Michael Tenicek

An ordinary man whose life was shattered by a superhero-related time-travel incident, Michael Tenicek is left with memories of a wife and a life erased from the revised timeline — grieving something no one else even knows existed.

Michael Tenicek is one of those quietly unforgettable figures that Kurt Busiek and Brent E. Anderson conjured for Astro City — a character who debuted in 1996 in a special Wizard promotional issue and has lingered in the memory of readers ever since. He's a distinctly human presence in a world populated by extraordinary figures like Jack-in-the-Box, the Confessor, and Cleopatra, and his story is exactly the kind of intimate, emotionally grounded work that made Astro City a landmark of the Copper/Modern Age. With appearances stretching nearly three decades across Astro City, Astro City Metrobook, and Astro City: Confession, he's proof that in Busiek's hands, even a small number of appearances can leave a lasting mark on a reader's heart.