Astro City: The Samaritan

When I picked up a copy of the first Astro City trade paperback, what drew me to the cover immediately was the image of Samaritan. The costume was unlike anything I'd seen before and yet it was so cool. The second reason the cover drew me in was that it was done by Alex Ross. This guy has the most simple origin ever. He is sent back from the 35th century back to the past to correct a problem which has catastrophic repercussions on the world. As he is traveling back through time, he is bombarded by empyrean fire, the energy that makes up the time-stream. He crashes near Astro City in 1985 and spent the remainder of that year mastering the new powers that he had been given by the bombardment. When he emerges at last costumed, he performs his mission and saves the space shuttle Challenger from crashing. Besieged by reporters, he says he is simply a "good samaritan". So the papers dub him Samaritan. After a time he decides to become a super-hero, with Astro City as main working base. Using his Zyxometer, a living bio-computer shaped like a diamond with tentacles, he creates a job for himself as "Asa Martin", a facts checker at Current, a newsmagazine in Astro City. He after a time joins the Honor Guard, the cities premier superhero team. To learn more about the Samaritan and the world of Astro City, pick up you copies of the trade paperbacks or back issues today!