Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Annotations

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               KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY VOL. 1, #2
                            The Scoop
  collected as part of the LIFE IN THE BIG CITY trade paperback
                     Narrator: Elliot Mills
    Date: August 9th, 1995 (present), Fall? 1959 (flashback)
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Cover:    The Silver Agent fighting the Ravagers, with a young
          Elliot Martin in the foreground. The name of the Silver
          Agent is a play on the term "Silver Age", used to refer
          to the second age of comics, which began around the time
          of the publication of SHOWCASE #4 (the first appearance
          of DC's Barry Allen Flash) and the debut of Marvel's
          Fantastic Four, and ended in the early-to-mid Seventies.

1/1:      The headline on the paper (dated August 9th, 1995) reads
          "Samaritan Checks Nightmare Rampage: Damage Contained; No
          Deaths". The date confirms that this is the battle seen
          in Vol.1 #1.

 /3:      The headline behind the rookie reads "Flying 'Samaritan'
          Saves Challenger". This is a reference to Samaritan's
          first appearance during (what in our world is) the
          Challenger disaster on January 28th, 1986. This parallels
          the first (in-coninuity, not chronological) appearance of
          DC's Superman, in which he saves the passengers of an
          experimental space plane.

2/1:      Some of the other headlines are now visible. The one on
          the upper right reads simply "Final Frontier"; this may
          refer to the death of the Frontiersman, who is seen
          promoting cigarettes on 3/1. Second from the right on the
          bottom the headline reads "First Family to City: Good-
          Bye!". Next to this the paper reads "Aliens Routed By
          Honor Guard". Second from the right on the top the
          headline reads "Who Are the Experimentals?"; this is the
          first mention of the Experimentals. Next to this the
          headline reads simply "Unmasked!"; again, it is unclear
          to whom this is referring. Next to this the headline
          reads "Rex & Natalie: It's a Girl!", referring to the
          birth of Astra to Rex and Natalie Furst of the First
          Family.

 /4:      Note the saying on the coffee mug: "World's Finest
          Granddad" is a reference to DC's Superman/Batman team-up
          title WORLD'S FINEST COMICS.

3/1:      Apparently, the name "Astro City" dates only from 1947.
          "Toth's Fineries": this refers to late-Golden Age and
          Silver Age artist Alex Toth (1928- ), who drew numerous
          western and science-fiction stories, as well as super-
          heroes such as the Alan Scott Green Lantern, Dr Mid-Nite,
          and Johnny Thunder. "Tripp's": Irving Tripp was a
          finisher on LITTLE LULU. "Briefer's": Dick Briefer (1915-
          ) drew 1940s Frankenstein comics. "Maneely's": Joe
          Maneely was an artist for Atlas. "Sputnik": the launch of
          the artificial satellite Sputnik 1 by the Soviets on
          October 4th, 1957 marked the beginning of the Space Age.
          "JFK" is John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963), thirty-
          fifth president of the United States. First mentions of
          the Lamplighter, the All-American and the Frontiersman.
          Note that the Frontiersman is advertising cigarettes --
          something typical of the era, but probably unthinkable
          today.

5/1:      First appearance of the Silver Agent, and the first
          reference to something terrible happening to him. This
          reflects Busiek's lament of the end of the Silver Age.
          The Silver Agent's debut is specified as being in 1956,
          the same year SHOWCASE #4 appeared.

7/3:      The headlines read, from left to right: "Astro-Naut
          Exposes Fifth Columnists"; "Japan Surrenders!" (referring
          to the end of World War II in 1945); "Commando K Lost
          Near Pyongyang". The first two newspapers bear the logo
          of "The Romeyn Falls Democrat-American", from which we
          can infer that Romeyn Falls was the original name of
          Astro City, and that the community was renamed in honor
          of the Astro-Naut. Romeyn was the first cartoonist known
          to have signed his work. Pyongyang is the capital of
          North Korea; it appears Commando K (whose first mention
          is here) was lost during the Korean War, when Pyongyang
          was overrun by a combined airborne landing and overland
          advance on October 20th, 1950.

9/1:      "Elias Street Station": a reference to artist Lee Elias
          (1920- ).

 /3:      First appearance of Karnus.

11/1:     First appearance of Shirak the Devourer. Note that Shirak
          thinks and speaks in shark terms.

  /3:     First appearance of the Ravagers.

12-13/1:  Counterclockwise from the top, these are the Bouncing
          Beatnik, Cleopatra I, Max O'Millions, the Silver Agent,
          N-Forcer, Starwoman, Leopardman, and Kitkat; all but the
          Silver Agent and N-Forcer make their first appearance
          here. Note how much clunkier N-Forcer's armor is compared
          to Vol.1 #1. Also note that the Bouncing Beatnik does not
          appear to be entirely human -- his flesh is yellow and
          his digits are fewer in number and malformed. First
          mention of the Legions of Midnight.

16/2:     First appearance of the Old Soldier. Note that his
          appearances coincide with crucial battles in American
          military history: the Battle of the Bulge during World
          War II (1944), the Saint Michael Offensive of World War
          I (1918), San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
          (1898), and Gettysburg during the American Civil War
          (1863). Also note that the Old Soldier wears distinctly
          medieval-looking armor and a sword, perhaps suggesting he
          predates not just the Civil War, but also the United
          States itself.

19/3:     "Feldstein's Bar & Grill": Al Feldstein (1925- ) was an
          editor of EC and Mad comics. "Iger Square Station":
          refers to Golden Age artist Jerry Iger.

20/4:     April Fool's Day was "months ago". Since no one is
          wearing distinctively summery clothing, the story
          probably takes place in the Fall of 1959.

23/2:     The Fall of Saigon happened on April 30th, 1975 -- again,
          the Old Soldier's appearance coincides with a major
          American military event.

24/2:     ACTA is the Astro City Transit Authority. "Celardo
          Street" refers to John Celardo (1918- ).



Release History:
Version 1.2 released 11th July 1998
Version 1.1 released 14th March 1998
Version 1.0 released  8th March 1998

Notes:
Citation format is page/panel. For instance, 18/1 refers to page
18, panel 1. Two-page spreads are treated as a single "page" for
the purpose of panel enumeration; for example, 6-7/3 refers to the
third panel on a spread covering pages 6 and 7. Issue number is
included if different from the issue being annotated, with issues
from Volume 1 specified as such.

KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY, its prominent characters and their
likenesses are trademarks of Juke Box Productions. All quoted text
is copyright Juke Box Productions.

Additions, corrections and comments should be sent to the editor.
Reproduction of these annotations, in whole or in part, without the
permission of the editor is forbidden.

Sources:
"Comic Art & Graffix Gallery Virtual Museum & Encyclopedia"
(http://www.comic-art.com/enter.htm)

"The Greatest Golden Age Stories Ever Told", Biographies: Creating
The Greatest by Mark Waid, DC Comics (1990)

"Who's Who In Astro City" (http://www.bonner.rice.edu/morrow/kbac/
kbacww.html)

Contributors:
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, shannon@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (editor)
Kynn Bartlett, valor@lsh.org
Kurt Busiek, kurtbusiek@aol.com
Ken Ingram, kri1701@aol.com
Jess Nevins, jjnevins@ix.netcom.com
Derek Richman, drichman@kilstock.com