"Hikari Tail" wrote:...

how did the writers get away with that?
Well, actually, the comic was being aimed at the 15-30 audience.
In issues #1-9, there's a lot of frightening stuff. Boynton frequently brings about
child abuse overtones, a portly female general makes Astro serve in the war, and a robot man explodes after saving Astro from an electrocuting bug. Let alone this one scene where Cacciatore is making Astro fight, so the bug shocks Astro to the point where he
hallucinates and sees Boynton as his fighting enemy. He's even
crying near the end of the fight. I know of one guy who read the comic
before seeing the 80's anime, and he was
really surprised to see Tenma being so lite to Astro.
However, every issue after got progressively kiddier, what with the new major roles of Astro Girl, Dr. I. Q. Plenty and background characters Kenny and Andy. [Ken Steacy and Andrew Pratt were the main writers and artists]