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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 18, 2018 17:33:37 GMT -5
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Post by rberman on Apr 19, 2018 5:34:27 GMT -5
Volume 3 #18 “The Dimming of the Day” (February 2015)
Theme: Not ready to retire Focus Hero: After a particularly bruising battle, Crackerjack falls asleep in the tub while Quarrel II (Jess Taggart) reflects on her past… She grew up with her mailman dad Mack Taggart (a pun on Moira McTaggart?) in poverty-stricken rural Kentucky. He taught her fighting and gymnastics, and she was shocked when he was arrested as the super-villain Quarrel, along with his Terrifying Three sidekicks Cutlass and The Steel-Jacketed Man. He’s in and out of prison, and Jess learns to use his hidden gear. When armed robbers crash the junior/senior prom (looking to steal some corsages? Probably not much money at a rural high school dance), she makes her heroic debut. Civilians: Johnny is Jess’ cousin. Arla is her alcoholic mom. L.M. (“Little Mack”), Dickie, Toby, and Paulie are her brothers. Mike Trapper and Junior Wilkerson live nearby. Other Heroes: Black Rapier turns out to be black under his costume too. He’s retiring after 45 years of heroics, an unusually long career thanks to a youth serum that only works for him. The Crossbreeds have disbanded. The Reflex 6 and the J-Hawks are making a splash. Starwoman gave Quarrel II some alien healing ointment. Hummingbird I captured Quarrel I once. Rocket Dog was the canine sidekick of Blue Missile.Other Villains: The Chessmen are at it again, having killed their former King, Rinaldo.Places and Things: Butler’s reopens for Black Rapier’s retirement party. Kelueki Liniment is an exotic healing poultice. Patsy’s is a bar in rural Kentucky. My Two Cents: The title of this issue comes from a lovely mellow song about fidelity in old age by British performer Richard Thompson. We’ve seen several different stories about aging; this one most resembles the plight of Supersonic, called out of retirement and facing the fact that he can’t do what he used to do. Crackerjack and Quarrel have remained active and are pushing back against the notion that retirement may be necessary. Many costumed vigilantes are essentially high-performance athletes, and pro sports is a young man’s game. You’re doing well to be competitive in your thirties; Crackerjack and Quarrel are pushing fifty now. But they don’t have families to stay at home with, just each other. And they don’t have day jobs to fall back on either. They’re trapped on the treadmill and can feel themselves going a little more slowly every month. They need to find a way to transition into a mentoring/consultant gig before it’s too late. Up until now, I’ve avoided using any Alex Ross’ cover images as the art samples from each story, but this one is just too good to pass up. It may be my favorite cover he’s done for the whole Astro City project. Mirrors, lighting, the ointment coming from the tube, the trash can full of bloodied wipes, the gloves on the bed, the boots on the floor. It’s quite a work of art.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 19, 2018 23:52:45 GMT -5
I LOVE this story. I only wish Marvel and DC would allow this kind of long term development.
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Post by rberman on Apr 20, 2018 5:35:40 GMT -5
Volume 3 #19 “Pushing It” (March 2015)
Theme: complex Elektra Focus: Jess “Quarrel II” Taggart checks out new combat armor from Dr. Royce at N.R.Gistics. Crackerjack finds it too cumbersome and tries to sweet-talk lab tech Daria into modifying Black Rapier’s youth serum for him, but no luck. Jess reminisces about her arrival in Astro City in 1984. She defeats Steel Devil’s gang and teams up with Street Angel. In 1987 after rescuing Honor Guard (Samaritan, Beautie, Stormhawk, Starfighter, N-Forcer, Black Rapier) from the Ion Empire, she gets invited to join up. Sure! In 1994 she meets Crackerjack, who gives her a series of contradictory tall tales about his origins. They become lovers despite his often boorish behavior. When Praetor tries to unmask Honor Guard through a lottery scam, Jess ends up with twenty six million dollars. Cool! But then she’s wounded battling the Unholy Alliance (Glowworm, Demolitia, Spice, Flamethrower, and Slamburger). Doc Cannon wants her to have bedrest, but Crackerjack persuasively argues that if she doesn’t get back on her feet ASAP, she’ll permanently lose her edge. Other Heroes: Jess helped found the Omega Rangers while visiting the year 1982 from the year 1988 while fighting The Chronarch. Miscellanea: Heroes can earn a living by turning in criminals to the police for bounty money. My Two Cents: The heart of this issue is the twisted Crackerjack/Quarrel relationship, with the implication that her daddy issues keep her coming back to this boor who cheats on her but also understands her needs in a way that no one else does. Both of them are unpowered heroes, only as good as their most recent training session. These kinds of toxic, co-dependent relationships are a dime a dozen in rural Appalachia where she comes from.
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Post by rberman on Apr 21, 2018 7:02:01 GMT -5
Volume 3 #20 “Doing Battle” (April 2015)
Theme: Too wounded for love Focus: Jess was M.P.H.’s lover during one of her breakups with Crackerjack. Now he’s having to cover for her more and more as she makes mistakes during combat. Crackerjack got all cut up by a loser named Demonhead, but he’s too prideful to accept her suggestion that they hang up their togs. He’s still obsessed with Black Rapier’s youth serum, so when the last three vials of the serum get stolen in the night, Quarrel knows it’s Crackerjack. Security footage confirms it, and worse, he’s captured and tortured by the super-villains Gormenghast and the Black Lab when he tries to get them to help him modify the serum. Villains: The alien Imperion and his Khyborgs fail to conquer Earth again. Bio-Zord, Killer Elite, and Phero-Man are previous Black Lab clients. We meet Spice’s deceased partner Sugar in a flashback, with her candy-themed bustier and weaponry. The Mime Gang can’t stand up to Quarrell even when she’s solo. Vivi Viktor had a fake youth ray. Miscellanea: At one point Jess mutters Yosemite Sam’s minced oath “Rassmfrassmgraar…” under her breath. Jess has a Beefy Bob’s T-shirt. My Two Cents: Just as some women like Jess are drawn to bad boys, some men like M.P.H. seem attracted to wounded doves like Jess. We’ve previously seen him take a special interest in Beautie when she was lonely. This could be simple human compassion, or it could be that he feels intimidated talking to women who have it all together. Or a complex combination of both motives. Jess can’t accept M.P.H.’s love because she preemptively beats herself up over every mistake. She’s been conditioned from youth to expect severe consequences for infractions, and she can’t handle it when he just forgives her. Crackerjack in turn is handling the realities of aging worse than any of the previous examples we’ve seen like Supersonic. We also see that she has an unopened email from her father from long ago.
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Post by Hoosier X on Apr 21, 2018 15:36:21 GMT -5
I've only read the last two parts of the four-part Quarrel/Crackerjack arc but it's my favorite multi-part storyline from this incarnation of Astro City.
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Post by rberman on Apr 22, 2018 7:13:53 GMT -5
Volume 3 #21 “The End of the Trail” (May 2015)
Theme: New purpose Focus: Crackerjack has been used as the basis for a youthful clone army created by Gormenghast and the Black Lab. Honor Guard (Samaritan, Quarrel II, Wolfspider, Assemblyman, Beautie, M.P.H., Hummingbird II) find his broken body after winning the battle. He lives, but his fighting days are clearly over. Quarrel's new armored suit is cool, but can she does she want to keep going? She visits her dad for the first time in over twenty years, and he counsels her that people can adjust to reduced life circumstances, given time. She’s not ready for that for herself or Crackerjack. She resigns Honor Guard to devote herself to being his full time physical therapist. Samaritan is irked that Honor Guard seems to have no country for old heroes and sets his mind to a find a solution. Other Heroes: Nick Furst was once de-aged by Doc Cyclotron. Atomicus was once de-aged by The Nuclear Empire.People and Places: Mu Kim Pork Palace is Quarrel’s favorite restaurant. Mack Taggart lives at the Allendale rest home in Orr, WV. Clyde and Mrs. Flutterman live there too. My Two Cents: There’s nice symmetry between Crackerjack helping wounded Jess two issues ago (in flashback), and her devotion to him now that the shoe is on the other foot. It also gives her an “out” to heroing without losing face, a new challenge to occupy her time, a new windmill to tilt. People need to feel useful.
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Post by rberman on Apr 23, 2018 8:21:26 GMT -5
Volume 3 #22 “Hero’s Reward” (June 2015)
Theme: Golden Years Focus Hero: Novelist Duncan Keller is secretly a mystic hero who gets his story ideas from actual outlandish environs he’s visited. His spells are Greater and Lesser Loruses. He accesses his home on the world of Jarranatha through a secret portal on Mount Kirby, the source of all good things. He lives there with his sexy alien wife Ilula the Seven-fold Empress and two kids. He thinks back from the frame story to his origins…. (cue wavy screen effect) As a soldier in Vietnam, Keller saw a weird symbol on the wall of an ancient temple. He practiced drawing it in the air and, accessing ancient powers, became the hero Starfighter. He joined Honor Guard and also helps free Ilula’s people from tyranny, winning her love. He barely survives a battle against the Voidlord. That’s enough heroing! He tries to train a successor, Charlie “Quark” Provost, but that doesn’t go well; time to pull out an amnesia spell, stripping Quark’s powers. He doesn’t take it well and vows revenge.. Keller settles into family life for decades, which brings us back to the present… (cue wavy screen effect) Ilula takes Keller to spy on their daughter Trill who is training with a super-squad including a giant slothlike Bawarz of Serrani, an octopoid Antarean Cephalopod, a cloudlike Secti-Swarm from the Cloudmoons, and a human who looks identical to Keller’s young Starfighter appearance. He doesn’t even notice that detail, so surprised is he that his daughter is adventuring. He also has a sense of unease but can’t put his finger on it. Then the story ends. Other Supers: Doc Daedalus is mentioned. Tenedor is a dragon. “Fictional” Elements: Glory Moon, Star-Shark, The Trefoil Nations (sold by Girl Scouts?), Xemex the Cruel, The Seventh Sword
Astro City Things and Places: Derbyfield, Fass Gardens, Fujitani Bay, Binderbeck Plaza. Doublestrength is a rock band whose CD Keller brings to his kids. I guess they don’t have Spotify in Jarranatha. My Two Cents: Since we first saw Starfighter many year ago, readers were primed to expect him to be a spacefaring hero of the Captain Mar-Vell variety. But no, despite his sci-fi looking costume, he’s a magic user. The bare bones of the story (superhero grows old, is surprised to learn that his child is also a superhero) overlaps substantially with Busiek’s excellent “Superman: Secret Identity” story. I really don’t understand the part about the young human Starfighter, or why that didn’t interest Keller. Anyone? Anyway, this issue is the thematic opposite of the Supersonic special, which depicted old age as a time of frustrated enfeeblement and nostalgia, or the Crackerjack story, in which the fight against age leads to tragic consequences. The difference: family.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 25, 2018 11:11:26 GMT -5
Steeljack's look is based on Robert Mitchum.
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Post by ascension29 on Apr 27, 2018 19:45:32 GMT -5
Thank you so so so much for this thread. I love and have read Astro City in its entirety several times. Your thread has sparked me to reread it once again for the first time in about 15 years. I am 43 years young and have no one in my life to discuss comic books with. This thread has given me a chance to read and discuss my favorite superhero series of all times and that says a lot about the series, seeing as I have read and collected tens of thousands of comic books over a 35 year period. Astro City is one of the very few comic books since 1985 that has that pure superhero feel of the Golden Age and I love it. Thanks a lot, James
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Post by rberman on Apr 27, 2018 22:49:44 GMT -5
Thank you so so so much for this thread. I love and have read Astro City in its entirety several times. Your thread has sparked me to reread it once again for the first time in about 15 years. I am 43 years young and have no one in my life to discuss comic books with. This thread has given me a chance to read and discuss my favorite superhero series of all times and that says a lot about the series, seeing as I have read and collected tens of thousands of comic books over a 35 year period. Astro City is one of the very few comic books since 1985 that has that pure superhero feel of the Golden Age and I love it. Thanks a lot, James Welcome! As you re-read the series, feel free to comment on the various issues here.
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Post by rberman on Apr 29, 2018 7:00:38 GMT -5
Volume 3 #23 “Sticks” (July 2015)
Theme: Marching to his own drum Focus: Sticks the Gorilla (birth name: “ Stekk,” still a gorilla) auditions to play drums for a band called Learner’s Permit. He attracts attention rescuing two people from an apartment fire. Dave, Carnie, and Shako let him crash in their loft, and he tells his tale. He’s from the Savage Land (but it’s called Gorilla Mountain here) in Antarctica. The Furst brothers (Gus and Julius) were first to come there from the human world, giving them hi-tech weapons to fight the dinosaurs that come through the Dimensional Rift as dinosaurs are wont to do. Their whole society is militaristic and reclusive, but Sticks discovered rock and roll and decided to sneak out to Astro City. He has a fun jam session with his new band/ roommates. The next morning the Reflex 6 show up ( Skyraker, Astra, Medulla, Tearaway, Jimmy Shade) and invite him to join, but he declines. Then he escapes from Scavenger-One and the Recovery Squad, who planned to sell him into service to The Contrabandit or The Talent Agency. He’s depressed by his time in Astro City so far. How can he play in a band if he’s going to get attacked all the time? That offer from the Reflex 6 is starting to look better… Heroes: The First Family fight Ionix at Binderbeck Plaza. Places: Baobab Plaza in Gorilla Mountain has a statue of the Furst brothers. Musical Shoutout: Pink Bedroom by John Hiatt. My Two Cents: Thematically, this is very similar to Sully’s story from Issue #4, but with Solovar as the lead character. He has his own career aspirations (once again entrepreneurial rather than corporate), but he also has a skill set that makes him a valuable recruitment target for both heroes and villains, and the latter in particular don’t take “no” for an answer.
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Post by rberman on Apr 29, 2018 7:02:08 GMT -5
Special Note: I realized yesterday that I had posted reviews for issues 32-36 prematurely. I have erased those reviews from our continuity for the moment.
-Antimonitor RBerman
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 29, 2018 13:12:21 GMT -5
Special Note: I realized yesterday that I had posted reviews for issues 32-36 prematurely. I have erased those reviews from our continuity for the moment. -Antimonitor RBerman The Hanged Man came and offered to erase I memory of them. But I turned him down.
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Post by rberman on Apr 29, 2018 14:07:25 GMT -5
Special Note: I realized yesterday that I had posted reviews for issues 32-36 prematurely. I have erased those reviews from our continuity for the moment. -Antimonitor RBerman The Hanged Man came and offered to erase I memory of them. But I turned him down. I could just say that Infidel and/or Samaritan did it.
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