Alan Moore: Top 10 (2005, Americas Best Comics)
English language
Published Jan. 6, 2005 by Americas Best Comics.
The year is 1949, and science-heroes and war champions are gathering in the city of Neopolis, now under construction as a home for those with extra-human powers and talents. One of those heroes is a very young ace pilot, Steve Traynor, also known as Jetlad, fresh from the battle-torn skies of Europe, and anxious for a new life and career. With him is his former enemy combatant Leni Muller, the Sky Witch, ready to prove herself worthy of the chance given to her in Neopolis. They are hardly prepared for the challenges facing the experimental city. Science crime and unearthly gang violence has swiftly followed the heroes into this new, wide-open environment. Will their courage and skills be enough for the tasks ahead?
A fun counterpoint to Watchmen, where everyone has super powers of some sort. I think the mouse/cat crossover event might be my favourite detail but every issue has a clever twist on the genre.
Brilliant.
Call him what you like, but there's no denying it; Alan Moore is brilliant. And in Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, he proves once again that he can grip a reader without the usual "big name" comic-book characters.
That's not to say that the characters in TT:TFN are completely original. In fact, that's a large part of the charm; finding and recognizing characters who can't be identified within the text by name for copyright/trademark reasons, but who are identifiable nonetheless. Look carefully, and you'll swear you see Kal-El, or possibly his father...as well as his earthly secret identity. You'll catch a glimpse of a certain Friendly Ghost, if you're sharp. Not to mention a well-known large-forearmed sailor man and his rather enormous nemesis.
I even spotted a rather ghoulish couple who frequently graced the pages of the New Yorker in days gone by, and were later adapted to television. …
Brilliant.
Call him what you like, but there's no denying it; Alan Moore is brilliant. And in Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, he proves once again that he can grip a reader without the usual "big name" comic-book characters.
That's not to say that the characters in TT:TFN are completely original. In fact, that's a large part of the charm; finding and recognizing characters who can't be identified within the text by name for copyright/trademark reasons, but who are identifiable nonetheless. Look carefully, and you'll swear you see Kal-El, or possibly his father...as well as his earthly secret identity. You'll catch a glimpse of a certain Friendly Ghost, if you're sharp. Not to mention a well-known large-forearmed sailor man and his rather enormous nemesis.
I even spotted a rather ghoulish couple who frequently graced the pages of the New Yorker in days gone by, and were later adapted to television.
But that's just the frosting on the cake. The cake itself is a cracking good story; the story of a city after the end of World War II, a new city filled with the various super-powered and otherwise incredible characters who participated in the war (including to my amusement an analog of comic strip adviser Mary Worth).
I won't spoil the book for you. But the characters and plot are up to the usual high standards of Moore at his best. The art is also quite good, with a unique and memorable style that makes the search for familiar characters (on the second or third re-reading) a pleasure. This was a book that I didn't want to return to the library. And when I finished reading it, I wished there was more.
