Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Annotations

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               KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY VOL. 2, #9
                         My Father's Son
       collected as part of the CONFESSION trade paperback
                       Narrator: Altar Boy
Date: August 5th, 1997 (and a few weeks thereafter); Winter 2001
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Cover:    The Crossbreed: left to right are (front row) Daniel,
          Joshua, Noah, Peter, (back row) David, Mary. Daniel and
          Peter are holding the Confessor's costume.

2/1:      First appearances of the Colonial (previously mentioned
          in #7, 11/2) and Bullroarer. A bullroarer is a
          ritualistic musical instrument which causes a roaring or
          whirring sound when it is spun in the air; while it is
          popular in Australia, its historical use is common in
          many areas of the world. This (or some variation thereof)
          is presumably what the figure in the distance is
          spinning, making the masked man with the rapier the
          Colonial. The building in this scene is the Sydney Opera
          House. First references to Kookaburra and Barrier. A
          kookaburra is a bird native to Australia whose call
          sounds like hysterical laughter. Barrier derives his name
          from Australia's proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.

 /2:      First appearance of the Silversmith, earlier mentioned in
          #1, 3/1. Note that, in keeping with his name, the
          Silversmith looks like someone from the American
          Revolution. The building with the clock on it is Faneuil
          Hall. First references to Skyscraper, the Real Thing and
          the Untouchable. "The Real Thing" is one slogan of Coca-
          Cola, whose headquarters are in Atlanta. The Untouchables
          were a nine-man police taskforce headed by Eliot Ness
          established in the Chicago of the early Thirties to
          combat the underworld forces led by mobster Al Capone;
          their name came from the fact that they were supposed to
          be unbribable.

3/1:      First appearance of the Birds of Paradise. The "bird of
          paradise" is a figure from folklore believed to bring joy
          and contentment wherever it flies. First references to
          Anansi and Iron Cross. Anansi, the spider-trickster, is
          a mythological figure from African folklore, the opponent
          of the sky god. Since 1813, the Iron Cross has been
          bestowed upon those Germans who exhibit bravery,
          leadership and distinguished military service.

 /2:      First appearance of the Trolls of Glittertinden, though
          these may be connected to (or perhaps be the same beings
          as) the Gnomes of Glittertinden, first mentioned in Vol.1
          #1, 10/1. Note that there appear to be two species
          battling the Enelsians -- a giant- and a man-sized race -
          - so perhaps the larger beings are the Trolls and the
          smaller beings are the Gnomes. Hortensfjord is in Norway.

4-5/1:    The aliens are first named as Enelsians here. As with the
          name "Mr. Bridwell" adopted by the Enelsian in Vol.1 #5,
          this is a reference to DC writer and continuity expert E.
          (Edward) Nelson Bridwell (?-1987).

6/1:      Alien: "-- of pacifying this planet!" This is the same
          line of dialogue as appears in the last panel of #8,
          meaning that this issue follows immediately on from it.
          Note that the Enelsians are just finishing shapeshifting
          from the "armored" form they'd adopted in #8.

10/2:     The Crossbreed are headquartered on an ark, appropriate
          since the Biblical Noah was instructed by God to build
          such a ship.

13/5:     The public at large still believes the Confessor to have
          been the Shadow Hill Killer.

14/1:     The Honor Guard's alien detector was seen to have been
          malfunctioning on Vol.1 #1, 10/2.

  /2:     The headline on the paper reads "Aliens Defeated!". The
          newspaper is dated Wednesday, August 6th (which confirms
          the year as being 1997), thereby dating this and the
          previous issues.

20/6:     The date of Altar Boy's mother's death -- 1982 -- is the
          same as the year he was born. It seems likely, then, that
          she died in childbirth.

22/4:     Note the snow on the ground, placing this final scene in
          the winter.

23/5:     Garlic and crucifixes are both supposed to ward off
          vampires in popular myths, while legends also suggest
          that the application of holy water or a crucifix to the
          flesh of a vampire will cause him harm.

24/1:     First appearance of the Confessor II.



Release History:
Version 1.0 released 31st 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)
Kurt Busiek, kurtbusiek@aol.com
David Goldfarb, goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu
Jess Nevins, jjnevins@ix.netcom.com
Joe Rudich, joe.rudich@stpaul.com