Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Annotations

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               KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY VOL. 2, #4
                         New Kid In Town
       collected as part of the CONFESSION trade paperback
                     Narrator: Brian Kinney
                     Date: Early Summer 1997
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Cover:    Brian Kinney watches as Rex and Ironhorse armwrestle at
          Bruiser's; Jack-In-The-Box II watches on the right. In
          the darkness in the background are members of the Astro
          City Irregulars: flying are Jailbait (left) and Juice
          (right) while seated are El Robo (left) and Palmetto
          (right). Note that the depiction of this scene is
          symbolic rather than narrative, as Brian is wearing his
          Butler's outfit (complete with mask) instead of his
          Bruiser's clothes.

1/1:      Buchanan Corners is a reference to Captain America's
          sidekick Bucky from Marvel Comics, whose real name was
          James Buchanan Barnes. Of course, this also refers to
          Brian's desire to become a superhero sidekick.

          This issue is here stated to take place in "early
          summer"; that the year is 1997 is confirmed in #9.

2/2:      "The Outcalt Bridge": RF Outcalt (1863-1928) created the
          Yellow Kid and Buster Brown.

3/1:      First appearance of the Crossbreed. Pictured here are
          Mary (with wings, referring to Mary's Ascension following
          the death of Jesus), David (who can grow to gargantuan
          size much like David's Biblical enemy Goliath), Daniel (a
          man-lion, referring to Daniel being thrown to the lion's
          den), Peter (the rock-person, drawing his name from
          Jesus' reference to Peter as the "rock" his church was
          built on -- in fact, the Greek version of Peter, Petra,
          means "rock"), and Joshua (whose sonic powers are an
          homage to Joshua's bringing down the walls of Jericho).
          First references to the Devil's Own and Temblor. A
          temblor is an earthquake, appropriate to tectonically-
          volatile San Francisco.

4/4:      "Lafcadio", used here as a derisive nickname, comes from
          "Lafcadio, The Lion Who Shot Back" by Shel Silverstein.

5/2:      And this is Noah, leader of the Crossbreed; his powers
          are weather-based, referring to the forty-day rainstorm
          which incited the creation of Noah's Ark.

6/2:      Note the cassette: Brian appears to be a fan of Canadian
          band Rush.

8/1:      First mention of Johnny Crash.

 /3:      This Hood County is fictitious (although there is a real
          Hood County in Texas, southwest of Fort Worth). According
          to Kurt Busiek, it "is a another play on secret ID's;
          Mask County or Cowl County wouldn't have sounded right."

 /4:      First appearance of the Black Badge.

9/3:      First appearances of Sledgehammer, Rockslide, Krunch,
          Wrestla and the Lummox.

10/1:     First appearance of Ironhorse.

14/1:     Wodehouse Mews refers to author Pelham Grenville (PG)
          Wodehouse (1881-1975). Writer or co-writer of more than
          150 books, plays and movies, Wodehouse's most famous
          creations were bachelor Bertie Wooster and his butler
          Jeeves -- hence his mention in connection with Butler's.

14/2:     Leopardman was previously seen in Vol.1 #2. There would
          appear to be some similarities between the
          Leopardman/Kitkat/Godfrey relationship and the
          Batman/Robin/Alfred relationship of DC's Batman comics.

16/4:     The woman with the short, dark hair is Quarrel II.

17/2:     "Johnson" is Zachary Johnson, aka Jack-In-The-Box II. The
          woman to his right is his wife, Tamra Dixon.

18/1:     First appearance of Glue-Gun.

  /3:     Epoxy is a resin used in glues and similar substances.

23/4:     Although only five attackers are referred to by name (in
          22/5) or seen at one time, the reference here to "seven"
          attackers does not appear to be erroneous as has been
          claimed, since at least six opponents are actually seen:
          the short-haired speaker; the black youth with the
          bandana and cigarette; the brown-haired man in 22/5; the
          dark-haired man with the moustache; the black-haired girl
          in 22/5; and the brown-haired woman in 23/4 and /5. The
          red-shirted person in 23/4 and /5 is definitely female
          (as is apparent from 23/5), and may be the woman with
          black hair, though this cannot be ascertained. (Note also
          that the presence of the black- and brown-haired girls is
          definitely not a coloring error -- their hairstyles are
          also different, with the black-haired woman's partened in
          the middle and hanging down in front of her face, and the
          brown-haired woman's partened on the side and swept
          back.) So we see at least six attackers, with the seventh
          being either the woman in the red shirt or else a totally
          unseen person.

24/1:     First appearance of the Confessor, previously mentioned
          in Vol.1 #3, 9/2.



Release History:
Version 1.2 released 14th June 1998
Version 1.1 released  7th June 1998
Version 1.0 released 24th May 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.

Annotations for other issues of KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY may be
found at http://strindberg.ling.uu.se/~anders/KBAC/main.html
(HTMLized versions) and http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/kbac/ (text
versions).

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

"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)
Dan Bigelow, ebo@aone.com
Kurt Busiek, kurtbusiek@aol.com
Carl Fink, carlf@dm.net
Mark A Fossen, fossen@sirius.com
David Goldfarb, goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu