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Astro City

To go from reading Watchmen to Astro City is quite a change. Watchmen revolves around a nation that is in conflict with another nation, and heroes that see the flaws of humanity and wish to save human kind. Astro city, on the other hand, revolves around a city compared to an entire country, and while Watchmen continuously degrades the standpoint of the United States, the characters of Astro City always praise the city itself. Furthermore, Watchmen is based on conflict and mystery. The U.S. is in conflict with the USSR, the citizens of the U.S. are in conflict with their beliefs and viewpoints about the U.S., the USSR, and the war, and the “heroes” of Watchmen are in conflict with each other as some characters have dismantled over the years while others have strong feelings of resentment towards each other. Astro City, on the other hand, is not only faced with conflicts as such, but this comic shows its characters intentions more openly and thus takes away the mystery that Watchmen portrayed so well. However, even though Astro City lacks suspense in the mystery section, it’s a comic that’s a lot happier and translucent. The thoughts of the characters, mostly of the heroes, are openly revealed to the reader, which gives the reader a very clear idea of the hero’s objectives. Furthermore, by displaying the character’s thoughts, the reader is also informed about some of the personal problems some of the characters are facing (this is very different from Watchmen were characters convey information to the readers by conversing with other characters). Furthermore, I believe that another major difference between Watchmen and Astro City is their targeted audience. Watchmen is a little bit more complex and targets older people that are either interested or knowledgeable about politics, while Astro City targets children and young adults with its brighter colors and kid-like figures such as clowns, etc.

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