Astro City is often praised for its average man's take on a superheroic world, and though this book has some of that (most successfully the story of a woman living on Shadow Hill), its best stories are its looks at the superheroes itself. The trick is that it's their human side we're seeing, which is what makes the book-end stories of issues #1 and #6 (featuring Samaritan and Winged Victory) the best of the volume. And they're very good,even if they do both hit the same note. 
 Beyond that, it's impressive how much Busiek manages to set up in this first volume, including many of his most interesting heroes and some of the deep mysteries of Astro City that weren't revealed for years. And,we have an alien invasion in the offing. 
 Astro City was even more spectacular in 1994 when it debuted and offered a truly groundbreaking take on a superhero world. But today these stories are still well-written and ... so very human.