Astro City (Volume 3) #38 is an issue of the series Astro City (Volume 3) with a cover date of November, 2016. It was published on September 14, 2016.
Synopsis for the 1st Story
In 1928, the stock market is booming. Romeyn Falls had enough money to go around - which meant there were rogues trying to steal it away. But Romeyn Falls had a history of singular vigilante justice, and this was reviving in the face of the danger.
There was the Cloak of Night, a faceless gunman who harried the city's rumrunners. There was the Yankee Shiekh, a laughing white adventurer in desert garb. There were the Five Fists, a cadre of martial artists fighting the opium trade in Fujitani Bay. And there was the Jazzbaby, a sassy daredevil who seemed to defy physics as she defeated robbers.
On a particular night in Romeyn Falls, Jazzbaby had the insight that people dance to music to escape something darker. Seeking this darkness, she found a man outside the Alhambra Theatre. Appearing to him in the shape of a normal young woman, Jazzbaby was able to engage him in conversation. Decamping to a nearby diner, the young man introduced himself as Cal Tarrant, a government agent visiting from Washington D.C., with a tragically ordinary past - his two older brothers had gone off to fight in the Great War. Most of one of them had come back, shook and silenced by what he saw there, only to die soon afterwards in the great influenza epidemic of 1918. It left a sadness in his heart.
But it had a greater effect on his mother, who went searching for answers, and found conmen who promised information about life after death, and swindled her over years, leaving her with no way to save herself when she grew sick. It left Cal with a burning desire to unmask charlatans and protect the vulnerable. He left to write a report, leaving Jazzbaby to soberly digest this new insight.
With this new insight, she sought, not just the sadness in human hearts, but the darkness that drives people to create more sadness. Among the suburban mansions, a robbery left behind a king's mansion on jewelry but stole a special gem called the Star of Lahkimpur. On the docks, a cadre of snake-men walk away from a smuggling vessel as the Five Fists accost the local gangs. And back at the Alhambra Threatre, she finds a mysterious wizard, Doc Aegyptus, with the Star of Lakhimpur and a cadre of snake-man servants, ranting about his next plan. The sight of the wizard makes Jazzbaby suddenly remembers the adventures of Mister Cakewalk as her own, which shocks her so much that she passes out in the shadows.
When she wakes up, hours later, the wizard has begun his scheme, which is to present himself as a spirit medium named Destiné, promising to show his audience the spirit world. From the shadows, Jazzbaby senses the sadness and hope of the audience, as well as the terrible power of the wizard's equipment. When the first volunteers are brought on stage for the ritual and anointed, a pair of snake-men emerge from the darkness and slit their throats, to the surprise of Doc Aegyptus, but which causes the ethereal veil to thin, in a way that jolts Jazzbaby into action, to hold back Doc Aegyptus' dark master.
As the dark master begins to come through, Jazzbaby feels ill as she fights the snake-men. She knows she cannot defeat this evil alone... but the arrival of the other heroes of the city, including Cal, gives her the hope to fight on. She jumps to Doc Aegyptus, just as he and her are both pulled into the thinned veil by the dark master.
On the other side of the veil is darkness, cold and unending. A darkness that swallows the music in mortal hearts. Nothing mortal can live here, let alone fight... but Jazzbaby is shocked to realise that she can fight here, because she does not have music, she is music. With a final push, she is able to escape the dark master and slip back through the rip before it closes again.
In the theatre, Cal is shocked when Jazzbaby returns... and even more shocked when she turns back into the normal girl he met before. As she recovers, he explains that his government job as a skeptic is part of an outfit that fights monsters and cults, who are nicknamed "the Blasphemy Boys". He promises to see her again the next time he is in Romeyn Falls, and Jazzbaby flies away, overjoyed. The darkness in the music has subsided with the defeat of the dark master, even though she knows it will return in the future. But that is a danger for tomorrow. After all, it is 1928, and the stock market is booming...
Appearing in the 1st Story
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See Also
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