Astro City: The Tarnished Angel with Logan Crowley
We’re back with another episode of Trade School! This time, we’re talking about Astro City: The Tarnished Angel! Our host this week is Logan Crowley!
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Edited by Case Aiken
Scored by Bret Eagleston
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⏱️ YouTube Chapters
00:00 Welcome to Trade School
00:43 Introducing Astro City: Tarnished Angel
01:46 Steeljack and the Ex-Con Perspective
02:46 Superheroes, Reputation, and Reintegration
03:44 The Forgotten Villains of Astro City
04:39 Steeljack Becomes the Investigator
05:27 What Makes Steeljack a Hero
06:14 Steeljack’s Design and Visual Metaphor
07:05 A Mystery Worth Preserving
07:55 Why Tarnished Angel Stands Alone
08:31 Final Recommendation
09:05 Single Bound Promo
Transcription
00:00
Welcome to Certain Point of View's Trade School, where each episode a different host talks about a comic book trade paperback that they loved and why they love it. Hello, class. I'm Logan Crowley from the Single Bound podcast available on Spotify, and I'll be your guest instructor this evening. Today, I want to talk about one of the. One of my absolute favorite comics ever read, and I think one of the most underrated stories in comics. I think the fact that it is part of an ongoing series that is itself pretty celebrated actually kind of hides this book, whereas if it was a miniseries by itself, I think it would get a lot more attention. But people feel like they have to read the whole series to get to this story, when they don't. This, this trade absolutely stands alone by itself.
00:43
And that is Astro City. Tarnished angel by Kurt Busick, Alex Ross, and Brad Anderson. What? Where do I even start with this? I guess the best way to talk about how good Tarnished angel is to kind of tell you what it's riffing on, like a lot. Astro City very much is a story older than Invincible or, you know, the Boys or stuff like that, but it has that same kind of idea behind it, of it is a superhero world that is like these superhero worlds that, you know, tweaked just enough not to get sued in telling stories where you don't have to squint very hard to see who they're supposed to be. The Samaritan is Superman. Black Rapier is Batman. And actually there are a couple of Batmans speckled throughout Astro City. The Confessor is also Batman.
01:46
And you could probably do that for an hour. What makes this specific story so special to me is whereas a lot of Astro City is from the perspective of these heroes that you've seen before and telling very good stories, but not stories that you haven't seen before. Tarnished angel is from the perspective of a. Of an ex con who's just gotten out of prison named Steeljack. And Steeljack is to say his comparison. He's basically the Rhino. He was a guy from poor neighborhood who agreed to an experiment that coated his skin and changed him forever into a obviously superpowered supernatural being. But it cannot be reversed. And he can never again feel, you know, like subtle touches. He always is dangerous to the environment that he's in.
02:46
And because of his past as a criminal, he's always immediately identifiable to all the heroes in Astro City as this superpowered menace. And so the book becomes this really incredible metaphor for the life that ex cons have after they have served their time. And you see heroes that in other issues of Astro City are as selfless and as heroic as you expect superheroes to be. Now, when they know they're dealing with Steeljack and they know his background, even though he has served his time, even though he really honestly is on the straight and narrow now, they treat him so poorly because they can only see his past when they look at him. Because of that same horrible impulse that we as human beings have.
03:44
Most of these heroes are noticing that someone is going around the poor neighborhood that Jack grew up in and is murdering ex con superheroes. Right? Small time crooks that have now retired. We're not talking about Jokers or Lex Luthors. We're talking about Captain Colds and Kite Men and Big Wheels and actually, I really hate that I included Captain Cold in with those other two characters. That's really not fair. Captain Cold's a top five villain for me. But you get what I'm saying is that very gimmicky villains, you know, villain of the month types that are speckled all over comics, but are never really anybody's favorite or most notorious villains, right? I think we all get excited in a way when we see Stiltman, but you wouldn't be happy if the main villain of the next Spider man movie was Stiltman.
04:39
That's the kind of characters that live in Steel Jack's neighborhood and have been completely forgotten by the world around them. So as they start to drop dead, you would expect heroes to care, but they don't. And so the community comes to Steeljack and offers him money to investigate this. Here's the other twist, though. Steeljack is not particularly smart, he is not a Sherlock Holmes detective. They're not picking him because he's a cerebral guy. They're picking him because he happens to be really hard to kill because of his steel skin. So he's hampered. So even in this new path, it's not like he's found the perfect way for him to spend the rest of his life. He is yet again in a situation that he is not equipped to deal with.
05:27
But he keeps an open heart and he keeps an open mind and he cares. You know, these are the people that are in his community and he really cares about them and what happens to them. And that is what makes him a hero that he, after everything, decides to be for the love of the people that brought him up. Incredible, incredible visuals. Alex Ross does the covers, not the interior art. But all of the characters are designed by Ross. And you can very much see that on every page. They have his very kind of quintessential classic, you know, Silver Age with a wink designs. Silver Age, A double pun in this instance because obviously Steeljack is as silver as one can possibly be.
06:14
I think my favorite thing about his design is though, in the flashbacks, you see him as a young man and he does have that comic book muscle build then, right? He does have that kind of colossus six pack, broad shouldered build that you'd expect by the time we get to the story. And he's been in prison for 20 years. He has a belly, he has flab, he has love handles, he has a second chin, but it is all shining steel, chrome love handles. And it just creates such an interesting contrast. You see in different parts of the story. He has spots of rust and tarnish on his skin that have accumulated over the course of years that he cannot do anything about. He can treat them to keep them from getting worse.
07:05
You know, scrub them with steel wool or, you know, the kinds of things you would use to take care of cutlery or a car finish, but he can never really remove them. Adding to that leveled metaphor. Now, this is a story where I really feel like I can't tell you very much about the plot past what I have said without giving something away, because this is a mystery. This is a whodunit in a really good one, with really incredible morally complicated characters and twists and turns that will have you questioning at times if you're even following the protagonist of this story or if you just happen to be following a guy who has ended up in it. I can't recommend it enough.
07:55
And like I said, you might look at this, and I think most copies of Tarnished Angel, they'll say, you know, Astro City, book, whatever. And I think a lot of people look at that and they go, well, I got to read all the rest of Astro City before I read this. You don't you absolutely. You should. Astro City is fantastic. But if you just want to pick up this trade by itself, it is a complete story. All the characters are introduced to satisfaction. It has a beginning, middle and an end. And you're in and out. And I highly recommend that you do, because I honestly hold this comic up in the same categories as Watchmen or the Dark Knight Returns.
08:31
I think it is one of the best comics ever written and such an important comic for all of us to read and think about in the kind of industrial prison society that we now live in and what it does to people and how it alienates them from the very society that they are trying to reintegrate into. I can't recommend it enough. Thank you so much. Case for the opportunity Again, you can find me on Single Bound on Spotify and happy reading.
09:05
We love digging into epic comic book runs, but what about the art of the single issue? Single Bound is a new podcast series hosted by married couple Amy and Logan as they review single issues of comics. And if the title also makes you think of Superman, you're not alone as the man of Steel is Logan's favorite character and a regular topic of discussion on Single Bound. Listen and subscribe on Spotify and YouTube and follow the show on Instagram. Inglebound podcast cpov certainpov.com.