By: Alan Moore Publisher: Wildstorm Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Wildstorm Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 208 Publication Date: June 01, 2001 Release Date: June 01, 2001
Solid Good read... but that's all. The fourth star goes for Moore and his little ''touches''... Read vol. 2, it's better. The art is great, but there's just too much details, it was sometimes difficult to keep up.
A human touch When you think about it, I mean really think about it, having special powers must really warp your sensibilities. It's a complex proposition, yet one that is dealt with in an amusing and touching way in this book set in a city where everyone has special powers. Both book 1 and 2 are worth investing your time and emotional energy into.
I Seen Plenty--I'm Omniscient, Right? I wouldn't know a thing about comics without the advice of my young friend Marcus Ewert the author of 10,000 DRESSES, and he steered me into reading the adventures of Toybox and the rest of the gang of TOP 10, a fictional big city precinct very much like the world of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct, only a little bit different. McBain changed reality by showing that not all the men in blue were superheroes, but now Alan Moore is changing it up again by reverting to an oldfashioned mode of bourgeois narrative in which the force is literally composed of superheroes--the twist here is that the villains are too--and the further twist is that literally everybody, every citizen of the artificial city of Neopolis.
Book One takes the traditional approach to threading the reader's eye through a complex stratification of society by presenting it all from the viewpoint of a newbie--here Toybox on the first day of her job, encountering friendly faces, antagonistic ones, reacting to weird sights, and rapidly acclimatizing herself to the strange. Here everyone on the force has superpowers, though to me it seemed unclear what her own amount to--is is that she has a box of lifelike little automata who perform difficult tasks for her? That box looks cumbersome to me, and yet she has to haul it around her wherever she goes.
The buildup, however long and sometimes confusing it can be, has a grand payoff in Book One, and I haven't laughed so loud all month as when Toybox, Smax and Jackson have to investigate the "Mythdemanor" case, at a local bar where the Norse gods hang out and at which the god of beauty, Baldur, lies slain with a magic piece of mistletoe. "Hector said you had a homicide here." "Yeah, well it's more of a deicide. Some god got whacked in a... I dunno, an ascend-by shooting I guess."
an Alan Moore smorgasbord The top Ten is set in a slightly futuristic world where everyone is a super-hero . . . . everyone has a particular power that makes the story almost too rich . . . . but the layered story-lines can be understood, in my case by re-reading the book. The prequel to this series (The Forty-niners) is better than the series itself. I recommend this title.
Just Great Writing... Hugely Enjoyable While Top Ten doesn't have the brilliance of 'From Hell', or the curiosity (I don't mean that in a bad way) of 'Promethea', it is just plain cracking good writing. I can understand why Moore prefers to stretch himself on other works, but he is so brilliant in 'Top Ten' - he doesn't make a step wrong. Every joke works, the stories are fantastic, but even greater is the way that Moore, Gene Ha and Zander Cannon plunge you into this engrossing and fascinating world. The characters are wonderful. In every little touch Alan Moore doesn't hold back, but gives from the heart liberally... which unfortunately is becoming a rarer thing for him these days. I can't say enough good things about it - it's easily the most fun reading experience I've ever had of any comic book ever.
At my local comics store just the other day, I purchased 'Promethea' book 5 and 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' Vol. 2... and part of me wishes I had purchased this instead! The stories are easily as fun as 'League', and certainly more emotionally gripping. I have been spoiled and read both books through twice (borrowed from the Library), and I thought I was going for something more intellectually stimulating... so I hesitated. Stupid. Get this now.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
