Review: Astro City, Tarnished Angel
Feb. 20th, 2010 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalSummary: In Astro City, home of fifty years of comics history that's never really been published, Carl Donewicz AKA Steeljack, an 800-pound man with a body made of living steel and with a face like a chromed Robert Mitchum, is the villainous goon that might show up when the writer needs a random heavy. Except he just got out after a twenty-year stint in the joint and this time he's determined to go straight. But what's an ex-con to do who doesn't have the brains for an office job or enough control over his strength to keep from snapping dishes when he tries to wash them at a diner?
Well, turns out that someone in his old neighborhood is hunting down some of the other "black masks", two-bit, third-rate crooks with a bit of tech or training, but without the class to ever make it big. He may not have the brains to be a detective, but one thing Steeljack does have is the ability to really take a punch and stay on the case.
It's rather ironic that they got Frank WHORES WHORES WHORES Miller to write the introduction for this, given that this super-noir story was written with far more subtlety and heart than the writer of Sin City would ever be capable of. Basically Tarnished Angel is about dreamers who turned out to be losers. At every turn Carl finds the wives and relatives of the victims reminiscing about how their husbands or fathers were just "one big score" away from retiring. And watching and battling these losers are "the angels", the heroes who literally drop out of the sky to save the day, and not incidentally put away those husbands and fathers into the can to rot for years before swooping away again.
The mystery at the heart of this isn't much of a mystery, given the nearly complete issue we're given to a certain character's background and monologing. But the story is a damned good character study as to what makes a person a supervillian instead of a hero, and how hard it might be to really change their stripes. Steeljack, in true noir style, does a fair share of internal monologing himself, and the writing never takes a wrong note with it, making him somewhat insightful after knocking about for fifty years or so, but not overly intelligent or unrealistically analytical. About the only sour note was an issue in this collection devoted to a single character completely unrelated to the story except a bit thematically, which even the writer admits was done to pad things out.
Well, turns out that someone in his old neighborhood is hunting down some of the other "black masks", two-bit, third-rate crooks with a bit of tech or training, but without the class to ever make it big. He may not have the brains to be a detective, but one thing Steeljack does have is the ability to really take a punch and stay on the case.
It's rather ironic that they got Frank WHORES WHORES WHORES Miller to write the introduction for this, given that this super-noir story was written with far more subtlety and heart than the writer of Sin City would ever be capable of. Basically Tarnished Angel is about dreamers who turned out to be losers. At every turn Carl finds the wives and relatives of the victims reminiscing about how their husbands or fathers were just "one big score" away from retiring. And watching and battling these losers are "the angels", the heroes who literally drop out of the sky to save the day, and not incidentally put away those husbands and fathers into the can to rot for years before swooping away again.
The mystery at the heart of this isn't much of a mystery, given the nearly complete issue we're given to a certain character's background and monologing. But the story is a damned good character study as to what makes a person a supervillian instead of a hero, and how hard it might be to really change their stripes. Steeljack, in true noir style, does a fair share of internal monologing himself, and the writing never takes a wrong note with it, making him somewhat insightful after knocking about for fifty years or so, but not overly intelligent or unrealistically analytical. About the only sour note was an issue in this collection devoted to a single character completely unrelated to the story except a bit thematically, which even the writer admits was done to pad things out.
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Date: 2010-02-20 09:29 pm (UTC)I finally got to read Watchmen. I think they did a good job turning it into a movie
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Date: 2010-02-21 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-21 02:43 am (UTC)the Junkman issue was wonderful as well :)