My day job -- most of the time, anyway -- is as courts/crime reporter for a daily newspaper, so I found this issue of Kurt Busiek's always intriguing and well-scripted Astro City to be of particular interest. Criminal trials are not the creatures most people think they are. TV shows from Matlock to The Practice have trained North Americans to expect surprise witnesses and witness-stand confessions, and it just doesn't work that way. Does Busiek hit the mark here? He comes closer than his writing colleagues in TV land. The story -- which examines super-hero genre conventions from a realistic perspective, as do all Astro City stories -- leans a bit toward the dramatic, but this is fiction, this is storytelling. A sense of the dramatic is called for here, but Busiek balances it with a grounded voice.
It's 1974, and lawyer Vince Oleck has a mess of student loans hanging over his head, a family living in a two-bedroom apartment and a dog of a case he hasn't a hope in Hell of winning. It seems like a grey mist of discontent looms not only over his life, but over all of America. The people no longer trust their leaders or their protectors anymore. Vince's client -- the son of a vicious underworld crime figure -- seems destined to go to jail, but rather than fear his client's father's ire, Vince is struck by inspiration and devises a longshot defence.
Anderson's art reinforces the credibility that Busiek's grounded script already brings to a world of super-heroes. the characters look like real people, no idealized visions of human fitness, but at the same time, the artist captures the dynamic and imaginative nature of the super-powered elements that lurk at the periphery of Vince Oleck's life. Alex Ross's character designs are as striking as ever; the Blue Knight makes for a powerful and chilling visual.
It's interesting that Busiek has focused this series on bringing realism to the super-hero genre, but in this issue, he examines how super-hero conventions would wreak havoc with life as we know it. He points out that an objective merging of reality with super-heroes just wouldn't work. It would throw absolutes we take for granted into chaos. Life and death would have no meaning anymore. The laws of science would be broken as casually a municipal jaywalking bylaw.
The most intriguing aspect of the script is Busiek's exploration of the 1970s and how they served as a turning point for America. Civic pride and devotion to country are replaced with mistrust and fear. Such cynicism is taken for granted today, but it was thought-provoking to visit a time when such feelings were new and not entirely comfortable.
