Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson Y Alex Ross They return to the second full volume of Astro City, the legendary superhero series that Planet Comic publishes in luxury volumes

Comic planet I continue with the second volume (of a total of six) of one of the most acclaimed superhero series published outside the two large giants mainstream American. After a shocking start, Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson y Alex Ross Continue with their work in Astro City Deconstructing Pijameros clichés to offer us the same as always in a totally and innovative way.

Astro City is another character

Entering Astro City is, from the first page, crossing the border to a metropolis that seems normal, almost every day, until you remember that the normality here is populated by people flying, speak with angels and fight against monsters. And although it looks current, here the city is one more character. In this second volume of compilation, the authors not only resume that balance between epic and human, but also enter darker and more deep soils, almost intimate, almost intimate.

Astro City is, in a certain sense, a cure for the dark and bloody comic that circulated enormously in the times when it was conceived. And that spirit is breathed in pages where history do not flee from the tough but faces it with humanity and reflection, not with easy blood. There are difficult moments to swallow in all the stories contained here, but there are also redemption, unexpected connections and promises of the future. Busiek does not avoid the slope, it makes us climb it. And in that climb, Anderson and Ross illuminate the road.

In those urban bullets, the bustle is heard, the traffic lights, the people who go to a concert or people who leave a canteen at midnight. Even the smallest sidewalk can save a flash of magic or tragedy, depending on the person who looks out. The inclusion in the volume of a tourist guide of Astro City is not a whim, but strengthens the immersive component that makes the reader feel like a more citizen who can get off the subway and get lost in a real road like any other, even if with the certainty that, around a corner, there could be a building that floats or an angel looking. And when the last page ends, the imaginary poster warning “You’re leaving Astro City, carefully guides” It has much more sense. Because you leave, yes, but with the uncertainty that this city is still there, beats, breathing and waiting for it to come back …

Steel

After a start with an ambitious and original car -perhaps needed Mark Russell As inspiration during creation We run along the left: the chronicles of the Lion Melquiades We arrive on an arc of the plot that supposes most of the volume, which revolves around a man named Carl Donewicz (better known as Man clinined steel) to which Anderson draws with the face of Robert Michum.

He is a bad guy who could be that boy who sees every day, with humble dreams and broken ambitions. Carl does not fail for a greater power that stops him, but for his inability to adapt, to find a house within that city full of perfect heroes. His conflict is not an assault on the world but a struggle to adapt, to reach (at least for a moment) a normal life. The fascinating thing is that this inability makes it paradoxically, the best commitment to save its community. That journey, from the antiero and misunderstood to the figure that can be redeemed, is the emotional heart of the volume and a clear champion of the contrast that defines this work: anonymous heroes with real problems that increase (sometimes literally) above the melodrama.

Seeing the city to advance through this story of gangster with a neighborhood heart is clear why many consider the city of Astro the best series of superheroes ever created. It is not because it has more physical actions, explosions or spectacular climax, but because it raises a human drama in a fantasy scenario: a boy who has lost his place in the world and is able to become a hero or a bad guy according to the surrounding environment. What Busiek does is look within the character, understand his emotional nucleus and expand it to an entire community. Heroes, bad, neighbors, passengers of a bus or taxi: everyone is pieces of urban mosaic.

Worship

Visually Brent Anderson continues to demonstrate why he was the ideal cartoonist for this story. He is not a particularly precious or shocking artist, but his shots refer to the greats of the classic genre, with relaxed anatomies, precise movement and a shadow management that gives volume without subtracting clarity. Its pages breathe the urban space, dinner at midnight, street lamps and scenes that reflect life as much as the emotions of their characters. For his part, Alex Ross appears as an architect of monumental covers, with those brush strokes that are an art within the art in which we see strata that greet, look at this question and detailed faces of a heroism that exists but that does not forget that it can be broken at any time.

The tone of the comic is not desolate as comics of the nineties but is not naive. There are too serious elements to bring them lightly, emotional challenges and a background of darkness that opposes light and hope. It is that duality that makes Astro City not only a superhero comic: it is a visual and narrative essay on what it means to be extraordinary in a world that needs more than powers. It needs empathy, resilience and community. If the first volume was a welcome, this is the next step: the city already knows the reader and now remains only for the reader to understand it.

Him Second full volume From this series published by Comic planet It is presented on a rigid cover without overcoming. Contain 504 pagesWith a page size 16.8 x 25.7 cmand presents the responsible translation of Javier Olivares From the American edition of volume #13 to #22 of the Astro City series, in addition to the number five of the miniseries Local heroes And some other complementary numbers and a lot of interesting extra material. The recommended sale price is 45 € And was put on sale in June 2025.

Astro City 2

A unique superhero comic.

The creative visionaries Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross attract their attention on the darkest side of Astro City in the prize -by winning Steel Story, a failed super -branding who seeks the opportunity to have a normal life and ends up being the only man who could save his community? And perhaps the world.

In addition, this volume also introduces you to the freezing blue gentleman, a living cartoon, an unusual editor of comics and other heroes, bad guys, citizens and visitors to the strangest city in the world.

And something else: an official guide for tourists on everything related to Astro City!

Is this what readers who loved superhero comics and complained about them and wanted to live in their worlds for a while? Have you always wanted those comics? (Slate)

A beautiful story of gangster. And a very good superhero story? (Frank Miller)

Authors: Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson e Alex Ross