astro city volume 1 life in the big city

Brian was struck by the Crossbreed’s determination to help the people of the city, despite the current anti-hero climate and their general perception as a joke. The Confessor was struck through the heart by a large gun launching wooden stakes, but his last action was to grab the gun & turn it on the mayor, pinning him to a wall & revealing him to be an agent of an alien invasion.Īltar Boy, having witnessed The Confessor’s death, was saved from the Mayor’s goons (really alien troops) by the Christian superhero team known as the Crossbreed, who took him back to their HQ to recover. Brian was still struggling with this knowledge when The Confessor, having realized that the mayor was actively & intentionally turning Astro City against its heroes, confronted him on live television. Eventually Brian realized the truth about his mentor: The Confessor was Jeremiah Parrish, a vampire who had lived under the city for hundreds of years. Remembering the way his father was treated by his patients who took advantage of his kindness & refused to help him even as he died, Altar Boy began to resent the citizens of Astro City whose trust could be so easily undermined. Ultimately Brian’s concerns would take a back seat to a number of incidents, including an unsolved murder, that began to erode the Astro City citizens’ trust in superheroes, a situation only exacerbated by the Mayor’s constant public declarations decrying the masked adventurer community. Though the pair made an effective team, Altar Boy had misgivings about his mentor’s secrecy & his apparent superhuman abilities about which he would not speak. The two spent most of their early days either training or fighting local criminals. Still on a high from his triumph, Brain was about to be accosted by the other wait staff of the club who felt cheated out of their moment, when he was saved due to the intervention of mysterious vigilante The Confessor.īrought to his lair within the walls of the Grandenetti Cathedral in Shadow Hill, Brian became The Confessor’s protégé & sidekick, Altar Boy. As fate would have it, the supervillain known as Glue Gun infiltrated the club & took Brian hostage, only to be quickly dispatched by Brian's martial arts knowledge, much to the delight of the heroes in the crowd.

Seeking to make a name for himself among the super-heroes of Astro City, Brian devoted himself to martial arts training & secured a job as a busboy at a local heroes-exclusive club.

Brian Kinney came to Astro City from a small town, the son of a local doctor who had died penniless after his altruism was largely taken advantage of & even mocked by the people he helped.

Astro city volume 1 life in the big city