Even I could parkour, if I had footapults!

Well, maybe not. I started reading Astro City with the first issue, but there was a stretch in there where it was mini-series, The Dark Age, four series in total. Crud, I thought I had all those, but now I think I'm missing at least four. Still, the other day I did get an issue out of the quarter bin that I know I somehow missed! From 1997, Kurt Busiek's Astro City #11, "Serpent's Teeth" Written by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Brent Anderson, inks by Will Blyberg, cover by Alex Ross.

Street level hero Jack-in-the-Box (no, not that one) is in a pretty good place the start of this one: newscaster girlfriend, good job designing toys, and a rambunctious fan club in the Trouble Boys. But said girlfriend is interrupted before a big announcement, as Jack has to take off to fight--the Box! (No, not that one either.) He's a twisted, cyborg mockery of Jack, but claims to be his son; as does another arrival, Jackson, who has gone in a more Wolverine direction with his cyborgery. Box had a jack-in-the-box themed puppet/robot arm, that was kind of cool. Both had come from the future, and been fighting a war on crime, but since daddy wasn't there for them, they had both long since gone off the rails into insanity. Jackson strikes me as more crazy, since he had based his entire philosophy on his dad quoting Bugs Bunny.

Box and Jackson team-up for a patricide attempt, but with the help of some Trouble Boys Jack-in-the-Box is able to defeat them. Still, their angry glaring convinces Jack they aren't lying about being his son, and he races home to his girlfriend...who had been waiting to tell him she was pregnant. I've had the next issue since it came out, and I know it was a riff on legacy heroes, but I almost think the current Jack--Zachary Johnson--was himself a legacy. Yep!