History Characters / AstroCity

* ActionSurvivor: Despite being a normal human being, she lived in Shadow Hill (an eldritch location most people from the city dare not enter because it's full of hidden monsters) for a very long time and not been eaten [[FateWorseThanDeath or worse]].

[[folder: Atomicus]]

[[folder: The N-Forcer]]

[[folder: El Hombre]]

[[folder: Bravo]]

[[folder: Blue Knight]]

[[folder: Flying Fox II]]

[[folder: Goldenglove II]]

[[folder: The Living Nightmare]]

[[folder: Prince Kaspian]]

* SuperFamilyTeam: The eldest Fursts are brothers, but Natalie and Nick were adopted, Rex married Natalie, and the third generation members are Natalie and Nick's children. All this means they're still family.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: One of the story arcs is told from the perspective of an alien whose entire civilization is built around the propaganda of fighting off the First Family, and every member of their race is raised from birth to hate and eventually fight them... and then the Fursts show up and mop the floor with them like they do with any other hostile civilization.

** Subverted with Augustus Furst; word of God is that the pipe he keeps in his mouth is actually a portable energy source, which is simply pipe-shaped for portability and habit.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: One of the story arcs is told from the perspective of an alien whose entire civilization is built around the propaganda of fighting off the First Family, and every member of their race is raised from birth to hate them and train to fight them... and then the Fursts show up and mop the floor with them like they do with any other hostile civilization.

* BadassFamily: The Furst Family is Astro City's second greatest superhero team after Honor Guard, but unlike their colleagues, the Fursts have a smaller roster and their power sets are not planet-breakingly powerful like Samaritan or Winged Victory. However, just five of them once managed to rampage through three supervillain armies in a single issue, and their reputation spans across multiple dimensions.

* SuperFamilyTeam: They're all related.

* BadassFamily: The Furst Family is Astro City's second greatest superhero team after Honor Guard, but unlike their colleagues, the Fursts have a fixed roster and their power sets are not planet-breakingly powerful like Samaritan and Winged Victory. They still, however, have a track record of casually defeating armies, and their reputation spans across multiple dimensions.

* ImCryingButIDontKnowWhy: Michael would often cry thinking about the woman of his dreams [[spoiler:because she's his wife who was erased due to a retcon event.]]

* AmnesiaLoop: Find a lead to her past, discovers a connection to a gadgeteer supervillain, finds her creator, her creator is a daughter whose genius was shunned by her father, is ordered to leave and forget everything by said creator. According to her creator she keeps coming back no matter how many times she orders her to forget.

* SlaveToPR: Unwillingly. He used to avoid making public appearances and accepting awards, because those are seconds that could be used ''rescuing'' people. But he started getting a bad reputation for 'snubbing' people, so now he makes the time. Not just for awards either, he'll make brief stops to humanize himself for the people he helps, so they won't see him as some otherwordly power. In one story, he saves ACatUpATree, and pauses briefly to let both the kitten he just saved and the kid who owned it see who he was, just to make sure they weren't scared.

* FounderOfTheKingdom: Or rather, of the superteam. Max was the first person to organize and fund the Honor Guard, back when there were no teams in the world.
* PunnyName: His name is definitely a play on Maximillian, but also to indicate his wealth.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He may be a boastful, obnoxious, annoying loudmouth who loves to butt into other people's business and claim all the credit, he is ultimately a hero who helps and saves people, and while he may talk a big bunch, he's never abusive or callous.

[[folder: Greymalkin (formerly Kitkat)]]

* CreepyGood: Lives in a spooky mansion with a bunch of spooky cats and looks like she's going to hiss and drink your blood, but she's clearly a good guy.

* SizeChanger: Grew to giant size to fight crime.

* BadassNormal: Julius gets by with nothing more than brawn and determination.

* TheBigGuy: Natalie, the giantess of the team.

* {{Expy}}: To the ComicBook/FantasticFour. Even the initials are the same. Kurt has noted that the team are inspired by the Jack Kirby and Gardner Fox type science heroes of the 50s and 60s in general, showing how such adventurers would naturally develop into an FF style super-team...then beyond, as they're allowed to age and change. (He tried to find another name just so the "FF" connection wouldn't be ''quite'' so explicit, but couldn't figure out a better one than "First Family.")

* CreepyGood: Lives in a spooky mansion with a bunch of spooky cats and looks like she's going to his and drink your blood, but she's clearly a good guy.

Michael was just a regular guy living a regular life, until he kept getting these strange, vivid dreams of a woman. A woman that he thinks he knows very well and feels very strongly for, and yet he has never met her.

* TheLostLenore: [[spoiler:Miranda, his wife]].

* PalsWithJesus: The Hanged Man, an eldritch being capable of holding of alien invasions by himself, keeps a watchful eye on Michael. Michael considers him the closest thing to a real friend he has.

* TropaholicsAnonymous: After The Hanged Man visited him, Michael started a support group for people affected by trauma related to superheroic incidents, and has been running the group fulltime for 20 years. [[spoiler:The Honor Guard are secretly funding him so he gets to pay the bills and provide a valuable service.]]

* IJustWantToBeSpecial: She IS special now, but was once a timid, scrawny young woman who had been treated like dirt pretty much her entire life one way or another. She rarely switches back to her original identity now because she's afraid of losing her powers. It's not until she briefly faces the very real chance of losing the Council's favor after she's targeted by a massive bad PR campaign (orchestrated by one of her arch-enemies) that she comes to terms with this.

* {{Expy}}: Of Franchise/{{Batman}}, with a little bit of Franchise/{{Zorro}} mixed in.

** Also of Franchise/GreenLantern, if you squint. A space hero with an extremely versatile power set, guided by an outside force.

* BadassMustache: In the mould of Errol Flynn.

* GadgeteerGenius: Emphasis on "genius" - he came up with inventions subsequent heroes like Augustus Furst and the N-Forcer would discover independently decades later.

* {{Expy}}: Of the [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk Savage Hulk]], when initially introduced - a violent, destructive creature of great strength that lashed out at anything that threatened it, created by an experiment with unintended consequences.

* ShoutOut: To Kitty Pryde, aka Shadowcat.

* LegacyCharacter: [[spoiler:To Stormhawk, and to the heroes who wore the amulet before him.]]

Michael was just a regular guy living a regular life, until he kept getting these strange, vivid dreams of a woman. A woman that he thinks he knows very well and feels very strongly for, and yet he doesn't know why.

* CosmicRetcon: The cause for all his suffering. [[spoiler:The Honor Guard fought a time-travelling villain, with their battle taking place over many different periods in history. While the Guard were ultimately victorious and put everything back together, little pieces like Michael's wife Miranda were erased due to minor disruptions in the timestream (her grandparents never met, so she was never born).]]

* NoEndorHolocaust: Averted. Michael's suffering is because [[spoiler:his wife was erased from the timeline due to time-travel shenanigans. There is no proof that she ever existed, and the only person who know or even cares are Michael and The Hanged Man.]]

* BadassCrew: She's not the only person to use her powers for mundane purposes and wants to stay away from superheroics. She and her colleagues unofficially call themselves the Sideliners, but if you think just because they're demure and unremarkable that they're also stupid and ineffectual, think again. They've been threatened before, and they look out for each other so well they can be just as effective a fighting force as the Honor Guard.

* UnderestimatingBadassery: Some supervillains seem to think that just because she and her friends don't use their powers for fighting that means that they're pushovers who can be coerced or tempted into becoming henchmen. It turns out that the Sideliners are incredibly competent, coordinated, and totally capable of defending themselves, to the point they regularly impress Samaritan.

* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: A positive example. Everyone ''else'' thinks Shadow Hill is a nightmarish realm out of [[{{Creator/HPLovecraft}} Lovecraft]] or [[{{Film/HammerHorror}} Hammer]], but Marta grew up there and knows that it's a place like anywhere else as long as you know how to take care of yourself.

* {{Expy}}: To the Endless from ComicBook/{{Sandman}}, possibly a combination of Dream, Desire, and Delirium.