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Astro City, Vol. 7: The Dark Age, Book Two: Brothers In Arms (2010)

by Kurt Busiek(Favorite Author)

3.8 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1401228437 (ISBN13: 9781401228439)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

DC Comics

series

Astro City

review 1: Clearly, a continuation of The Dark Age Book One, and a good one at that. It wraps up the story from bk 1, continuing to be told from the point of view from the two brothers. They've reconciled their differences & have decided to band together on their mission of revenge against the man who killed their parents. They're intent on retribution while huge powers fight & wage war around them in the world & Astro City.Not only are these books excellent, but it's opened up a new world of fantastic stories & writers to me. I love reading the introductions to find additional books to search out & read.I've seriously been thinking of purchasing the series (I know!) just so I can re-read them at my leisure.
review 2: The second half of Busiek's Dark Age epic is micro... morecosm of what is most excellent and most frustrating about classic superhero universe stories adn continuity. Following the brothers Royal and Charles on their quest for revenge against the man who killed their parents, Busiek paints the tapestry of 30 years of a magnificently detailed and intensely wrought world that is an overlay of our mundane history and that of a fantastic, four color existence. It shows the amazing depth and entertaining melodrama of such a world that unveils itself over years of serialized stories... while at the same time, capturing the incoherence and ridiculousness of the same. The Dark Age was Busiek's orignal story idea, that he proposed years ago... but he came to realize that the depth of detail and the relevance of events would be lost on an audience unfamiliar with the world he was imagining. So, he wrote Astro City's original stories instead. He brought us into the world, character by character, with quick, heavily stylized rewritings of classic superhero tropes, that slowly wove the web of a new and truly original world. Only after many years of this, with hints of a rich past strewn along the way, could he write the decades spanning epic of the Dark Age and have it resonate as deeply with the readers as he intended. This was supremely wise, as the complexity of the plot and characters, married to many overt deconstructions of comic book eras past and present, (Gold, Silver, Bronze and Modern Age, etc.), would have failed to have any real pathos or drama if the reader wasn't invested in this long standing mystery of an already loved setting. Brent Anderson's pencils are as strong as ever, enhanced by top notch coloring by Broome and Sinclair that surves to capture a consistent feel throughout, while changing to reflect to the changing times and tones and themes of the book. All in all, this is truly a masterpiece, one that works despite some major flaws (exactly what was going on with the Silver Agent? What direction was he traveling in time? After a while, every interruption of Charles and Royal's quest began to feel forced and the plot drawn out maybe one issue too long), and works in the best moments at the dramatic denoument, tying in real world heartbreak to Kurt's clear belief, that our world would be better if the true heroes of the classic comics really did exist... and if they upheld the values the old comics used to have.This is, ultimately, a very conservative comic, but that isn't always a bad thing. It works, it entertains, and it brings to reality a strong and consistent superhero universe that the big company's (Marvel and DC) have promised, but never been able to deliver because of the productized nature of their characters. Highly recommended. less

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