A review by trike
Astro City, Vol. 13: Honor Guard by Bob Wiacek, Joe Infurnari, Gary Chaloner, Andrew Pepoy, Agustín Padilla, Derlis Santacruz, Kurt Busiek, Cory Hamscher, Jesús Merino, Wade Von Grawbadger, Tom Grummett

2.0

I was pretty disappointed with this collection. Astro City is generally fairly dependable, old school superheroing, but this one just fell short of the mark for me.

The stories were pretty basic and the art was inconsistent. Brent Anderson is nowhere to be seen for some reason, so each issue was by a guest artist. Some of it is good while some of it is... not. I've "eknown" Busiek for more than two decades now, so I'm aware he's been fighting various illnesses the past couple of years, which might explain the simpleness of these tales. Usually there's more insight, more cleverness, more zip to em. These felt ploddingly familiar to me.

Some of the character design was interesting, but some of it was bizarre. Occasionally they deliberately do silly designs, but this time it just seemed off somehow. Not just weird, but lazy. For instance, Doctor Dominax was a General Grievous-type robot wearing a lab coat with a giant 3-foot-long domino for a head. Too much cold medicine, maybe?





Well, not everything is great every time, so no biggie. I'm still in for the continuing adventures of the denizens of Astro City.