Astro City / Tropes N to Z

Main Page | Tropes A-M | Tropes N-Z

---

Tropes N-O

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Death-Walker robots, made by mad Korean scientists in The '50s. Steeljack dryly notes that even if they weren't lumbering, entirely black death-robots, the name would still be a hint as to what they're like.
• Nebulous Evil Organisation: Pyramid, a recurring worldwide evil organization with an Egyptian theme.
• The Needless: As a living cartoon character, Loony Leo does not need to eat, drink, or sleep, and is effectively immortal.
• Never Grew Up: Matilda "Tillie" Armstrong, a ten-year-old girl who uses her psychic powers to stay young forever. She could grow older if she wanted to, but that would make her unable to manifest the Astro City hero The Gentleman.
• Never My Fault: After the Point Man used a Lost Superweapon against an alien menace — destroying a dozen city blocks and killing several hundred people in the process — he proceeds to blame the other superheroes for not telling him that it was a destructive world-ending superweapon (even though they did do exactly that).
• Nice Guy: Many of the heroes would fall under this trope, but the Trope Codifier in the verse is The Gentleman, who's completely and unflappably polite, no matter how dire the situation — after rescuing a news helicopter that endangered itself by flying into a battle against a storm elemental, he simply smiled at the crew and politely suggested that they might want to get to safety and not endanger any of the bystanders on the streets below.
• Nice Guys Finish Last: MPH tries this on Quarrel when she breaks up with him and goes back to Crackerjack. She shuts him down immediately, pointing out she isn't representing "all women," she's herself, and she feels guilty that she can't reciprocate his kindness because she's too committed to her training.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Point Man, a brash new hero, fired The Innocent Gun (a weapon containing one of the fundamental powers of the universe) at a planet-threatening menace... despite all of the experienced heroes telling him not to do so. He ended up leveling a dozen city blocks, killed hundreds of people, and tore a hole in reality... not to mention leaving the gun inert, useless against the real threat it was meant to stop.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Steeljack is 800 pounds of living metal, making him damn tough to hurt. He can still be incapacitated or killed by other, indirect means.
• Nineties Antihero / Sociopathic Hero: A depressingly large number of characters in "The Dark Age" story arc fall into this trope, especially in the last act.
  • The Pale Horseman incinerates all criminals, whether it's murderers or shoplifting kids.
  • Gloo is a mindless Blob Monster that fights crime by pulling "pranks" on its targets — such as spraying flesh-melting "seltzer" or jamming eight Mooks into a subcompact car. And it treats armed robbery and littering as equivalent crimes...
  • The Blue Knight is a skeletal vigilante who hunts down and kills anyone associated with the criminal underworld, whether it's a mob boss or a Mook fencing stolen goods. He is eventually succeeded by the Blue Knights, a squad of armed vigilantes.
  • Stonecold is a murderous vigilante with rock-solid armor and knuckledusters.
  • Subverted by Hellhound, one of the first Darker and Edgier heroes. Despite having the demonic background, monstrous appearance, torn leather and chains costume, and "edgy" name, is actually a Noble Demon who respected the Silver Agent and is friendly with the old-school heroes.
  • By the end of "The Dark Age", the protagonists Charles and Royal Williams have become this in their obsessive quest to kill the man who murdered their parents.
• No Adequate Punishment: Infidel's crimes include laying waste to the entire world and destroying the entire omniverse at least once. Unfortunately, he has been involved in so many historic events (including several in the future) that his longtime enemy Samaritan has been unable to come up with a punishment that would suit the crime without damaging the timeline. On the other hand, Infidel has been unable to find a way to kill Samaritan without causing similar damage. As a result, they've been at an impasse for years, so Infidel has agreed to go into retirement in a pocket dimension, while Samaritan agrees not to interfere with whatever he does there... for now, anyway.
• Noble Demon: Infidel may be a world-conquering Evil Sorcerer, but he follows his own code of honor and won't break his word once he gives it.
• Nobody Here but Us Statues: In "Ellie's Friends", the elderly Ellie Jennnersen runs a modest roadside museum featuring various robots, drones, and other mechanical Mooks salvaged from superhero battles. But they only resemble inert exhibits — in the evenings, they become active, helping Ellie with her chores and tending to her (and their) needs.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Shazam! expy The Gentleman is modeled after Fred MacMurray (who has always been co-creator Alex Ross' model for Captain Marvel), while his sidekick Young Gentleman is modeled after Elvis Presley (a huge real-life fan of CM Junior).
    • Similarly, his daughter Matilda "Tillie" Armstrong is modeled after Judy Garland (in a nod to Mary Marvel originally being modeled after Garland).
  • The Green Man, in addition to being a Swamp Thing Captain Ersatz, is also heavily inspired in appearance by Alan Moore, the best-known writer of Swamp Thing.
  • The British villain The Headmaster of Crime is John Cleese in a monocle and mortarboard.
  • Tom O'Bedlam is essentially Tom Wolfe, immaculate white suit and all.
  • One of the scientists in "Resistance" is a blatant personification of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.
• No Fourth Wall: The Broken Man, a (possibly) insane being who directly addresses the readers to enlist them in his quest against the Oubor.
  "Look, I can't explain everything all at once — we'd be here for like a dozen issues and your eyes would glaze over!"
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Played for drama in "Shining Armor", where Irene Merriweather becomes obsessed with proving her coworker Adam Peterson is actually Superman Expy Atomicus. She thought he was playfully hinting that she needed to prove herself worthy of his love, when in actuality he was a child in a man's body and too confused and frightened to express himself emotionally. She eventually drives Atomicus to leave Earth forever.
  "I chased him, so he ran."
• Non-Human Non-Binary: The only non-binary character who's appeared in the entire run is Glamorax, who is the living embodiment of glam rock.
• Noodle Incident:
  • For the longest time, this was the unexplained fate of the Silver Agent (complete with memorial statue inscribed "To Our Eternal Shame"). It was finally revealed that he had been unjustly executed for murdering a foreign head of state, as the public was growing distrustful of superheroes and the government wanted to assert they still had control over metahumans. And even after his death, the Silver Agent still returned to save the world several times afterwards.
  • On a lighter note, Infidel once did something that swapped Samaritan's hair and costume colors.
    "What's he done to reality this time?"
  • It's not sure what specifically the Astro-Naut did to The Convincer, but it was enough to turn him into a wimpering coward ready to turn state's evidence.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Dr. Bertram Garneau kept the critical knowledge of his neuro-memetic imprint research in his mind, so his Corrupt Corporate Executive sponsor would not be able to exploit it.
• No-Sell: Dame Progress used tranquilizing shells in her war on crime. Mister Cakewalk, who she frequently faced, was largely immune to them (though he did note they stung a lot).
• Not Me This Time:
  • The story "Adventures In Other Worlds" plays this to eleven. When Astra Furst goes missing, the First Family hunt down all of their usual super-villain enemies, convinced that one of them has captured her. Each villain's latest scheme gets disrupted, even though none of them are guilty of kidnapping Astra... when, in reality, she's run away from home to experience elementary school and learn how to play hopscotch.
  • In "Things Past", the retired villainess Cutlass is the lead suspect in a brutal bank robbery that used her signature Laser Blade weapons. She insists she didn't do it, and hires Steeljack to find out who was really responsible.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: One issue reveals that the Time-Keeper, a time-themed villain in a referee outfit, managed to trigger a Crisis Crossover by starting a fight with a god and shattering time itself as a result.
• Not Used to Freedom:
  • In "The Tarnished Angel", Steeljack agrees to investigate the deaths of small-time criminals simply because, as a recent parolee, he's got way too much time on his hands and don't have any other way to fill it.
  • In "The Deep Blue Sea", Mister Manta (a sea-based supervillain) is marooned on a deserted island with his tech severely damaged. After decades of plotting and repairing his suit, he finds his way back to civilization, but his first encounter completely overwhelms him because he hasn't spoken to another living person for so long. By the end of his story, he gets marooned again, and happily goes back to plotting his inevitable return... by himself.
• The Nth Doctor: As times change, and the cakewalk disappears from memory, Mister Cakewalk fades away. When jazz kicks up, Jazzbaby appears, and turns out to be a reincarnation of Cakewalk with no recollection of her origins. The pattern repeats with subsequent incarnations, each forgetting their previous lives.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • In "Pastoral", people feign being unable to notice a Cover Blowing Super Power.
  • Crackerjack sometimes uses his carefree Idiot Hero persona to lull people into lowering their guard around him.
• Odd-Shaped Panel: Camilla at the carnival in "Pastoral" features panels like a ferris wheel — with the borders being lights.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: This is a mainstay trope of many Astro City stories; since the focus is on the emotional or personal growth of the characters, earth-shattering events are often reduced to mere background color.
  • "Everyday Life" has the First Family repeatedly tearing through armies of Mooks in search of their missing daughter, yet each battle is relegated to one or two frames, while the focus is on Astra's efforts to master hopscotch.
  • "Confession" has a worldwide alien invasion with dozens of heroes against an army of shape-shifting extraterrestrials, with a dozen panels devoted to the actual battles themselves.
  • "The Nearness of You" turns a Time Crash Crisis Crossover into a background reference, summarized in a handful of panels across a single Splash Page.
  • In "The End of the Whole Mess", a tired, worn-down Steeljack faces off against six ancient vengeful ghosts. Two panels later, he's lost his shirt and the few survivors are fleeing for their unlives.
• Off the Wagon: Done with a comic-book twist in "The Deep Dark Woods". Edward "Ned" Calloway is addicted to being a well-dressed themed costumed crook, despite his repeated efforts to pull himself out of the criminal lifestyle.
• Old Superhero: Astro City is rife with examples of this trope, as it establishes a long history of generational superheroes, and the avoidance of Comic-Book Time means characters age and cope accordingly. Some heroes are extraordinarily long-lived (e.g. The Confessor, The Hanged Man, the N-Forcer, the Gentleman) and remain active, while others have retired (e.g. The Black Badge, Supersonic, Starfighter) or passed away due to natural causes (Noah of the Crossbreed).
  • The oldest known superhero in the mythos is Coyotl, who was presumably a significantly pre-Colonial Native American. The oldest known hero still alive is Iron Horse The Human Locomotive, a steam-powered hero who's been active since the 1860s.
  • The Black Rapier is an Empowered Badass Normal who used a rejuvenation serum to prolong his crimefighting career, but eventually retires as even that wasn't sufficient to keep him active.
  • Quarrel and Crackerjack, two non-powered heroes, are in the middle of the process; they don't want to retire, but age is taking its toll.
  • Mister Manta is a villainous example; he's been marooned on a deserted island for so long that when he finally appears during a raid on a cruise ship, nobody recognizes the white-haired long-bearded skinny hermit. He still manages to kick a prodigious amount of ass, though.
    "Look at this guy! What does he think he is, Geezer Man?"
• Omnidisciplinary Lawyer: Played with. Averted when the Hanged Man contacts estate lawyer Marta Dobrescu about a real estate fraud case, Marta realizes that's out of her wheelhouse and refers the matter to another lawyer.^note Who happens to be the wife of one of the First Family, but that's not relevant here Played straight later when she gets collared into interpreting some mystical contracts for the Silver Adept.
• Once per Episode: Each Astro City story ends with a street sign reading "You Are Now Leaving Astro City. Please Drive Carefully." Stories that span multiple issues have each one end with a "To Be Continued" sign instead.
  • "Pastoral" ends with a sign reading "Caplinville City Limits - Come Back Soon!"
  • "Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes" ends with a "To Be Concluded" sign.
• One Last Job:
  • In "The Tarnished Angel", Steeljack finds that almost all of his fellow low-rent supervillain peers are constantly lining up for that one last job, the one that will lead them to greatness and riches... but it never works out.
    "Oh, there was always a new job. And always a sure thing, too. This time was the big one, always. This time, the one that'd end all our troubles."
  • This attitude eventually destroys Ned Carroway's marriage in "The Deep Dark Woods".
• One-Product Planet: The world of the Quiqui-a trades their grain Jhef with other planets.
• One-Winged Angel: Hellhound is normally a normal-looking Scary Black Man, with a friendly demeanor and heroic intent. But when he was infected with a Hate Plague, he was forcibly turned into a forty-foot-tall Kirin with fangs and horns.
• Orphaned Punchline: Crackerjack gives us "...so the woman says 'You idiot — This is a duck, not a pig!' And the bartender says 'I was talking to the duck!'"
• Other Me Annoys Me: In "Where the Action Is", several of Manny Monkton's depictions of in-unverse supers draw their ire. First, Nightingale chews him out for insinuating that she and her sidekick Sunbird are a lesbian couple. Then, Glowworm beats him up for depicting him as a white supremacist (which particularly offends him because he's actually black under the Power Glow). Afterwards, Monkton gets the idea to avoid future problems by shifting his focus to stories about high-level cosmic entities who won't care what he writes about them. This proves not to be the case...
• Our Gargoyles Rock: The Silver Adept's brownstone home is protected by Grev and his team of magic gargoyles, who guard the place and ward off incursions (magical and otherwise) as needed.
• Outside Ride: A variation; the Astro-Naut would ride jet engines — and nothing else, just the engine — for fun, like a rodeo cowboy.
• Overly Long Name:
  • The Working Group on Unsettling Anomalies Classification and Contamination, otherwise known as the Blasphemy Boys.
  • The Steel-Jacketed Man shortened his name to Steeljack.

Tropes P-R

• Palette Swap: Infidel once did something that gave Samaritan a blue costume and red hair.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Louisa Garneau loses her parents as a teenager; her father left home to work on advocacy for various progressive and liberal causes, while her mother died of cancer in a hospital.
  • Brian Kinney loses both of his parents at a young age and ends up in an orphanage as a result.
  • El Hombre recruits his Kid Sidekick Bravo after his parents were killed by gang violence.
• Passing the Torch:
  • Jack-in-the-Box III takes up the mantle after his predecessor discovers he's going to be a father. Jack-in-the-Box II ends up serving as Mission Control instead.
  • Done indirectly with G-Dog. After his pet corgi Hank dies, Andy Merton decides to stop being a superhero instead of trying to find a replacement pet to bond with. He takes the medallion to a remote area and leaves it on a tree branch, so fate can choose a successor on its own.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Used repeatedly in "The Dark Age" as Charles and Royal Williams recall the night their apartment exploded and their parents were killed. When they finally confront Lord Sovereign, his enhanced mental powers allow him to enter their memory and taunt them about killing everyone they've ever known.
• Past-Life Memories: Tom O'Bedlam triggers Glamorax to recall their past lives — as Mr. Cakewalk, Zootsuit, the Bouncing Beatnik, the Halcyon Hippie, and more — by introducing them to people who were close to those incarnations.
• Patchwork World: The Gordian Knot, a reality nexus where millions of different planes of existence are caught in mid-collapse.
• Patriotic Fervor: Discussed in "The Dark Age"; the disillusionment many Americans felt in The '70s — that the United States was no longer a flawless leader of the world — is reflected in the public's growing skepticism about superheroes. Meanwhile, a group called the Sterling Foundation pushes for a renewed sense of nationalism, urging Americans to "stand up" against opposition and criticism.
• People Puppets: At one point, a group called the Sterling Foundation managed to put a device on Starfighter which allowed them to control him.
• Perspective Flip:
  • "The Tarnished Angel" shows the Honor Guard from the outside. Since Steeljack's a former criminal screwed over by poor decisions and lousy circumstances now trying to do right, Honor Guard's skepticism come across as arrogant, bullying and elitist.
  • "The Menace From Earth" and "Enemy of the State" shows a rescue mission by the First Family on an alien planet from the viewpoint of an alien child.
• Phantom Zone: Samaritan has access to such a dimension, but rather than use it for criminals or epic battles, he uses it as a storage closet, mainly holding all the awards and plaques he regularly receives. It's also a convenient place to change his clothes when no phone booth is available.
• Planetary Romance:
  • A major part of Starfighter's past adventures involve Illula, Seven-Fold Empress of Jarranatha.
  • Also a good part of the Astro-Naut's adventures, with Xalzana the space princess.
• Planet Looters: The Mrevani from "The Sky's the Limit" are primitive scavengers who steal their technologies from other, more advanced, civilizations, then use it to conquer them. The Astro-Naut fears that humans could do the same if they used his discoveries prematurely.
• Planet of Hats:
  • The gorillas of Gorilla Mountain (a hidden tropical zone in Antarctica) are all trained to be warriors and protectors. Somewhat justified as Gorilla Mountain is on top of an interdimensional rift and frequently gets invaded as a result.
  • In "Sorrowsday", the Quiqui-a are a race of farmers devoted to raising and preparing the Jhef, the grain of their world.
  • The Zirrs are a race of insectoid aliens whose entire social structure is geared towards worshipping their warlord leader and serving the Zirr Empire.
• Plant Mooks:
  • In one story, the villainous group Pyramid was growing an army of plant-soldiers inside a secret creche in Burma, only to be stopped by the Point Man.
  • Another story refers to plant-based Artificial Humans created with technology from the Garden Gnome.
• Plant Person: The Green Man (an Expy for Swamp Thing) was formed when the mage Simon Magus accidentally melded with Earth's biosphere. He stands about fifty feet tall and bears more than a passing resemblance to Alan Moore.
• Playing with Fire:
  • The villain Flamethrower is this, with a touch of Pyromaniac thrown in.
  • There's an alien species called the Thermians who are Wreathed in Flames and wear backpacks that let them manipulate fire.
• Please Select New City Name: "The Sky's the Limit" tells the story of how Romeyn Falls was renamed Astro City. It was in honor of the Golden Age hero the Astro-Naut, who saved the city from an alien invasion which had leveled most of it.
• Pocket Dimension: A number of these have appeared in various stories. Infidel has voluntarily exiled himself in one to pursue his studies, American Chibi is locked in one to battle the King-In-Chains, and Samaritan uses one as a storage closet.
• Poke the Poodle:
  • Among the curses Mr. Malefic wishes upon the Silver Adept are that her feet be covered in blisters, her toenails cut too short and her lips be forever chapped.
  • In a battle against The Gentleman, Professor Borzoi threatens to crumple his carnation and muss his coif.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • While Infidel isn't at the level of a Straw Misogynist, he does feel that women are inferior, and that treating them as equal to men is folly.
  • Dr. Aegyptus, who kidnapped dozens of African-American folks and planned to use time-travel to take them back to before the American Revolutionary War and sell them into slavery.
  • In "Where the Action Is", Manny Monkton publishes a story that said the villain Glowworm was a white supremacist with a scheme to exploit the black teens of the city. Unbeknownst to Manny, Glowworm is African-American, and really resents the implication...
  • The Lawmen are a group of hooded supremacists who attacked a gay pride parade.
  • Dr. Gearbox was a Gadgeteer Genius who refused to allow his daughter follow in his footsteps because he believed that engineering and math were inappropriate fields for girls.
  • Earthpride is a hate group of former white supremacists who've extended their bigotry to aliens.
  • The Master was a Long-Lived evil mastermind who rejoiced in hatred and fed on people's suffering and misery.
• Posthumous Character: Astro City has lots of these, given the lack of Comic-Book Time and heavy use of flashback stories. To point out only a few examples:
  • The heroic Stormhawk is seen entirely in flashback, yet is a key character in "Sorrowsday".
  • Many of the incarnations of counterculture music — Mr. Cakewalk, Jazzbaby, the Halcyon Hippie, etc. — are shown in flashback stories or only mentioned in passing.
  • Several of the founding members of Honor Guard (Leopardman, Max O'Millions, the first Cleopatra) appear only in flashbacks.
  • The earliest adventurers of the 'verse, such as the Astro-Naut, Air Ace, Coyotl, and the All-American are seen exclusively in flashbacks or references.
• Post-Modern Magik:
  • Appears twice in the "Confession" story arc.
    • First is with Mordecai Chalk, a cyborg monster-hunter with iron- and silver-enhancements, assorted mystical runes, weapons that fire anti-monster ammunition, and an onboard database that references thousands of occult tomes. He tries to fight an occult serial killer and barely manages to survive.
    • Second is an alien squad fighting a vampire with holographic crosses, holy water-soaked cables, and a two-handed stake-launching cannon.
  • Steeljack's steel skin proves useful when he fights a group of demons vulnerable to being attacked with iron.
  • The Silver Adept, the sorceress supreme of the series, uses the Aethernet — a magic-powered internet — to respond to emails, track appointments, and get navigational updates across the myriad dimensions.
  • American Chibi owes her origin to an Eldritch Abomination trying to get into the world via video games. Hummingbird II is dubious.
    Hummingbird: But— computer games? Creepy elder-god pixel-things?
    Assemblyman: Hey, modern times, modern forms.
  • When Hummingbird II needs to open a portal to the mystic realm of Khapak Iqun, it required a magic spell augmented with a technological gateway.
• Power Fist: Goldenglove's gloves gave him this power, but his daughter discovered they were capable of a lot more.
• Power Limiter: Lord Sovereign has a fragment of the Sekhmet Stone embedded in his armor; it's the only thing that allows him to control his dark energies and prevent them from overwhelming him.
• The Power of Rock: Astro City has had a number of heroes and heroines, dating from its foundation as Romeyn Falls, with powers associated with various forms of music.
  • Silverstring was a demon-slaying troubadour from the 1870s who traveled from place to place and realm to realm, learning music and fighting evil along the way.
  • The Anthropomorphic Personification of counterculture music is a recurring superhero in the series. Its manifestations have been Mister Cakewalk (a Ragtime-inspired vigilante from the 1900s), Jazzbaby (a jazz-themed heroine from the 1920s), Zoot Suit ('40s big band), the Bouncing Beatnik (hep cat from The '50s), the Halcyon Hippie (psychedelic rock of The '60s), then finally Glamorax (a David Bowie-inspired glam rocker of The '70s). Going beyond conventional crimefighting, they are also the Arch-Enemy of the Oubor, an Eldritch Abomination from outside of reality.
  • Played with in Sticks, a talking gorilla from a militaristic gorilla society who left his home to pursue a career as a rock drummer. Due to his superior strength and agility, he was targeted for recruitment by both heroes and villains, which made it difficult to fulfill his goal. His solution was to assemble a band of superpowered beings called "Powerchord".
• Promotion to Parent: After the first (villainous) Quarrel was arrested, his daughter took it upon herself to take care of her three brothers and mom.
• Protection Racket: During the Great Depression, the Ingels Street Mob would intimidate shopkeepers into signing up for "protection"; those who refused would be visited by The Convincer, an armored thug who'd smash up the place (and maybe the owners).
• Protector Behind Bars: In "The Tarnished Angel", Steeljack has been imprisoned by Honor Guard after they refuse to believe his warnings about an impending citywide supervillain attack. Out of options, he breaks free and gets back to the city because he realizes that the small-time crooks of his neighborhood had no one else to protect them from a murderer.
• Psycho for Hire:
  • There's Demolitia and the Unholy Alliance, who enjoy their work too much to be Punch-Clock Villains and are not classy enough to form Murder, Inc.
  • The terrorist organization Pyramid is not above renting out their psycho killer Jitterjack for whoever has the price.
  • For a while, the '90s Anti-Hero Hollowpoint was running a killer-for-hire service.
• Psychic Powers: This is the secret origin of The Gentleman — he is the psychic manifestation of Matilda Armstrong, a girl who wishes him into existence when there's trouble. Matilda is also able to use her powers to create additional people (like the Young Gentleman), keep herself immortal, and Break the Fourth Wall.
• Punch a Wall: In "The Tarnished Angel", Carl gets so frustrated that he takes out his anger by smashing up a condemned apartment building.
• Punch-Clock Villain: In "Ellie's Friends", Ellie's nephew Fred is making money on the side by renting out Ellie's collection of robot friends as mooks and henchmen to anyone. Ellie ends up getting arrested as a result.
• Put on a Bus: Done literally in "A Little Knowledge", as "Eyes" Eisenstein takes a bus to get very far away from Astro City.
• The Queenpin: "The Voice of the Turtle" has the Red Queen, a.k.a. Lucia, childhood girlfriend of the Mock Turtle. She built up a criminal empire using a combination of her own cleverness and guile, his intelligence, and various stolen goods.
• Quitting to Get Married: In "Waltz of the Hours", a sudden citywide burst of romance prompts the costumed bank robber Gundog to suddenly retire from crime and move to Maine with his new girlfriend Laura.
• Rage Breaking Point: In "The Deep Dark Woods", a lifetime of being insulted and ignored finally spills over when a stranger just walks into Ned Carroway. Ned proceeds to demolish the man before stealing his clothing.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: At the end of "Enemy of the Empire", Zir realizes his sister is Reassigned to Antarctica and his entire society is a horrible, broken mess of lies. But he vows to try and find a way to change it from within.
• Reaction Shot: At the end of "Pastoral", we see Cammie's reaction to what she saw in the barn — including her going back to the house and writing an entirely new email that shows she has decided to become a Secret-Keeper — before the last panel reveals what she saw.
• The Real Heroes:
  • Samaritan says this in "In Dreams" when receiving an award from the fire service. He really believes it, though he wishes he could skip the ceremonies and spend more time saving civilians instead.
  • There's also a poster seen in one story of the Silver Agent next to a police officer. "Silver Agent says salute your local heroes!"
  • The story "Since the Fire", written for one of the 9/11 benefit books, is all about this.
• Really Was Born Yesterday: In "Shining Armor", Atomicus looks like a thirty-something adult male, but has the emotional maturity and understanding of a young child since he was created just a year ago.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Commander Flint, of E.A.G.L.E., who comes to one of Winged Victory's facilities to investigate it when she's under accusation. He hears her out, respects her wishes, and tells her he's not there to arrest her. When he gets word that a warrant's being put out for her arrest, he gives her a warning.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: All the soldiers of the Zirr Empire who were defeated by the First Family are cashiered, demoted and reassigned to crap work. Since they're brainwashed, they accept this as failure for not doing their all to serve their empire.
  Zir: This was our system. This was our way. We do as the priestlords say. And the priestlords lie to us. And good people break and are punished for failing, rather than blame those who created the situation in the first place.
• Reconstruction: Astro City is a series built on the repeated reconstruction of comic book superheroes. While most of Kurt Busiek's works involve nuanced reconstruction on some level, Astro City has it as its lifeblood. You will be hard-pressed to find a single issue that doesn't reconstruct one Comic Book trope or another, whether it's the Crisis Crossover, the Badass Normal, Mundane Utility, the Intrepid Reporter, Secret Identities, the Nineties Antihero, Post-Modern Magik...
• Recursive Reality: "Sorrowsday" introduces the Moleculands, an entire set of microscoping realities like Subatomia and the Quarkrealms.
• Red Right Hand: Royal recognizes Aubrey Jason as his parents' killer by his distinctive facial scar.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Julius Furst is red to his brother Augustus' blue.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Usually played straight, as Kurt Busiek believes that it's important that the stories take place in our world. That said, a key event in the universe is Samaritan averting the Challenger shuttle disaster, which ushered in a new era of inspirational superheroes.
  • There's also the story of Vincent Oleck, a lawyer who successfully defended his client in a murder case by citing superhuman tropes such as Shapeshifting, Evil Twins, and Death Is Cheap. Later, it is explained that the case caused a major overhaul of praxis in Astro City's legal system, so the defense wouldn't work in the present day.
  • Deconstructed in the Astro-Naut's story. Roy Virgil, a.k.a. the Astro-Naut, developed many super-advanced inventions during his interplanetary adventures. However, he refuses to share them with anyone because he's convinced that The World Is Not Ready for them. The public is outraged that he's hoarding futuristic technology from them, especially as this was during the start of World War II and the Allies' war effort, causing his popularity to plummet.
• Reformed, but Rejected: In "The Tarnished Angel", Steeljack leaves prison tired of being a supervillain and simply wants to make an honest living for himself. However, he is shunned by most employers, and the only work offers he gets are for supervillain jobs, which he cannot accept lest he break parole. When he tries to investigate a string of murders, his efforts are met with rejection and scorn from people who assume he's up to no good.
• Religious Vampire: The Confessor was a young priest that was turned into a vampire and became a superhero as form of penance. His uniform is styled with a cross on his chest that causes him constant pain to prevent him from giving into the temptation to drink blood and reminds him of his mission to defend justice.
  • Notably, after he is exposed as a vampire and then destroyed, his (non-vampiric) sidekick encounters the Crossbreed, a team of Christian superheroes. He assumes they'll be just as horrified that he was a vampire as the public is, but they reveal that they've always known what he was and didn't hold it against him because he was "doing the Lord's work."
• Remote Body: The Death-Walker robots are controlled by human operators from a remote location.
• Repressive, but Efficient: Infidel tries to convince Samaritan that his life would be so much easier if he'd stop being The Cape and use his powers to Take Over the World.
• Rescue Sex: At the end of "Things Past", after Cutlass has thrown a celebratory block party for Steeljack and handed him the keys to his new home, she suggests that they can try out the reinforced bedroom afterwards.
• We Help the Helpless: This is how Resistor works — at times of intense emotional energy, when peaceful people are being attacked, selfless people nearby who want to help them are transformed into energy beings able to protect them from harm.
• Ret-Gone:
  • This is a key point in "The Nearness of You", where Michael Tenicek keeps dreaming of a woman he's never met, yet knows all of her intimate details. It turns out she was his wife, but got erased in the aftermath of a Time Crash event due to a Close-Enough Timeline.
  • This was the result of Samaritan's first mission. He eliminated the Bad Future he came from and wiped out all of his loved ones from his original timeline.
    • In fact, two of the stories featuring Samaritan strongly hint that the reason why he's been obsessively doing good acts is to make up for deleting the loved ones of his original timeline. Talk about Survivor's Guilt!
  • This is also what led to Infidel becoming Samaritan's Arch-Enemy — when Samaritan eliminated his Bad Future, he also accidentally eliminated Infidel's empire in the distant future. Prior to their truce, many of their battles involved one trying to eliminate the other's reality.
  • Preventing this is why the Silver Agent willingly allows himself to be executed.
• Retired Badass:
  • "Hero's Reward" is about Duncan Keller, a.k.a. the hero Starfighter, adjusting to being this. The Lorus, the source of his powers, has decided he should enjoy his retirement, and he should accept that it's okay to just take it easy for a while.
  • The Black Rapier, leader of Honor Guard, voluntarily retires after decades of super-heroics.
  • Dr. Cannon, Honor Guard's on-call medic, was formerly the superhero known as Tenspeed.
  • Though they stopped short of giving themselves a team name, Charles and Royal Williams qualify — they go from being a pair of vengeful Nineties Anti Heroes to running a chartered fishing business in Mexico.
  • "Old Times" shows that Supersonic still has the speed and the strength of his youth, if not the cleverness.
• Reveal Shot: The end of "Pastoral" reveals what Cammie saw that made up her mind about Caplinville.
• Ridiculously Fast Construction:
  • A newspaper clipping from the "Local Heroes" trade paperback mentions that Honor Guard often uses alien technology to quickly repair damages after super-powered fights.
  • It is also mentioned that quick repairs to the city's infrastructure is Serious Business to the Astro City Department of Public Works.
• Ridiculous Procrastinator: Mister Manta has been marooned on a deserted island for decades. He vows to return to civilization someday and resume his life of crime, but keeps putting it off to improve his makeshift gear and weapons. In reality, he could leave if his gear was good enough to reach the mainland, but deep down he enjoys being The Hermit.
• Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!: The Silver Adept has an annoying habit of magically smashing her alarm clocks into the wall every morning.
• Rings of Death: Street Angel's halos during The '70s are made of high-impact ceramic with a steel core. They might not be fatal, but they will inflict a lot of injury and possibly maim...
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • "The Dark Age" follows the lives of Charles and Royal Williams as they evolve into Sociopathic Heroes to get revenge on the man who killed their parents.
  • In one story, the Zirr Empire sends troops to attack the First Family, but they can only settle for abducting the non-powered wife of one of them. About five minutes later, the entire Family storms the Empire to get her back.
• Robosexual: Played every which way with Beautie. She is a human-sized superpowered robot fashion doll, and while she has an interest in romance she finds the people who aren't put off by her completely rigid body and lack of genitalia more disturbing and difficult to interact with than those who are.
• Robot Buddy: "Ellie's Friends" features an entire roadside museum full of these, with dozens of robots she salvaged and befriended after countless superhero battles. Special credit goes to Arthur, a ball-shaped former warbot who masterminds Ellie's escape from jail after she's wrongly accused of terrorism.
• Robot Master:
  • The first Assemblyman creates rampaging robots for anyone who pays.
  • Vivi Vector is a female example who thinks big — she's spent decades infiltrating robotics and electronics systems worldwide with her creations.
  • Ellie Jennersen was a robotics genius even before she got into college and broadened her expertise. Unfortunately, her potential was cut short after her roommate Mind Raped her and stole her work.
  • Dr. Saturday is a Mad Scientist who builds giant robots that resemble cartoon characters.
• Robot Superhero:
  • Beautie is a super-strong flying robot that resembles an adult-sized Beautie fashion doll.
  • Rivets, the Robot Kid, is an android programmed to be a heroic teen superhero.
• Rock Monster: The Ore-Master is a ten-foot-tall being made of metals pulled from the earth and burning with internal fire.
• Rubber Man: Karl Furst of the First Family has this power.
• Runic Magic: Starfighter activates the powers of the Lorus by drawing glowing symbols on nearby objects or in midair. These powers include flight, sound suppression, costume changes, and interstellar travel.

Tropes S-U

• Samaritan Syndrome: A lot of the heroes have shades of this, but Samaritan himself has it the worst; he is so busy helping people that he hasn't been able to form a single normal human relationship in twenty years.
  • In one story, his fellow superheroes make arrangements to protect the world without him for one night so that he can go on a date with Winged Victory, who is similarly as dedicated to heroism. Both of them have a hard time relaxing on the date, but it's implied that their being out of action for a little while didn't cost the world anything due to their friends stepping up their game. There's also a moment towards the very end where they get to relax and enjoy a very short moment of dead silence, with no emergencies.
    • Later issues heavily imply the two of them are an item, which is appropriate considering their similarities to their duty.
    • It's really brought home by the fact that Samaritan's dream is to be able to fly free — as in, "just fly around for the fun of it" rather than "fly toward the latest emergency".
  • Discussed in "After the Fire", where a teen named Farrell talks to a firefighter who lost his leg rescuing him from a burning high rise.
    Artie: "The superheroes flyin' around, they're okay — but they can't always be there. We gotta take care of ourselves."
• Saved to Enslave: This is Infidel's way of gathering followers — rescue people from calamity using Time Travel and then bind them into his service.
• Scary Black Man: Hellhound is a burly black man with a demonic look, a torn leather jacket with chains, and other scary accoutrements. Subverted in that he's one of the nicest heroes around.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Simon Magus' glasses give off a constant glow, as if they're hiding some great power behind them.
• Screw Destiny: The only thing that can stop Krigari Ironhand from conquering the micro-realms is to tell him that he's destined to be defeated by Honor Guard. This causes Krigari to refocus his energies on defeating them to defy the prophecy.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In "Things Past", the Iron Guard beat a hasty retreat after Steeljack single-handedly tears through their antiquated armor.
• Sealed Evil in a Duel: When American Chibi realizes that her presence in the real world is what allows the King-In-Chains to exert its influence beyond Ibbopolis, she volunteers to seal herself in their Pocket Dimension to keep it trapped. Chibi and the King remain locked in a never-ending battle as a result.
• Secret Identity: Played with every way possible.
  • Some supers have their identities publicly known and are treated like celebrities, such as with the First Family.
  • Others are shrouded entirely in myth and feared or shunned, like The Confessor or the Blue Knight.
  • And still others have revealed their identities to the authorities while keeping them secret from the public at large, such as the Street Angel and Quarrel.
  • Roustabout has, in reality, a public identity in the Close-Knit Community of the carnival and the towns it visits, but because he's wanted by the law, the community acts as a large-scale Secret-Keeper and even feigns Obfuscating Stupidity as if it were an Extra-Strength Masquerade.
  • In one story, a petty criminal stumbles upon Jack-in-the-Box's identity, then starts thinking about the ways he might exploit the information. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that it will all end VERY badly for him. He decides to forget everything and leave town instead.
• Secret-Keeper: Astro City has dozens of these, given the sheer number of superheroes and supervillains in the 'verse. Special recognition goes to the entire town of Caplinville, where the Close-Knit Community maintains an Extra-Strength Masquerade for local hero Roustabout.
• Secret Relationship: As Roustabout is on the run from the law, he and his girlfriend naturally keep quiet.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Andy Merton's girlfriend, Esme, already knew he and Hank were G-Dog before he told her. As she points out, it wasn't difficult to figure out considering they all live together, and every time Andy and Hank disappear G-Dog shows up soon after...
• Seen It All:
  • The residents of Astro City treat the various super-heroics as part of the appeal of the city. Even when a gigantic Thunder God threatens to level the town, most folks get outside, pull up lawn chairs, and watch the show... if they don't have homework to finish, anyway.
  • In "On the Sidelines", Martha Sullivan treats being forcibly "recruited" into becoming a minion for an up-and-coming supervillan with bored derision and apathy. She's been through this so many times that she's simply annoyed at having her time wasted before this wannabe gets his ass kicked.
    "Seriously? Gas? Of all the hoary old—"
• Seers: Played with in "Sorrowsday". The interdimensional rampage of Krigari Ironhand is only paused when Druin the Seer appears and foretells of his defeat by Honor Guard. This angers Krigari to refocus his energies on defeating Honor Guard and defy the prophecy. In the end, it is revealed that Druin is simply a farmer in disguise, using a desperate attempt to deflect Krigari's destructive campaign.
• Self-Deprecation: At the end of "My Dad", the Broken Man grumbles about not having enough pages to tell his story and blames the pacing issues on the comic's creators.
• Self-Imposed Exile: After destroying reality in a futile battle against Samaritan, Infidel agreed to exile himself into a pocket dimension where he could study and scheme without directly endangering the universe.
• Self-Made Man: Infidel started off as a poor boy from Kenya and grew to become the most fearsome Evil Sorcerer and Mad Scientist simply through his boundless intellect.
• Self-Made Orphan: Technically speaking, Samaritan qualifies. He arrived in the present day from a Bad Future and succeeded in averting that — but wiped out his own early history as a result.
• Sentient Cosmic Force:
  • The dark energy that infested Astro City during The '80s is implied to be this. It's an energy field that is implied to be attracted to (or induces) feelings of vengeance and malevolence in others, and can empower beings like The Pale Horseman and Lord Sovereign with paranormal abilities.
  • The Lorus that empowers Starfighter is this, a cosmic force associated with patterns and shapes.
• Sent Into Hiding: After he is tagged by the Blue Knight with a Tracking Device, Royal Williams wraps tin foil around his neck and hides in a brick-walled basement to block the signal.
• Sequel Hook: The Vertigo run concludes with someone claiming to be a former pilot of the N-Forcer armor coming forward, intended to set up the first original graphic novel.
• Series Fauxnale: "The Voice of the Turtle" ends with Steeljack believing that he's stopped the Kiefer Square murders by driving off the Chessmen and saving the Mock Turtle. The issue even closes with the "You Are Now Leaving Astro City" street sign, signaling the end of the "Tarnished Angel" story arc. The next issue opens with the death of the Mock Turtle, indicating the case is far from over.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong
  • Samaritan was originally from the 35th century, when mankind was nearly extinct. In a desperate attempt, he was sent back in time to stop the event that triggered his Bad Future. He arrived in 1985, accidentally infused with the primal energy of time and space, and barely managed to avert the Challenger shuttle explosion. He had saved the future and became a superhero, but at the cost of eliminating his original timeline and everyone in it.
  • This is a background event in "The Nearness of You". A time-manipulating supervillain ends up shattering time itself and endangering all of reality as a result. The heroes eventually managed to restore the timestream, but with some minor differences...
• Settle for Sibling: Silver Agent's first girlfriend eventually got over their breakup and married his brother.
• Sewer Gator: One of the outcast heroes who was recruited by Bravo to become a founding member of the Astro City Irregulars was a mutant alligator that lived in the city sewers, with the unoriginal name of Alligator.
• Sex God: According to Quarrel, Crackerjack is fantastic in bed.
• Sex Magic: At least one of Simon Magus' rituals require having sex with his assistant Grimoire.
• Shame If Something Happened: Played completely straight in "Knock Wood"; a lawyer uses a genius defense to acquit the son of a mafia boss, who then wants to recruit him permanently. When the lawyer refuses, the boss invokes the trope nearly verbatim against his family so he will accept the offer...
• Shared Mass Hallucination: In "The Dark Age", there is a brief mention of a battle with the L.S.Deviant, an alien that induced reality-warping hallucinations throughout the city — cars eating pedestrians, buildings breathing, people sprouting wings...
• Sharp-Dressed Man:
  • No one can hold a candle to The Gentleman, who has never been seen wearing anything other than his impressively elegant tuxedo, complete with sash and buttonhole rose.
  • "Ned" Carroway is addicted to being a costumed Mook partially because it allows him to imagine himself as a Badass in a Nice Suit. Pity his criminal skills aren't as good as his clothing sense.
  • In Astro City, "clotheshorses" are career criminals who are addicted to committing crimes while dressed up in elegant clothes or elaborate costumes.
• Shock and Awe: Juice of the Astro City Irregulars is a manifestation of electrical energy who can fly and project energy bolts. White Lightning is a supervillain with similar powers.
• Shout Outs: Astro City is a massive Shout Out to the comic book industry; almost all the storefronts, streets, neighborhoods and locations are named for notable creators, most of which will fly past the uninitiated. Here are some of the more notable ones:
  • Astro City itself is overshadowed by the massive Mount Kirby, the city's prominent landmark.
  • Julius Furst of the First Family is based on DC Comics' creator Julius Schwartz.
  • A race of shape-shifting aliens is named the Enelsians, after MAD magazine and DC Comics writer E. Nelson Bridwell.
  • The Sprang Museum of Popular Advertising — which features an assortment of massive props — is named after Golden Age Batman artist Dick Sprang.
  • A high-class restaurant in the city is named Goscinny's, after René Goscinny (writer and co-creator of Asterix).
  • Kiefer Square is a reference to artist Henry C. Kiefer, who drew various Golden Age comic books as well as the Classics Comics/Classics Illustrated line of books.
  • Characters are shown drinking Haddock's brand whiskey, named for the Tintin character.
  • The main prison of Astro City is on Biro Island; Charles Biro was the editor of the (pre-Comics Code) Crime Does Not Pay comic book series.
  • Bakerville, the predominantly African-American neighborhood, is named after Matt Baker, the first African-American comic book artist best known for drawing Phantom Lady.
  • Hillman Aviation is named after Hillman Periodicals, publishers of Airboy.
  • The Chesler neighborhood of Astro City is known for its sweatshops. This doubles as a Take That! to Harry "A" Chesler, an early comic book publisher infamous for his sweatshop conditions.
  • Binderbeck Plaza is named after Otto Binder and C.C. Beck, creators of the Fawcett Captain Marvel.
• Shrouded in Myth:
  • The Blue Knight is the subject of much rumor and speculation. An ex-cop with a holographic skull face, an actual avenging spirit, etc. Whether or not he's eight feet tall or has a skull collection is also disputed.
  • The Confessor originally existed as little more than a legend because no video footage or photos of him had ever been taken. This is because he's a vampire. The fact that after Altar Boy succeeded him there were photos made criminals even more confused on the matter, thinking that he's somehow immune to traditional vampire weaknesses and that he'd come back from the dead rather than making the more obvious connection.
• Sickeningly Sweet: Every time G-Dog (half-man, half-corgi) rescues someone, they invariably gush over how adorably cute he is... which irritates his human half to no end.
• Signature Scent: Louisa Garneau can recognize when Resistor is about to appear because the manifestation is accompanied by the smell of her father's pipe tobacco and lemon drops.
• Sinister Minister:
  • Subverted by The Deacon, who is the undisputed leader of organized crime throughout the city, but is simply a crime boss who dresses like a religious figure.
  • The Deacon is balanced by his greatest enemy, the Confessor, who's not only religiously themed, but is actually a real priest. And then subverted again when the Confessor is outed as a vampire.
  • "The Dark Ages" featured the Hellsignor, a skeletal Evil Sorcerer who called himself "Satan's Archbishop".
• Sizeshifter:
  • Natalie Furst of the First Family and Max O'Millions of Honor Guard can make themselves grow to enormous size.
  • Wolfspider can shrink to the size of his namesake.
  • The Hanged Man can change his size at will; he's been seen several times to grow tall enough to tower over the city.
• Skull for a Head: The Blue Knight wears a face mask that projects a holographic skull.
• Sleep Deprivation: "In Dreams 2015" begins with Samaritan having problems sleeping; this causes him to become uncharacteristically irritable and to make careless mistakes.
• Slice of Life: Many of the stories focus on regular civilians as they go through their days in a world full of superheroes and whatnot.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: It varies by the viewpoint character. Busiek seems to be experimenting with stories where neither the idealistic nor the cynical characters come out constitutionally certain that their core beliefs are correct as the series progresses (e.g. the Samaritan and Beautie one-shots). As a whole, the series tends more towards idealism than cynicism.
• Smoky Gentlemen's Club: Butler's, an upper-class club where superheroes can relax in their secret identities (and formal wear) while the staff wear masks. Discretion is absolutely guaranteed.
• Social Climber: Maria Alvardo Vega started off running charities and social reform groups for migrant workers in the barrios of Los Angeles, and ends up as the president of an investment banking company. It's hinted that her ambition is what led to her divorce from her political activist husband.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Samaritan suffers from this when his super-heroic peers maneuver him into a dinner date with Winged Victory.
• So Proud of You: Many characters have this; even the retired villain Quarrel admits that he's proud of his daughter's heroic career.
  • In "The Menace From Earth", Zo's mother is ecstatic after seeing his high aptitude scores, as they indicate he's an extremely talented Zirr and may get to choose his own role in Zirr society.
• Space Base: The Astro-Naut had one on an asteroid, complete with hangers and an airstrip.
• Space Police: G.A.L.A.K.T.I.K. is an alien law-enforcement group that arrests and incarcerates interstellar criminals. They resemble The Greys wearing black suits.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • When the Ion Empire captured Honor Guard, Quarrel managed to follow the robots to one of their ships. Since they were unaware of her presence, she was able to blow up the power supply for the "stasis lens" and rescue Honor Guard.
  • Professor Borzoi's Belief Ray created a giant gorilla powerful enough to challenge the Gentleman. Unfortunately, it also brought Loony Leo to life, who smashed the ray and made the gorilla disappear.
  • Krigari Ironhand's second defeat against Honor Guard came because he abducted all of their members except for Mermaid, whom he didn't think was worth bothering with. She manages to free them all.
  • Karnazon's campaign to discredit Winged Victory is foiled when an abused boy sneaks into their secret base and informs the heroes of its location.
• The Spark of Genius: Roy Virgil, a.k.a. the Astro-Naut. He was so smart that he could copy the alien technologies he saw on his space adventures without the benefit of reverse-engineering them — just knowing what was possible was sufficient.
  "Just knowing they exist, knowing that whatever they do actually can be done... well, that lets me know it's possible, if I only find a way. So I do."
• Spider-Man Send-Up: Though Jack-In-The-Box has a "prankster/clown" motif borrowed more from The Creeper or Killjoy, is clearly meant to be Spider-Man at first glance — street-level hero, acrobatic Fragile Speedster fighting style, unusual means of locomotion (spring-feet), favors string-like weapons to snare criminals, and constant wisecracking. One issue involves his fear of spawning murderous, deathly serious Anti-Hero Substitute successors, a pretty obvious joke on characters like Venom and Kaine. Appropriately enough, his first appearance was a reworked pitch for a Spider-Man story that Marvel didn't approve.
• Spider People: Little Miss Muffet was a short-lived local superhero; she resembled a blond young girl with six arms who could climb walls.
• Spock Speak: Several characters do this, most notably the robot Beautie.
• Spotting the Thread: The key moment of "Confession" is when Brian confronts the Confessor with various observations he's made.
  Brian: You're prenaturally strong and fast. Bullets go through you. You can turn into mist. You mesmerize people with a look...You snuck up on me when I was looking in a mirror! You don't have a reflection! You...you're a vampire, aren't you?
  Confessor: Ah, Brian, well...well done.
  • Shortly after, Brian openly notes that "I spotted the clues but you let me", knowing the Confessor wanted him to figure out his secret.
• Stable Time Loop: Preserving this is why the Silver Agent voluntarily allows himself to be executed in 1973 by the people of Astro City. Prior to his execution, he had been pulled into the far future to lead a war against a galaxy-spanning menace. As he traveled back to the present day, he continued to help and inspire more people in their times of need — and he was afraid that trying to avoid his fate would lead to alternate timelines that would erase their efforts.
• Starfish Language: The Enelsians. Their speech amongst their own kind is represented by alien glyphs... which are actually part of a cypher in English. Translating what they are really saying is a fun little puzzle, if you have the time.
• The Starscream: The Deacon plays this role in "The Dark Ages". As second-in-command to Joey "The Platypus" Platapopulous, he covertly engineers events during the citywide gang war to pit the gangs against each other, destabilizing them all and pitting them into a collective stalemate. Then, with the city in chaos due to a Hate Plague, he kills "The Platypus", then seizes control of most of the city's underworld before the night is over.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Played for drama in "Her Dark Plastic Roots". Elaine Girbachs, the daughter of Gadgeteer Genius Dr. Gearbox, was a Child Prodigy whose expertise exceeded his own. But when he found out about her talent, he denounced her because he believed engineering and math aren't proper fields for girls.
• Steal the Surroundings:
  • Occurs in "Where the Action Is". When a cosmic being gets irritated with Manny Monkton fabricating unflattering stories about it, it causes Manny's entire office building — with Manny inside — to disappear for parts unknown.
  • Something causes Simon Magus' home to disappear in "The Day the Music Died".
• Stealth Pun:
  • The supervillain Slamburger appears to be made of ground beef.
  • See also the Crossbreed: David (the giant), Daniel (the lion-man), Peter (rock-skinned stone manipulator), Mary (winged flyer), Joshua (sonic screams) and Noah (commands rain and lightning). Though in this case, the characters make it deliberately clear that these are religious references, not much stealth utilized.
  • And the astronauts-turned superheroes in the Apollo Eleven. Why, yes, they did land on the moon. The name came first (from Alex Ross), and the characters followed.
  • The Confessor. Vampires are stereotypically associated with bats, making him a literal Batman.
  • The main prison is Astro City is Biro Island Correctional Facility. In British English, a "biro" is a generic term for a pen.
• Steampunk: Dame Progress, an early twentieth century hero of Astro City, fights crime using a steam-powered flight harness and a steam-powered mecha.
• Sticky Fingers: "The Dark Age" opens with Royal Williams pickpocketing valuables from various shell-shocked citizens, in contrast to his early childhood being the honest and upright brother to Charles.
• Sticky Situation: Glue-Gun, who is regarded as a joke by the entire superhero community.
• Stone Wall: Resistor is a free-floating emotional memetic field that — at times of strife — turns bystanders into energy beings who cast protective shields to protect others. This is Resistor's only power; they have no offensive capabilities whatsoever.
• Straw Feminist: The Council of Nike that empowers Winged Victory. They criticize her for her relationship with Samaritan and for joining the Honor Guard (which is led by a man), believing that any association with any men makes Winged Victory look weak and undermines her message.
• Strawman Political:
  • Some citizens of Astro City view Winged Victory in a distinctively negative light because of her strong advocacy for women's rights and independence.
  • Similarly, the Crossbreed are typically dismissed as religious fanatics because they believe their powers are a gift from God and proselytize when not fighting super-villains.
• String Theory: The Broken Man has this set-up in his realm, linking objects related to the Oubor and his plans to fight it, although the pins are stuck in thin air and looking closely at an object lets you enter its story. Later on, in "This Town", he says we're not going in that room today, "the yarn's been unruly and the thumbtacks... it hasn't been pretty."
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: Infidel narrates that he once destroyed the universe in a "fit of pique." After discovering even that wouldn't kill Samaritan (and Samaritan realizing the same for Infidel), they collaborated to put everything back together. Once that was done, they decided to have dinner together once a year instead of constantly putting reality at risk.
• Suicide Attack: Done by Mister Drama when he discovered he would die of cancer in a few weeks. Wishing to go out in a blaxe of glory, he pretends to be The Underlord to lure the original Jack-in-the-Box to an underground lair, then blows it up to kill them both.
• Super-Deformed: American Chibi looks like an Anime character with a huge head, big eyes, and an undersized body. Justified as she is the creation of a video-game artist who wanted a positive, life-affirming character to star in her game. When Honor Guard follows American Chibi to her Pocket Dimension homeworld, they are also turned into super-deformed designs.
  "Oh, you are all just so totally adorable...!"
• Superdickery:
  • The story "Shining Armor" is a brutal deconstruction of Lois Lane's brand of Superdickery in the Silver Age Superman/Lois relationship. Irene Merriweather tries to prove herself worthy of Atomicus' love by exposing his secret identity, even as she repeatedly endangers him by doing so. When she finally succeeds, Atomicus explodes in rage and leaves Earth forever, tired of her dogged pursuit. Atomicus never wanted to play that game at all, but was too naive and afraid to tell her so.
  • There was also a brief mention in the story "Old Times" — Supersonic, after an adventure that temporarily gave him 16 exact doubles, took his Lois-type girlfriend Caroleen to a dance as Supersonic and had one of his doubles come as his secret identity of Dale Enright. He did this just to mess with Caroleen.
• Super-Empowering: Resistor is a neuro-memetic imprint that free-floats in the public consciousness. When a concentration of high social strife breaks out at a location — such as peaceful protestors being attacked — it turns ordinary people into flying energy beings who can protect the innocent.
• Super Hero: The focus of the series is largely the adventures of the various superheroes that populate the city, and the people who live with them.
• Superhero Capital of the World: While every major city has its own superheroes, Astro City itself attracts an unusually large number of them. Sometimes lampshaded by characters who find the heavy concentration of super-activity to be part of the city's appeal.
  "They all think it's an ordinary city... More super-heroes than most, a little more exotic — but a regular city for all that. They always think that, at first."
• Superhero Packing Heat:
  • Early Astro City heroes who used firearms include Air Ace and the Cloak of Night.
  • From "The Dark Ages", Hollowpoint and the Blue Knight^note As well as his successors, the Blue Knights predominantly use firearms.
• Superhero Trophy Shelf:
  • Subverted with Samaritan, who has a Phantom Zone that he uses only as storage space for the many awards and souvenirs that he receives, and which merely gather the extradimensional equivalent of dust.
  • Played straight with the Trophy Room in Honor Guard's flying base.
  • The First Family also have a lot of odds and ends lying around, but how many are trophies (as opposed to Cans O' Evil or "thingummies-Augustus-wants-to-tinker-with-at-some-point") is as of yet unknown.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Mister Manta and Mermaid can breathe underwater.
• Super Registration Act: In "Confession", the city government starts a registration act to calm the public during a wave of serial killings. It does not go well. It turns out the Mayor was an alien shapeshifter who was trying to contain the heroes before their invasion.
• Super Team: FAR too many to list — Honor Guard, the First Family, the Irregulars, the Unclean, Apollo Eleven, the Crossbreed, the J-Hawks, the Omega Rangers, the Birds of Paradise, Reflex 6, Queenslaw,^note They started off as a TV show but were briefly made real the Experimentals, the Silver Centurions, Powerchord...
• Super Villain: It being a superhero genre series, there's scads of supervillains running around, from the reality-shattering Infidel to the Butt-Monkey Glue-Gun.
• Swashbuckler:
  • El Hombre is essentially Zorro but with an electrified whip instead of a sword.
  • Crackerjack combines this with a Glory Hound Jerkass personality.
• Tabloid Melodrama: Inside Scoop magazine loves to do this to Astra Furst, taking every innocent and mundane aspect of her life and twisting it into breathless drama. They're so relentless that they pay her boyfriend to record their prom night activities, with a million-dollar bonus if he can get a sex tape out of it. When Astra breaks up with him over this, they turn it into scandal fodder within minutes.
• Take a Third Option: Sticks' solution to his dilemma of wanting to play music while not endangering the people around him is to form a band with other musically-talented supers, allowing them to indulge their passion while stopping any troublemakers they may encounter.
• Take Up My Sword:
  • The Confessor is succeeded by Altar Boy after the Confessor is revealed to be a vampire and killed in battle.
  • Jack-in-the-Box II initially took up the mantle to capture the crime boss his father died pursuing.
  • Starbright is replaced by his former Arch-Enemy Simon Says after the original dies on a mission.
  • Done indirectly with Stormhawk — after he dies in a Heroic Sacrifice, the medallion that granted his Beast Man Fusion Dance powers returns to his home, where his wife enshrines it. Later, a burglar steals the medallion, then accidentally becomes G-Dog as a result.
• Talking in Your Dreams: The Blue Knight directly addresses a lawyer who's been dreaming of him in the last dream.
• Talking Is a Free Action: All over the place, in finest comic book fashion — characters explain gadgets and powers as they are used, speedsters and fliers talk while zipping past, banter...
• Technopath:
  • The heroic Assemblyman is suggested to be one of these, and he has been shown controlling machines and reconfiguring them into various weapons.
  • Magda, from "On the Sidelines," who can communicate with machines and persuade them to do her bidding. She uses her powers to restore old cars.
• Terror Hero: The Confessor, a Batman Expy who intimidates criminals with scary deep voices and persistent rumors of supernatural origins. During Astro City's equivalent of the Dark Age, other Anti-Hero characters of this vein appeared, including the Blue Knight, the Street Angel, Hellhound, Stone Cold, and the Pale Horseman.
• Testosterone Poisoning: Karnazon, a massive, over-the-top muscle-bound Long-Haired Pretty Boy Walking Shirtless Scene with a Manly Chin. A Foil to Winged Victory, his goal is to defeat her and assert the inherent superiority of men over women.
  "Accept the inevitable, as a woman should, and surrender!"
• Temporal Abortion: One story features a man who is haunted by the memory of a woman he does not recall meeting, even though he remembers countless details about her. Unable to sleep because of his dreams about her, he finally consults the supernatural being called the Hanged Man, who tells him that the mystery woman was his wife. Thanks to some time-travel shenanigans, history was altered, and she was never born in the present timeline.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Infidel took his name as a badge of honor when people rose up against him as a monster and a jerk and a heretic and, yes, an infidel.^note Granted, the guy really is pretty darn evil long before this.
• They Just Dont Get It: In one story about a doorman at a high class hotel, he explains that when people come to Astro City the first time, they just don't understand how different it is. This included a snobbish agent who was trying to contact Samaritan and almost got herself killed, a normal crook who didn't understand the rules of the underworld in Astro City, and a family that was stopping there during a layover. Most of the folks left and didn't come back.
• Thinking Up Portals: The Silver Adept can open portals that allow her to travel instantaneously from one point to another, even across dimensional realms. The only exceptions are when mystical phenomena interfere with her travels, which require her assistant to help find alternate routes.
• This Means War!: Played for drama in "Serpent's Teeth", when an alternate-timeline version of Jack-in-the-Box II's son uses Jack's "Of course you realize, this means war" as motivation to become a Knight Templar on the city's criminals... without realizing Jack was quoting Bugs Bunny.
• Time Crash: Occurs in "The Nearness of You". Michael Tenicek is haunted by dreams of a wife he's never met, because she was erased from existence in the aftermath of a Time Crash.
• Time Master: The Time-Keeper is a villain who uses stopwatches of his own design that can stop time. In "The Nearness of You," he fights Eterneon, the Lord and Watcher of the Timestream, and the battle results in a Time Crash Crisis Crossover.
• Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Quarrel's first meeting with Street Angel has him encountering this, since he's already met a future version of her.
• Time Zones Do Not Exist: Averted by the Silver Adept, who frequently loses track of critical magical events because she forgets what time zone (whether on Earth or elsewhere) they're occurring in. Fortunately, her secretary keeps her on track — usually...
  Silver Adept: No sweat, I'll work on them this morning.
  Raitha: This morning? You've got the Himalayan Convocation in an hour!
  Silver Adept: No, that's not 'til tonight. It needs starlight to—
  Raitha: It's in the Himalayas — it's already tonight there!
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In "Hot Time In the Old Town", an Eldritch Abomination's intrusion into reality is instantly repelled by contact with Jazzbaby, an Anthropomorphic Personification of counterculture music.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Krakkaboom of the 80s Astro City Irregulars, whose bombastic proportions are evidently a side effect of his powers.
• Total Party Kill: Most of the Jayhawks were killed in battle against The Master; Rally survived only because he was getting help for the others.
• To the Future, and Beyond:
  • The Silver Agent was sent to the 43rd century right before his execution, where he inspires and leads thousands of heroes against a digital tyrant. Afterwards, he is sent backwards in time, stopping at key periods along the way to help others in need and establishing himself as a beacon of hope for millenia. This is why he willingly allows himself to be executed, to avoid changing history and erasing the sacrifices of those other heroes.
  • After being harassed by mere mortals in history, Infidel established his first empire in the far future, after humanity had died out and he could study the universe without being interrupted... at least, until Samaritan accidentally erased it.
• Touch of Death: Black Velvet can cause people to instantly disintegrate to nothingness in a sudden flash of light.
• Tracking Device:
  • In "Justice Systems", mob boss Dominic Forgione plants a tracker on attorney Vincent Oleck's car to follow him even as Vincent's family flees the city.
  • The Blue Knight marks his targets with a small red crosshair that allows him to track them wherever they try to hide.
  • The employee badges for Honor Guard's call center have a tracking device in them as an anti-kidnapping measure.
• Tragic Intangibility: Robin Carruthers and Simon McCaleb of the Apollo Eleven are deeply in love. Unfortunately, the incident that gave them powers has turned Simon into a four-armed insectoid being, while Robin is now an intangible being made of gas.
• Trapped on the Astral Plane:
  • The Body Surfer supervillain called the Silver Brain was banished to another plane of existence years ago by Samaritan. He keeps escaping by possessing the denizens of that other realm and riding their bodies back to the physical world.
  • The Jayhawks were believed to be killed in battle against The Master. In actuality, they're trapped as spirits in an intangible state, only able to watch as history passes them by.
• Transformation Trinket:
  • Winged Victory's logo-shaped necklace, seen in her civilian form.
  • Marguerite Li's hair scrunchies, when worn, turns her into American Star.
  • In "Having a Wonderful Time", a tourist on a tour of abandoned supervillain bases finds a green gem on the ground. When she picks it up, she is transformed into Omnius Rex, a cosmic villain last seen in 1977.
  • Stormhawk and G-Dog both use a magic amulet that merged them with their pet to form a Beast Man superhero.
• Translator Microbes:
  • The employees at Honor Guard's call center use translators that enable them to speak to clients worldwide.
  • Becomes a plot point in "The Menace From Earth". The First Family use these, but because the "translation field" doesn't extend over broadcast, nobody in the Zirr Empire who watches the official news can understand what the humans are saying. This allows the Empire's leaders to falsely claim that the First Family ran away in defeat and accomplished nothing significant.
• Trans Tribulations: Played for drama in "Wish I May...". Teen Genius Simon Siezmanski was ostracized in high school and pushed to become the Evil Nerd Simon Says, but eventually develops grudging respect for the All-Loving Hero Starbright. When Starbright dies on a mission and is posthumously revealed to be the school's Lovable Jock, Simon finally takes Starbright's advice, acknowledges his transgenderism, and begins the transition to female.
• Trapped on the Astral Plane:
  • The Body Surfer supervillain called the Silver Brain was banished to another plane of existence years ago by Samaritan. He keeps escaping by possessing the denizens of that other realm and riding their bodies back to the physical world.
  • Teen superteam the Jayhawks were presumed dead when caught in a massive explosion. Actually, they've been trapped in an intangible state all that time, only able to watch, and unable to get anyone's attention.
• Trick-and-Follow Ploy: In "Mistakes", after Marella Cowper realizes an injured man at the refugee camp is a member of the Skullcrushers, she spooks him into returning to base and follows him. Later, it is revealed that Honor Guard did the same thing to Marella, deliberately leaving her badge active so they could follow her to the Skullcrushers.
• Trick Arrow:
  • Prior to his Darker and Edgier turn, the Street Angel used to use non-lethal gimmicked throwing rings ("halos") to snare and catch his opponents. After his Darker And Edgier turn, he replaced them with halos made of high-impact ceramics with a steel core.
  • Quarrel is a more straightforward example of the "archer with trick arrows" archetype; in this case, she has a pair of wrist-mounted launchers that fire a variety of bolts.
• Tropaholics Anonymous: In "Aftermaths", we see that Michael Tenicek from "The Nearness Of You" now runs "Miranda's Friends", a support group for people who have lost loved ones or suffered emotional trauma due to superpowered struggles.
• Troperiffic: Pretty much inevitable, given the vast number of characters, events, locations, and throwaway references used in the series. Just look at how extensive this page and its various sub-pages are...
• A True Story in My Universe:
  • Comic book companies publish titles based on both their own fictional characters and licensed real-life supers. The ones based on real heroes are more popular, but are also required to stay within known facts; Manny Monkton of Bulldog Comics repeatedly gets into trouble when he pushes the boundaries.
  • The end of "The Dark Age" reveals that the entire story is an embellished novelization of what had happened in-universe, with some details changed, including the real names of the main protagonists.
  • Duncan Keller writes stories based on his adventures as Starfighter, presenting them as fictional.
• Two-Fisted Tales: The Astro-Naut's adventures are of this nature, featuring an Ace Pilot waging Space Opera battles, fights against The Mafia, and Planetary Romance with the Green-Skinned Space Babe Xalzana, exploring a thousand worlds in a sleek silver Proto-Superhero costume.
• Uncertain Doom: Plenty of characters simply vanish between stories with no obvious cause. Given the difficult line of work they live in and the lack of Comic-Book Time, it's not quite clear if they've died in battle, moved away, or simply retired.
• Understatement:
  • In "Newcomers", Pete Donacek describes an attack by hundred-foot-tall ancient spirits:
  "They make a hell of a mess."
  • From "Knock Wood", after attorney Vincent Oleck questions a coroner if he was absolutely sure one of his subjects was actually dead:
    There was something of a commotion.
    (Panel shows outside of the courthouse and a shout of ORDER! ORDER!)
  • In "The Sorcerer's Assistant", as the Silver Adept has to complete three days' worth of work in six hours:
    She is busy. Her duties are birthed swarming.
• Underestimating Badassery: Krigari Ironhand's second defeat came about because he abducted all the members of the Honor Guard save Mermaid, whom he didn't think was worth bothering with. She managed to free everyone else.
• Ungrateful Townsfolk:
  • Winged Victory catches this a lot, on account of her outspoken feminist views. In "Safeguards", a bystander calls out the ungrateful passengers on her bus for complaining about Winged Victory after she's just captured a super-villain.
  • In "Confession", the people of the city blame the heroes for spending their time dealing with super-criminals and cosmic dangers while ignoring a recent spate of unsolved murders. It didn't help that the citizens were being riled up by shape-shifting alien invaders, and possibly an Eldritch Abomination as well.
  • This was part of the reason why Brian Kinney left his hometown of Buchanan Corners. His father, the county doctor, selflessly treated everyone who needed help even if they couldn't pay, leaving Brian's family impoverished as a result. When his father died penniless and Brian was orphaned, the townspeople derisively called his father an idealistic fool and said Brian would be no better. This angered Brian so much that he ran off to Astro City to make a name for himself.
  • Although the Astro-Naut fought the Axis during World War II, the people of the United States turned their backs on him, simply because he refused to share his technologies and weapons with the government.
  • The socio-political atmosphere of The '70s have left many people wary and suspicious of their heroes. When The Experimentals accidentally destroy an apartment building in the midst of stopping an explosion that could level half a continent, the bystanders simply complain about the property damage inflicted. This angers the Experimentals to simply retreat without bothering to do anything to help the displaced citizens.
• Unishment: In "Welcome to HumanoGlobal", Marella and her colleagues are chewed out by their boss for being too quick to believe harmless activities are clues to supervillain plots. They are reassigned for two weeks handling non-emergency duties — which enables them to attend an Honor Guard charity event and meet the heroes firsthand.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Although most people in Astro City will still stop and watch whatever super-heroics occur nearby, there are residents who have become jaded enough to not raise an eyebrow at the excitement around them.
  • Taken to the extreme for the people in Shadow Hill, where the evening streets are filled with various vampires, Eldritch Abominations, bogeymen, and The Hanged Man. The residents deal with it by simply refreshing their wards, making sure the incense is lit, and having their charms conveniently nearby.
  • In "The Out-of-Towners", a hundred-foot translucent being called the Incarnate appears high above Astro City. It doesn't move or communicate, and ignores everyone's attempts to communicate, so the citizens simply nicknamed him "Big Joe" and went on with their lives.

Tropes V-Z

• Vengeful Ghost:
  • The Blue Knight is believed to be possessed by one of these, the spirit of policeman Josh Stone's dead son, Damon.
  • It's said that Void Between the Worlds is a featureless realm filled with hungry, nasty things.
  • The Pale Horseman may be one of these as well — when Lord Sovereign was drawing power from the Void Between the Worlds, the Pale Horseman called it "my people", demanding its return.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Given the size of the cast, many of the background characters receive little more than names and costumes. Busiek relies on the reader's knowledge of other comics to fill in the blanks, particularly with obvious Expy characters like Rex Zorus (The Thing), Samaritan (Superman), the N-Forcer (Iron Man), or Winged Victory (Wonder Woman). Such knowledge rounds out the setting considerably.
• Vigilante Man: Although Astro City is more idealistic than not, it does have its share of rough-and-tumble heroes. Examples include the Blue Knight, Hellhound, the Pale Horseman, and the Street Angel (during his Darker and Edgier phase).
• Villain Decay: In-universe with Karnazon, who started out robbing Fort Knox and ended up doing anything to defy Winged Victory and prove the superiority of man over woman.
• Villain Episode: A recurring staple of the series.
  • The Eisner Award-winning "Show 'Em All" focuses on the Junkman and his perfect bank robbery.
  • As well as the amusing "Voice of the Turtle", which is part of a larger arc starring a small-time superpowered hood.
  • One issue is devoted to a shapeshifting alien spy, who is deciding whether or not he should give a signal for his leaders to invade the Earth.
  • "The Deep Dark Woods" gives this treatment to a small-time Mook who is addicted to being a member of a costumed criminal gang.
  • "Through Open Doors (Part Two)" is about a man who works in the Deacon's criminal syndicate.
  • "The Eagle and the Mountain" focuses more on Samaritan's archenemy Infidel far more than Samaritan himself.
  • The two-parter "The Menace From Earth"/"Enemy of the Empire" is told from the perspective of a member of the militaristic alien Zirr empire.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: At one point in "The Dark Age", while the rest of Royal's gang is fighting Jack-in-the-Box, Royal rolls under a car to avoid capture. Once the fight is over, he simply rolls out and runs away.
• Villain Team-Up: Villain teams seldom appear, and when they do, it's often as peripheral detail instead of the focus of a story. That said, a few do appear:
  • The Unholy Alliance is a recurring team of villains who team up for various reasons, though the members also work on their own. The roster changes a bit from story to story, but core members tend to be Demolitia (team lead), Slamburger, Glowworm, and Flamethrower.
  • Sugar and Spice are two scantily-clad women who commit various robberies with gimmick devices. Sugar wears a pink negligee with frill trim, while Spice wears a black dominatrix costume and wields a bullwhip. They have also worked with the Unholy Alliance from time to time.
  • In "The Tarnished Angel", Steeljack has a brief flashback to when he was part of the Terrifying Three — Cutlass, Steeljack, and the first Quarrel. It comes up again in his return arc, as Cutlass seeks him out to help clear her name.
    Steeljack: We didn't last, and fought each other more'n' anyone else — but we were friends, I guess.
  • Team Carnivore in "Pastoral" are a group of genetically-manufactured Beast Men. They appear to have been created together.
• Villain with Good Publicity: TransGene. Not only getting away with kidnapping and fatal experiments, but getting the hero who revealed it convicted of a crime. Cammie, in "Pastoral", is initially taken in entirely.
• Void Between the Worlds: It's said that the space outside of reality is a black and featureless void, filled with hungry, nasty things. The Point Man accidentally opens a tear in reality into this space.
• Walk, Don't Swim: Steeljack, being an 800-pound man of living steel, does this whenever he gets into water. By the time of "Things Past", he's using this ability to do salvage runs in the river for the city.
• Walking the Earth:
  • Looney Leo once spent six years wandering around the United States. Being a living cartoon character, he did not need to eat or sleep or be sheltered from the elements, which made it easier.
  • In the early seventeenth century, there was Silverstring, a mysterious musician who wandered from town to town and realm to realm. His magical silver-stringed guitar was said to mesmerize crowds and repel monsters, but he would always move on for new music to learn. He is rumored to have died somewhere near Romeyn Falls.
• Warts and All: Most of the heroes have this to some degree.
  • In "Confession", Altar Boy learns that his mentor, the Confessor, is a vampire. Worse, the Confessor refused to declare that he had never killed anyone as a vampire. Even so, his heroism and selflessness not only won over Altar Boy, but also inspired him to take up the mantle.
  • Crackerjack, who's a bombastic, money-seeking vainglorious womanizer, but still a genuine and well-respected ("reasonably respected", at any rate) hero.
  • Winged Victory is revealed to be this in "Victory". She champions women's rights, but recognizes that she's not the be-all-end-all solution to society's gender divide and is just a normal woman trying to do the best she can and lead by example.
• Was It Really Worth It?: At one point, a disillusioned Royal Williams wonders if getting revenge on his parent's killers is worth it if he loses his brother Charles along the way.
• Weirdness Magnet:
  • It's mentioned that there are superheroes in other cities and countries, but most places with heroes seem to only have a handful, whereas Astro City has a highly disproportionate number. One character compares the city's abundance of super-beings as the equivalent to Los Angeles' earthquakes.
    • Flashbacks show that even thousands of years before the city existed, the land itself attracted heroes of legend, including the super-powered kind.
  • Matilda "Tillie" Armstrong just seems to have a knack for being around weirdness, like her school being the center of a pickpocketing ring, or going to a museum just as a snake cult stages an attack. She's also stopped aging for some reason...
• Welcome to the Big City: Happens to Brian Kinney when he first arrives in Astro City. Fortunately for him, the Crossbreed are there to gently persuade the pickpocket to return his wallet.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: A variation occurs with Beautie and the daughter of Dr. Gearbox. When Beautie tries to figure out why she periodically suffers bouts of amnesia, she eventually discovers that she was invented by Elaine Girbachs, the prodigy daughter of a Gadgeteer Genius. However, he denounces Beautie because he thinks engineering and mathematics are not proper fields for girls; this causes the daughter to angrily renounce Beautie, ordering her to go away and "FORGET FOREVER!"
• Wetware CPU:
  • Braintrust is a crime lord with a robot body and a Brain in a Jar for a head. He also has telekinetic powers.
  • A.T.A.C.C. is a seven-foot-tall robot bristling with firearms and powered by a Brain in a Jar inside.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The intergalactic ambassador Telseth is introduced in the Vertigo run with a subplot that runs across a half-dozen issues, but its resolution (or the fate of human ambassador Ben Pullam) is never mentioned.
  • "The Dark Age" features the Innocent Gun, an ancient superweapon left on Earth to combat "the greatest trial humans would ever face". The gun was fired prematurely by The Point Man, apparently leaving humanity defenseless against the threat, but the fallout from that is never shown.
  • Discussed during the "Lovers Quarrel" arc. Crackerjack wonders whatever became of the Crossbreed (from "Confession"). Apparently they broke up after Noah died.
• What Have I Become?: This is the final realization for Royal and Charles Williams in "The Dark Age"; caught between pursuing their parents' killer and rescuing the Silver Agent from death, they recognize that they have become the same compassionless "heroes" whom they've despised.
• What Measure Is a Mook?:
  • Played for drama in "The Tarnished Angel"; the Conquistador insists on not hurting any people with his plan, but does not consider his criminal underlings as "people."
  • The subject is explored when Royal and Charles go undercover as mooks in Pyramid.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Briefly discussed in "The Eagle and the Mountain"; when Samaritan is disturbed at Infidel's use of female homunculi (non-sapient mindless apparitions) for his servants, Infidel asks him if he would've been upset if they were robots instead.
• What You Are in the Dark: Discussed in the "Confession" arc:
  What matters more: the burdens we bear, or the manner in which we bear them?
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?:
  • Though it's never stated outright, it is heavily implied that much of Honor Guard's infrastructure — from their elaborate flying base to their teleporting call center — is funded by N.R.-Gistics, the company responsible for the N-Forcer armored hero.
  • During the "Confession" story arc, it is hinted that the Confessor gets his funding through judicious use of long-term investment funds. Apparently waiting a hundred years for high-yield returns isn't a problem if you're a vampire.
  • Jack-in-the-Box apparently funds his crimefighting efforts by being the CEO of a toy company.
  • One issue featured a flashback to the villainous Assemblyman, who built weapons and gadgets for anyone with the cash.
  • The Black Lab is a group of villains who perform villainous super-science for anyone willing to pay them.
  • The Junkman, true to his philosophy, builds all of his gear by scavenging discarded products.
  • The Fixit Man is a small-time Gadgeteer Genius who used to repair gear for supervillains; he quit due to too much planned obsolescence making everything disposable.
• Whip of Dominance: Spice is a Dark Action Girl from the Unholy Alliance that fights with a large bullwhip, which gives her a Dominatrix air when combined with her black Hellbent For Leather outfit.
• White-and-Grey Morality: The series largely runs on this as part of its optimistic reconstruction of The Silver Age of Comic Books. While there are villains and monsters and evildoers, their motives are frequently due to their own good intentions, and they are ultimately defeated by the optimistic heroes regardless. Many a villain has pulled a Heel–Face Turn after realizing how pointless and self-destructive their current paths are.
• Wicked Toymaker:
  • The Toymaker turns children's toys into dangerous devices.
  • The Junkman plays with this trope — his gimmick is that he recycles discarded junk into the equipment he uses. While much of his gear is based on toys (such as turning a broken Etch-A-Sketch into a safecracking fluoroscope), he doesn't deal exclusively in toys.
  • Subverted by the original Jack-in-the-Box. He was a toy designer whose designs were used for crime... but not by him. They were sold to criminal gangs by his corrupt superiors, and his primary motivation for becoming a masked crimefighter was to keep his designs away from criminals.
  • Dr. Saturday builds Humongous Mecha that resemble cartoon characters.
• Witch Classic: The Silver Age sidekick Kitkat quit super-heroics to study the mystic arts, and renamed herself Greymalkin. She lives in an Old, Dark House with dozens of cats, and occasionally serves as an advisor to Honor Guard, as well as a backup when the Silver Adept is unavailable.
• With Great Power Comes Great Perks: "On the Sidelines" introduces the Sideliners, superpowered people who don't become heroes or villains, but instead use their powers in their work — e.g. a heat manipulator who's a glassblower, or a super-strong guy who works in construction.
• Wonder Twin Powers: The Jade Dragons are a brother/sister martial arts team who can summon a giant dragon by lining their arms together.
• Worldbuilding: Astro City is built on this trope — Kurt Busiek has mapped out the entire timeline of the 'verse and will not hesitate to include throwaway references to unexplained people, places, and events in its own history. These often appear to the reader as Call Backs, Cryptic Background References, and Continuity Nods, creating a very strong sense of a fully interconnected and consistent narrative universe.
• The World Is Not Ready: This is the reason that the Astro-Naut gave for not sharing his technological discoveries with the United States government — he had battled enough Planet Looters before that he feared humans would do the same thing to other worlds.
• World's Smartest Man: Infidel went from impoverished slave to reality-breaking Evil Sorcerer through intense study, has challenged Samaritan countless times, destroyed reality at least once, and is only in a Self-Imposed Exile because he promised to do so. He once invented a machine to observe superstrings and considered it a mere trifle.
• Worth Living For: In "The Dark Age," Charles Williams pulls himself from the brink of death after his brother Royal tells him that he's found the person who killed their parents.
• WPUN: The major radio station in Astro City is KBAC, which is short for "Kurt Busiek's Astro City", the full title of the book.
• Wrong Side of the Tracks: Downplayed with Bakerville in Astro City. While it's more industrial-oriented and its residents are definitely lower on the social strata, it's not a lawless hellhole filled with drugs and crime, and has its own supers to keep things under control.
• Xtremely Kool Letterz: One of Vivi Victor's schemes involves robotic "Xentinels". What prompted her to call them that isn't stated, but then, she is mad.
• You Are What You Hate: Done intentionally in "The Dark Age". Although Royal and Charles Williams didn't care for superheroes and supervillains, seeing them as pretty much the same, by the mid-'80s they have almost become a vigilante team of their own due to their unrelenting pursuit of the man who killed their parents.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Deliciously deconstructed in "Show 'Em All" — the Junkman pulls off a major heist without a hitch, and lives a life of luxury while everyone wonders who was the brilliant criminal who committed the robbery. However, he is soon frustrated at not getting recognition for the heist, especially since the public assumes that the heroes must have caught the mastermind somehow at another time. This eventually drives him to repeat the robbery again, but with deliberately-included minor flaws, so he can get captured. He is then thrilled to be recognized for the initial robbery and savors the high-profile trial detailing his heist in extraordinary detail, at which point he plans to escape the consequences anyway.
• You Meddling Kids: "The Cat Who Walked Through Walls" ends with the villain Popinjay muttering "...if not for that ridiculous feline!"
• You Killed My Father:
  • Aubrey Jason, a Pyramid agent, killed Royal and Charles Williams' parents during a fight with the Silver Agent. When Royal learns his identity twenty years later, he uses that information to give his dying brother Charles the will to live on.
  • The Gunslinger is a murderer whose targets were all members of a squad of Vietnam War soldiers. His father was the squad sergeant, and the men had killed him to hide their heroin ring.
• You Know I'm Black, Right?: A boisterous, money-grubbing comic publisher did not know that the supervillain Glowworm was black before depicting him as a white supremacist in a Jack-in-the-Box story. The results were not pretty.
• Zero-G Spot: Referenced in "The Gordian Knot". The planet Reklak-4 is part of a nexus of multiple realities that is used as a galactic cultural hub and entertainment center. Some people like to use the recreational low-gravity zones for carnal experiments...
  "They actually have rooms for that, up near the top, where the effect is strongest. But it's messy, it's awkward, you smack into the walls a lot, and then you have to clean up and it's kinda gross... Or, uh, that's what friends have told me, anyway."

---