YMMV / Astro City

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Donnelly Ferguson. Was he in on the Conquistador's scheme all along and did he send Steeljack his way to shut him up? Was he an Unwitting Pawn who pieced together the truth and sent Steeljack to Conquistador to help him solve the case? Is he really the Scarlet Snake or just some kooky old man? And was his Death Glare at Steeljack because he was hurt by being accused of helping Conquistador, shame at being caught, or quietly threatening Steeljack to let it go? By the end, even Steeljack doesn't know, let alone the reader, and Ferguson takes any answers to his grave.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • This was experienced by fans at times during the early issues, due to the various Schedule Slip problems and Busiek's health issues.
  • The worst offender is probably "The Dark Age". This was a story arc that was told in sixteen issues, released over a four year span, with a storyline that was darker and more cynical than what longtime readers had come to expect.
• Awesome Art: Busiek, Anderson, and Ross certainly don't spare the details. For example, when a newspaper is shown, the entire article is written there, not just the headline.
• Common Knowledge: So, everybody knows that Samaritan is supposed to be Superman, the First Family are expies of the Fantastic Four, and Jack-in-the-Box is really Spider-Man, right? Actually, nope. Word of God says Astro City characters are supposed to be... themselves, and are simply drawn from general archetypes common in superhero fiction and beyond, and not meant to be direct references to any specific Marvel/DC characters. This is a pet peeve for Kurt Busiek.
• Complete Monster:
  • Deke "the Deacon" M(a)cManus has no superpowers or doomsday plans, but more than makes up for it in sheer ambitious depravity. After serving as the top lieutenant for mob boss Joey "The Platypus" Platapopoulous for many years, the Deacon made his move for power by igniting the most awful gang war Astro City has ever seen, bombing gang turfs and killing the bosses' loved ones, then framing other crime lords for the acts to instigate bloody battles throughout the city. As hundreds of people are caught up in the bloodshed, the Deacon murders Joey, unleashes the psychopathic Jitterjack onto the city, and manipulates Black Velvet into murdering the criminals who once brutally tortured and experimented on her, something the Deacon himself had a hand in. Upon assuming control of the annihilated gangs, the Deacon cornered the market on drug running, arms trades, and human trafficking throughout Astro City, and continues to be a plague upon its civilians and heroes alike to this day.
  • "The Dark Age": Aubrey Jason, later known as Lord Sovereign, was a PYRAMID operative who killed a random couple to escape superhero pursuers, resulting in the couple's children growing up with a burning hatred towards him. Later pursuing him, the brothers force Jason to leave PYRAMID and go on the run. Attempting to escape them, Jason causes a massive amount of terrorist attacks that claim multiple innocent lives to throw them off his trail until he harnesses mystical energies to make himself into a superpowered being. Christening himself "Lord Sovereign", Jason threatens to force the brothers to relive their parents' murder for eternity and intends on draining the minds of everyone in Astro City to make them his slaves while repeating this process across the world.
  • Vol. 3:
    • Issues #5 ("Thumbtacks & Yarn") & #38: Dr. Aegyptus is an Egyptian-themed supervillain from the early 1900s in Astro City. First introduced having stolen a mystical time-traveling artifact, Aegyptus uses it to kidnap black men, women and children, taking them back to the 1700s and selling them into slavery to use the proceeds to buy magical artifacts in the past before anyone is aware of their true value. Later resurfacing with a new plan, Aegyptus plans to sacrifice a crowded theater full of innocent people in 1917 to summon an Eldritch Abomination to hand the very world over to it, resulting in everything that lives being devoured in return for Aegyptus gaining ultimate power.
    • Issue #17—"Sorrowsday": Krigari Ironhand started out as an entity native to the Unterverse who slaughtered his way to a position of power and strength, becoming a galactic tyrant with a perpetual lust for war and blood. Decimating entire worlds and races with the few survivors forced to toil at his armies with slaves and destroying billions of innocents, Krigari's psychotic crusade takes him to Earth once the disguised Quiqui-a, Eth, tells him he is destined to be defeated at the hands of Astro City's Honor Guard. Repeatedly attempting to destroy Earth, Krigari ultimately binds his soul to an artifact called the Dark Opal to make himself invincible and crush all his enemies, with only the Heroic Sacrifice of the noble Stormhawk putting an end to Krigari's universe-destroying crusade.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The cast is huge and lots of characters are well-liked, but everybody loves Steeljack, and his focus stories are considered two of the series' all-time best.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The "Confession" arc features a race of shapeshifting aliens manipulating public opinion against superheroes in order to soften the Earth up for an invasion. This is eerily similar to Marvel's Civil War (2015) and Secret Invasion events some years later.
• It Was His Sled: It's pretty well known even to non-readers that Confessor is actually a vampire.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Doctor Aegyptus' mass kidnapping on its own would be bad enough, but then it turns out he's exclusively kidnapping black people, taking them back to before the American Civil War, and selling them into slavery.
  • Conquistador/Esteban Rodrigo Suarez Hidalgo is already a pathetic lunatic with his whole scheme to stage a fake "redemption arc" for himself. Then it turns out that he's planning to mass murder all the C-and-D-list villains he's manipulating into serving his purposes, simply to conceal the truth. And when Steeljack calls him out on it, Esteban has the audacity to claim he's not evil… because in his head, he's not killing people, "just criminals".
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Gormenghast, and what he does to Crackerjack. The man may have been a jerk, but violently harvesting him for tissue samples to make an army of clones isn't what anyone deserves.
  • Everything about the Blue Knight, and he just gets scarier and scarier with everything we see or learn about him… in part because we actually learn so little, and every revelation just raises more and eerier questions.
• Spiritual Successor: To Marvels. Aside from the same writer and artist (although Alex Ross only handles the covers and character designs this time around), many issues focus on street level average joes and people reacting to the world of colorful costumed heroes around them.
• Tear Jerker: Astro City has its share of award-winning tales.
  • "The Nearness of You" hits hard for a very short story.
    No one forgets. No one.
  • There's also "Sorrowsday," which reveals why Honor Guard gets a mysterious delivery of delicious baked goods once a year.
    "So we tell them the story. All of it. Our fear. Our shame."
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Nadia Furst in the backstory of the Furst Family. She ditches Augustus the instant the chance to marry someone with more wealth and power comes up, then runs back to him the instant that becomes untenable.