Originally posted by Atoman@Apr 12 2005, 12:14 PM
Instead of Hamegg congradulating Astro for wining the fight and giving him a refill of energy, he's furious that Astro collapsed and then draged Astro back stage, tied some electrical wire to him, threw a switch electricuting him and left Astro screaming in agony.
Jeez, that must have been awful to see and hear in a cartoon. Reminds me of some of the more gruesome kid-abuse moments from the "Return of the Joker" animated feature. What prompted the flashback? Knowing that now, it only makes it all the more remarkable that Astro would *still* rescue the guy in the first episode, after all that.... guess he's always the hero.
It's shocking enough to read that, but the Now Comics version,that's the stuff of nightmares.
The child abuse overtones were very clear, yes. The first time Astro is put into the robot battles, he refuses to fight, and Cacciatore gives him a "spider-shock" so powerful that he hallucinates and sees his enemy as Dr. Boynton. Astro tries to talk to him, but of course it's actually the giant bull-horned robot Ugh ("Zog" from the '60s cartoon) who starts beating the slag out of him--which Astro interprets as *Boynton* beating him. And so they start fighting, with Astro thinking he's fighting his "father," and he's crying by the end, and asks "Why couldn't you let me be your son?" to Zog's knocked-off head.
Michael Dimpsey was clearly aiming for pretty heavy pathos and sadness--I think because he honestly recognized the sad roots of the Astroboy story, and also because he was trying to get a real "high" of a happy ending and so he needed that to contrast with an extremely sad and disturbing beginning.
Who's that military guy think he is giving orders to Astro. Astro should just ignore him, because having gotten rid of the spider, there's no reason for him to follow his or anyone elses orders, especially after what he just went through.
Tas Tamil of the Ministry of Science. He sought to replace Boynton as director and was trying to kiss up to the military sponsors of the Mighty Atom project in order to do so.
Astro *hated* the military. Of all the human 'players' who claimed to own him (Boynton, Cacciatore, and Gen. Hawkins), it was only Hawkins whom he seemed to show no sympathy for whatsoever. Perhaps that is because Hawkins never really lost power over Astro--he didn't *have* to obey her, but she certainly tried to make him do so. Astro actually had a rather remarkable confrontation with her towards the end of the series, saying that she had only paid for his creation so he could, as he put it, "beat people up and do your dirty work!"
Gen. Hawkins was also in partnership with lots of Astro's enemies to try to "win" him back, and she was indirectly responsible for the deaths of the scientists who would later be rebuilt into Astro's robot parents. So, some bad feelings there.
I won't have scanner access again for about another week--once I get it back, I'll try to put most of those bits up.
dannavy85:
The last comic which had Astro chasing some robot assassins through a skyscrapper where Doctor Elephant was justifying the huge cost used to build Astro came out in February 1989.
Close: you describe issue 19, and the last one was issue 20, in which Astro flies to Mars to save some space-colonists from a monster made of living electricity. One of my least favorite issues, because the artist has Astro putting on five-fingered human gloves and he makes sure to show the pinkies dangling uselessly down beneath Astro's four-fingered hands. It's not that the artist couldn't draw a five-fingered hand--it's that he *wanted* to show Astro built like Mickey Mouse and was rubbing our noses in his new deformity. Grrr......
