Top 10: Book 1

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It took me a little bit to warm up to this book. I don't know if it was me or the book. Set in a city called Neopolis where everyone has a secret identity and a superpower, this book follows the cops that patrol the city. Though there is a new-to-the-precinct viewpoint character, there are still a lot of characters to acclimate to in a pretty short span of time. There are also a lot of ongoing subplots: drug dealers, someone killing prostitutes, suspects committing suicide. But when I hit Chapter Four (there are eight issues collected here), it started to click into place.

Probably because this is the issue where the dad of a lizard Top 10 has in custody turns up show more demanding the release of his son. The son is basically human sized, but his dad is a Godzilla-esque giant lizard-- except his better days are long behind him, and he's more of a careening drunk now. In Chapter Four, the precinct captain, Jetman (who was "Jetlad" during World War II) must keep Gograh under control via conversation while his subordinates try to find a way to neutralize him. It's a fun riff on some familiar tropes, and that's basically what the whole of Top 10 is, mostly on the tropes of the superhero and cop genres. You have a police sergeant who's a dog with prostheses, a phantom pervert, a telekinetic Santa Claus in October, an investigation into the death of a Norse god that leads to Odin threatening to just end the universe if the crime isn't solved, and a cop's mother whose apartment is being terrorized by ultra-mice-- the only solution to which is atom cats. The book was constantly making me smile, and often laugh.

But it's not all jokes: the book is funny, but it also takes its duties as a cop procedural seriously. It's just that the things these cops investigate are incredibly far-fetched. But there are still killings and murders and prostitution to investigate, and it becomes clear that a longer story is unfolding as you read these issues, one that will continue into Book 2. I quickly become interested in many of the characters, especially Jetman; Duane "Dust Devil" Bodine the techno-cowboy; viewpoint character Robyn "Toybox" Slinger, who has some kind of dad problems; her partner Jeff Smax of gruff and mysterious past; and more. Like a lot of ensemble stories, what's most fun is seeing the way these various people and personalities all bounce off each other. Alan Moore, Gene Ha, and Zander Cannon do a great job bringing them all to life, and making Top 10 greater than the sum of its parts, filling the stories with little details, amusing and great.

Alan Moore is arguably a master of genre more than anything else: in Watchmen and Miracleman, he used that power to blow the superhero genre apart. But here he shows that power can be used for good as well as for evil. By fusing several different pop culture genres, he creates something hugely fun and enjoyable that presents familiar ideas in unfamiliar lights. show less

I have to agree with the other positive reviews here. I picked Top 10 out at the library and absolutely devoured every page. Alan Moore's writing manages to be both a celebration and a criticism of the superhero comic, and the regular juxtaposition of the fantastic with the mundane makes this work stand out. My favourite moments of this were the teleporter traffic accident which was humanely depicted, and the absurd escalation of a supermice infestation. The superhero setting is also used to deal with real world themes of prejudice, vice, poverty and corruption.

This is supported by the delightful art of Gene Ha and Zander Cannon, which is so packed with cameos, details and in-jokes that I scrutinised every panel. Neopolis itself is a show more character in the story and there are a million things happening on the street at once; this style reminded me favourably of how the City is depicted in Transmetropolitan.

I will definitely be after the subsequent volumes now. show less

There's a lot of fantastical elements in Alan Moore's "cop procedural but with superheroes" comic Top Ten but that the serial killer murdering all those prostitutes is also a woman is most fantastical element of them all.

This is certainly in the "guilty pleasure" category, not because it's not done really well (it is) but because it's hard to explain why it would be worth doing. As many many people have pointed out, it can pretty much be summed up as "Hill Street Blues meets Astro City," that is, it's a cop show set in a city where everyone is a superhero (or a robot, alien, or Godzilla). The sight of Alan Moore deciding to do this, presumably stoned out of his mind and giggling fit to die, would make a pretty entertaining comic too. Anyway, it goes without saying that Moore has done a fair job of inventing all the superheroes that everyone else forgot to invent and matching them up with various cop-show stereotypes... but typically for him, in the show more middle of this kind of pointless exercise, he sneaks in an image that made me just stare and cry: Hyperdog, the hero who looks like a guy with a dog's head but is really a dog who sits inside a life-sized human puppet because it makes him look cool. A lot of the credit goes to the artists, who make the whole thing look kind of lush and crunchy. show less

One of Alan Moore's best works. It's a wacky read that never goes completely off the rails. For example, a dog in a metal suit could have just been a one-off gag, but Moore develops the character and his relationships (both professional and romantic) masterfully.

While there is an overarching plot, Moore takes us on a number of detours that only add to the fun. The battle between the superpowered mice and cats and Ex-Verminator's consequent woes are probably my favorite scenes.

I thought the story developed a little too slowly, but once we get out of the opening scenes, things start rolling along nicely.

Gene Ha's artwork is incredibly detailed, and nearly every panel is filled with snarky details and references. His character drawings show more come across as a bit stiff, but it doesn't detract much from the visuals.

All in all, this is a graphic you'll be rereading numerous times. show less

In a timeline where World War II has superheroes and mad scientists on both sides of the fight, one can easily see a population being nervous about superpowered menaces amongst them. The city of Neopolis was founded as a place for all the "science heroes" to go instead of endangering the mundane populace... so the entire population is superpowered in some way or another. And someone needs to keep the peace.

Moore uses the point of view of a police force to show us a city populated by heroes, aliens, and gods. He works an overall story into a collection of 24-page issues that each have their own plot as well, providing everything from laugh-out-loud parodies of traditional comics tropes to seriously touching human moments... even if the show more characters aren't human. show less

Without a doubt, my favorite Alan Moore comics, with great characters, an endlessly fascinating world, an interesting plot, and all leavened with some humor. To make it even better, the art is phenomenal; gorgeous and detailed. Great stuff.