Boviosity!

I'm lucky in that my county library has a rather extensive graphic novel collection. One of the reasons I'm lucky is that, even though I'm getting more into the habit of buying comix, there are still lots of books I would probably never buy and therefore probably never read, except for the library.

One such is Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Tarnished Angel, a noir thriller set in a city, and a world, where superheroes are basically taken for granted. The first book, Astro City: Life In The Big City was enjoyable enough but suffered from a highly repetitive and episodic structure: introduction of super hero; super hero wishes for an easier life; super hero saves the day; super hero slouches off to the horizon; repeat. The drawing is vibrant and amazing, though, and I do recommend it.

Which is sort of a problem for Tarnished Angel. While we do get a few of the huge pages of splashy color and action, this being a noir tale, is mostly set in the cramped shadows of AC's Kiefer Square and environs. The muted color and tight spaces leads to a few somewhat unfortunate page layouts, for instance when our hero and his crusty non-super sidekick are interrogating various residents of the square.

But what a hero! Recently paroled supervillain Carl "Steeljack" Donewicz is simply unforgettable: a metal man, created in a lab (ok, his origin story is quite perfunctory, as is the finale) who has still managed to age into a sad-eyed Robert Mitchum lookalike. He is definitely worth the price of admission as he tries to come to terms with his criminal past and his unwilling role as present-day hero.

So I give it a mild thumbs-up for well-drawn and occasionally thrilling comic-book action. Just don't look for another Watchmen. (Yeah, they can't all be Watchmen. And it's at least 100 times better than the pathetic Plastic Man: On The Lam which I also checked out last week.)