, though, Busiek focuses almost exclusively on the regular people getting by in this insane, Silver- and Bronze-Age superhero metropolis. The result is stories that take this high concept and push right it back down to street level, thoroughly grounded, dealing with issues we all deal with in real life, only seen through the eyes of people living in a fantastical world. I was totally hooked by this volume, and found it to be very touching in the way it harnesses the feel of superheroes.

This book was written roughly 9 years after Busiek's similarly-themed classic Marvels, but I have to say, I liked the stories in Local Heroes more. Maybe that's some kind of blasphemy since Marvels is revered so highly among comic book readers, but it just didn't hit me the same way Local Heroes did.

This could in part be due to the 9/11 story in this volume. I've read a few different 9/11 comic book tributes, and my general feeling has always been one of discomfort. The events of that day were so tragic and real, and when approached in comic books, usually came across pretty strange. Something about portraying the attack on the World Trade Center in a world where Galactus sometimes comes down to destroy the whole planet reads as false and exploitative, even if it is a genuine reaction from the artists involved. Not so with Busiek's. First of all, he doesn't set it in the real world, or attempt to draw a flimsy parallel to the attacks themselves. Instead, he writes a moving, thoughtful tribute to another regular Astro City inhabitant: a firefighter injured in the line of duty. As such we get an honest and original tribute to our own fallen heroes, that really echoes what a lot of people went through that day in the real world. Major kudos to Busiek for pulling that off.

All in all, Astro City is a series that NEEDS to be read by superhero comic lovers. It offers a totally new perspective on the genre that somehow just keeps on growing and expanding. It's tough to find a better superhero comic out there.

[Brian DiMattia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I'm not rounding this book up from 4 and 1/2 stars is that because as good as it is, the legendary "Confessor" and "Tarnished Angel" series from Astro City were even better.

Astro City is an alternative super hero comic book series. It tells the stories that dozens of other books haven't found time to tell over the decades that they've been published. To wit: What would the real world be like with superheroes in it? What would it be like when they got old? How would the justice system be different? What would life be like for second or even third tier heroes in a town filled with the best? And most importantly, how would someone with no power at all live a life in a town filled with it?

(As a side note, the excellent series "Spider-Man's Tangled Web" did actually try to stretch beyond the usual stuff and present interesting sidelights, but it didn't last that long.)

Local Heroes has several memorable pieces, like the one about a powerful, otherworldly hero who just gets sick of the clever, "Lois Lane" type who he keeps trying to protect, or the one about the defense attorney who thinks to apply super hero paradigms to the life of a very ordinary criminal. It's smart and incisive.

It's also creative! Astro can't tell stories about Daredevil, Spider-Man or the Punisher, so it has some fascinating stand-ins like The Street Angel, Jack-In-The-Box and the Blue Knight. But these aren't remakes, they're alternatives with their own stories that you wish you could read more of!

There are plenty of legendary comic book superheroes out there. But if you really want to think your way through these alternate realities, you need to read Astro City. And even though it's the fifth collection in the series this one could easily serve as a great introduction to it!

[Nate]

Every time I read Astro City, I feel like I’m there, among the everyday people and the heroes. The world feels so tangible. Even in the first issue, Astro City seemed fully fleshed out, with characters and stories and history just waiting to be discovered. Among many other things, that’s what I love about this series: discovery. Astro City is not the type of book where you eagerly anticipate what happens next, a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, it’s about discovery – of the city, the characters, and, broadly, what a world with superheroes is like. For me, that sense of discovery is as thrilling and fantastic as any plot-driven epic.

This book collects eight stories, all with plenty to discover. A few take place in Astro City’s past. The lawyer/Blue Knight story is a favorite of mine, but the others are wonderful as well. It’s simply another great volume.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fantastic book in this series.

James Robinson put it perfectly in the intro: "...under Kurt's expert hand, this comic is about the city itself and to a larger degree the human condition--what it's like as an ordinary person to live among giants, or what it's like (as a person) to don the mantle of giants with its responsibilities and woes. A lesser writer would have made this book about the fights and the powers and everything we've already read. Kurt allows us to tell those stories ourselves in our imaginations from every comic book we've ever read, while he concentrates rather on the stories we haven't seen before."

The stories are fantastic, the illustrations are beautiful...there is honestly no reason for you not to start reading Kurt Busiek's "Astro City."

[Cale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astro City stories always stand a level above traditional comics, as they dig deeper into the world around the heroes, with the heroes being more scenery than central characters. This collection of single and double-issue stories covers a gamut from a Lois Lane analog who is less successful with her superhero love interest, a look at super heroes in a rural town, and a two-part story that focuses on the impact of super heroes and super villains on the legal system, which is a fascinating idea. All the stories are strong, with the most powerful being the 9-11 response story Since the Fire. Although it's technically volume 5 of Astro City, it stands on its own perfectly well - the stories are one shots and all the characters you need to know are introduced in each story.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories here don't deconstruct what it means to be a hero, they show us what it means--and it ain't about the fancy costume, of course.

The beauty of Astro City is the fact that while there are plenty of silly costumes and un-believable comic action, the stories are human-sized and down-to-earth. For example, the story about the kid who seeks out the firefighter who saved him from a burning building--who lost a leg in the process--to thank him and finds out that the one-legged survivor has his own heroes to thank (and they weren't wearing costumes).

Sigh, this is the last collection. On to the Dark Age line to see if it measures up.

[Clint · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic read. Volume 5 returns to the same format of volumes 1 and 3, collection of one issue stories, and one two parter.

These are the tale that really sell what Busiek and company do so well with these stories. They are not “what would the world be like if superheroes were real?”; no, Astro City is a place where aliens, giant robots, capes and all sorts of comic book goofiness do exist, the creators show us what “that” world looks like from the inside.

I have nothing bad to say about this volume. The two parter was my least favorite and the only thing holding back that fifth star. Comics took a turn for the worse in the 90’s, but one great thing born of the 90’s is Astro City.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Astro City anthology series continues to be solid entertainment and this time, it doesn’t focus on the larger-than-life heroes or vigilantes at all. Instead, as the title implies, it puts a spotlight on the everyday people in Astro City and shows us how anyone can be a hero and/or change the world, not just those with super powers. My favorite stories are: the two-parter that illustrates how the court system is fundamentally affected by the mere presence of superheroes, "Newcomers," about a veteran Astro City bellhop who observes the different experiences for tourists in the city, and the short but sweet 9/11 tribute at the end.

[Asciigod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astro City is always a pleasure to visit, but chances are you already knew that.

Busieks consistently deconstructs the superhero genre with love and grace. Ingeniously he preps his canvas with the densest fill of miraculous wonders. Then he works backwards, chiseling away to outline the mundane and *real* dramas of the human condition. The results are absolutely representative of Universal Truths: flaws, strengths, confusion, love, etc. By imbuing his heroes and villains with such awesome strength, he leaves no room left over for heavy hands.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real variety of stories. Some, like the Bulldog Comics story and the hotel doorman story are just OK, but there are some real winners too, such as the two-part lawyer story, the stunt man story, and especially the Atomicus story. However, the biggest joy of the Local Heroes stories is its dwelling on the past of Astro City from the '60s of Atomicus to the '70s of the Blue Knight to the old age of Supersonic. It's a great look at history within the Astro universe and also a terrific setup for the Dark Age that follows.

[[Name Redacted] · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best volume yet. Genuinely moving and thoughtful.

[Higor Hebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Todas as histórias são lindas de algum jeito, é uma homenagem perfeita aos quadrinhos de super herói