Confessor

Few characters capture the brooding, morally complex spirit of 1990s superhero fiction quite like Confessor, who stepped out of the shadows in Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson's Astro City #5 in 1995. Born from one of the most celebrated creator-owned universes of the Copper/Modern Age, Confessor is a fixture of Astro City's richly layered world, sharing its pages with memorable figures like Jack-in-the-Box, Crackerjack, and Cleopatra. His presence across nearly three decades of Astro City storytelling — from the original Image run through the Metrobook collections — speaks to how deeply he's woven into the fabric of Busiek's humanist vision of superheroics. If you're exploring what made Astro City a landmark of thoughtful, character-driven comics, Confessor is exactly the kind of enigmatic figure who makes that universe worth getting lost in.