Continuing our weekly tradition of This Week’s Ones and bringing the very best of new reader-friendly comic books to you starving masses of desperate fans, and hopefully, to you curious people out there looking for some way to crack the confusing, and sometimes daunting Da Vinci Code that most comic books seem to feel like to the uninitiated. Our hope is to get a new or curious reader something different to enjoy. At the same time, we may possibly help out the comic retailers, creators, and publishers out there who work so hard to capture our imaginations, by ringing attention to titles that are, by definition, made easy to jump into.

Two great recommendations for this week that I am very excited about. One is Legendary in its pedigree, and the other is a great creator getting a chance to play with one of his favorite toys. Both of the titles listed below should be sure fire quality. If you do take my advice and obtain one or both of these books, I would love to hear what you thought of them, A big part of the joy I get from this weekly “heads up”, is that I get the chance to tell people about books they might not have enjoyed, had they not heard about it here. So without further ado, allow me to begin with one of my personally favorite franchises in all of comics:

Astro City #1

HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!!!

ASTRO CITY is back in a new, ongoing monthly series that showcases old heroes and new, as The Ambassador comes to Earth, and an ordinary man is caught up in a cosmic conflict! Featuring the return of favorites like Samaritan and Honor Guard, and the debut of some new sensations! Plus, the seeds of a new mystery: Who is the Broken Man? The entire award-winning creative team is back to kick off a new epoch of the human and the super human. Get in on the ground floor of Astro City’s next epic!

story by Kurt Busiek
art by Brent Eric Anderson
published by DC Comics

There are some titles that well rounded readers of quality comic books, all agree on as something special. Astro City is one of those books that always sets fandom abuzz. In the original Astro City, Busiek took us into a very detailed comic book world that we didn’t know, yet we knew intimately. How? He took all the themes, cities, and characters of the comics we’ve been reading for years (Some of us, Decades), and did with them what the Big Two would NEVER do with their own properties. Not to say he used characters like Batman, Superman, Captain America, or Spider-Man, and did anything directly with them (That would result in a legal turkey shoot). But he did take new characters that all comic readers could easily identify as such iconic figures, and he put them on their head, or he took intimate looks at these characters and enabled us to maybe see some of their blemishes. Additionally, while a lot of these characters are easily identified as “This world’s Superman”, or “Oh! That’s obviously supposed to be Batman”, he also has well thought out unique characters that tip the scales in the originality as well as the cool and interesting factor. The cities as well are also similarly recognizable. I can best sum it up by saying “Kurt Busiek holds up a mirror to the established comic book worlds, and makes us wonder what a great writer could do with these worlds if he was free from all the legal mumbo jumbo that restricts modern day writers for these companies”. And then he does it. I can’t recommend this title enough to both new and old comic readers alike. It is truly amazing. You get lost in it. You want to wallow in it, and rub it all over. You want to drink it in. You want to devour it. It’s a rich experience. It’s a “Holy Crap” experience. It’s a truly great franchise that definitely does not get enough accolades. GET THIS BOOK!

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