Just buy Astro City whenever you see it, huh?

I often say, I try to avoid buying quarter books I already have; but this is a good one, and we mentioned it some time back: from 2003, Astro City: Local Heroes #2, "Shining Armor" Written by Kurt Busiek, art by Brent Anderson, cover by Alex Ross.

In the present, Irene Cronin laments her daughter Sammie might not find herself a man; but her fear is less because she was a lesbian, than regret over choices she had herself made. Back in 1960, she came to Astro determined to have it all, the perfect career and the perfect man; and schemes and works her way from a volunteer for the mayoral campaign to a full-fledged mayor's aide. (Irene took great pains to stay out of the secretarial pool, where her input would be nonexistent at best.) About that time, at the atomic research lab at nearby Fort Kanigher (a familiar name!) an anomaly in the reactor core manifests as a new superhero, dubbed "Atomicus" by the press. The atomic superman's origins were unknown, but he saves Irene after she was abducted by the Balloon Bandits--just one of those things that would happen in Astro City!--and she convinces him to come back and talk to her after taking the crooks to jail.

Although he was able "to talk, to think," Atomicus did not seem to understand much of the world: he took his inspiration from a sign, "Better living through Atomic Power," and devoted himself to improving life, helping humanity and America. Irene and Atomicus become a formidable team, with her doing most of the detective work, and then him doing the wrap-up. But their relationship seemed to be stalling: when Atomicus tells her, the woman that shared his dangerous life would have to be up for it, she sees it as a challenge. Shortly thereafter, a new aide comes to the mayor's office: Adam Peterson, a cheerful bumbler, who seems to disappear every time Atomicus shows up...Irene makes her suspicions known, but the information gets back to the mob, who have Adam's house blown up, just in case! Adam survived, barely; but a glint in his eyes seems to tell Irene, keep going. 

 This begins the shenanigans portion of our story, as Irene runs through scheme after scheme to unmask Adam, some of which verge on the dangerous. Eventually, on a case against Gnomicron, Irene and Adam end up trapped in a mine, and Irene wonders if this time she's got him, when Atomicus rescues them both! Ooh, that's a puzzler, until a couple weeks later, when Atomicus fights Dr. Cyclotron on TV, displaying the power to make "atomic duplicates." Furious, Irene marches right up to Adam, giving him the riot act, and popping open his shirt, to reveal the Atomicus costume. How would he get out of this one, costume party again? Lost a bet? Um, no.

Atomicus snaps: he hadn't been playing a game with her, he had been trying to understand, to learn, but she kept at him, and he'd had enough. Atomicus takes off, leaving earth, and humanity, forever. Emotionally shattered, Irene's career was also over: "I'd cost the world a superhero. They couldn't fire me fast enough." Still, from that bottom, she managed to bounce back, working with an alderman and later marrying him, as together he worked his way up to senator. Falling asleep, Irene tells Sammie, not to wait too long. Still, Sammie wonders if she hadn't been the stronger one; and maybe never needed anyone. Sammie leaves, masking up as new hero Flying Fox, a vigilante with a sky-cycle. 

Poor Atomicus didn't have the advantage of a childhood, a life as a human, like Superman did: much too late, Irene realizes he was only really a few years old at that point. I wonder, though: even if she was tarred and feathered, I don't know that Lois would feel the same remorse if she drove Superman off of earth. She'd still be a reporter; there's no stopping her. Really feels like it's been way too long between Astro City installments now; but I'll follow wherever it ends up.