The Return of Astro City!

After almost three years, the greatest comic book returns June 5th!



When we last got to visit the great city, we were getting the final chapter of the Silver Agent's story, after wrapping up the massive Dark Age storyline. We were promised the monthly series after that, but creator Kurt Busiek's health took a bad turn for a while, in addition to the Wildstorm imprint being dismantled. But the wait will be worth it.
This comic is so much more than the fights of the tights. It's about the human aspect of what's it like living in a world of heroes, whether it be from a super powered perspective or of an ordinary guy who just moved to the city. They have the same thoughts, emotions and problems as we do, albeit with super villains running rampant. It's a deeper world of heroes and villains than the comic books of old.
Naturally my interest has waned in these in-between years, more so than similar hiatus for Kurt's health issues from 2000 to early 2003 (Or course my total comic interest these days is nowhere close to my teen years).
And Herocopia went down to spammers, plus we lost all the entries we put in and it reverted back to the original, which sucked considering we had entries for every character, neighborhood, thing and reference. If you wanted to know every issue Jack-in-The-Box was in, or who the Grandenetti Cathedral was named for, it was a quick reference for casual and hard core fan.
But I'm sure I won't have a problem getting back into the book  Even issues in a multi-part story do their best to be self contained and I'm sure Kurt will make the first issue very reader friendly, similar to the way he made volume 2 #1 of the main series and the first issue of the Local Heroes mini-series great jumping on points. There will be something for everyone.
In the MTV interview, he hints at a new intriguing character, The Broken Man, similar to the way the Silver Agent was to readers in the early issues. He's hinted that we've seen him before. My very early speculation guess would be he's the Bouncing Beatnik/Halcyon Hippie...
I'm eager to see the N-Forcer expose story that Kurt mentioned before the hiatus. It's a character who's been active in the Astro-Verse since at least 1959. Plus the fact that we'll see more of the present day characters after spending so much of the characters specials and the whole part of The Dark Age in the past. The Honor Guard is another of my favorite intrigues as I'm a sucker for super teams. They seemingly held the same roster from at least 1991 until 2008, the last time we saw the modern team. I'm just curious to some of the changes and inner workings.
But the older characters are very intriguing too. I'm still curious as to how the Silver Agent wouldn't have known Mirage, considering they were teammates on Honor Guard in the 1960s from the Dark Age Book Four #2. I want to see what the Astro-Naut looks like. Or how there were two different accounts of what happened to the All-American (I think I have another blog post formulating around now)...
Kurts always been masterful of  weaving from the past to present, in self contained, two-parters and multi parters. Heck the whole crew of Artist/Character Designer Brent Anderson, Colorist Alex Sinclair, Letterer and Designer JG Roshell and superstar Cover Artist/Character Designer Alex Ross are stellar.
June 5th can't get here soon enough. I guess I'll just have to break out some issues and get reacquainted with the great stories I already have.