If you look at the comic book shelf or see all the superhero movies that have been made or are in progress, it seems like there are an awful lot of different superheroes and villains, maybe too many. Well, Moore takes that idea and imagines a world where there were so many superbeings that a city was created just for them-- Neopolis. While this might solve some problems, obviously it causes others-- the major one being, how do you keep some semblance of order in a society of elite, powerful beings? Precinct 10 (affectionately known as Top 10) is the police team that does just that, and all of the cops have the kind of powers necessary to do their jobs in Neopolis.
This series is a bit like Swords of Haven, in that it takes regular mysteries (or incidents of the kind that cops would have to investigate) and adds an extra wrinkle-- in that case, magic; here, it is a world of superpowers, monsters, and aliens. The world of Neopolis is a richly realized one (and I thought the artwork was really fantastic); there is so much detail to take in and enjoy, and it makes the city feel real. The ads on the train, the billboards and trucks on the city streets, the music-- all truly belong to this world of heroes and monsters. Among these many delightful details, there's a boy band named "Sidekix", and just in passing you see a middle-aged mother in her cape & tights with a whiny young teenage daughter in tow who's begging for the new prismatic cape that all the other girls have.
The stories focus somewhat on Robyn Slinger (aka Toy Box), a new cop who has just joined Top 10-- but they don't stick just to her experiences, and there is always plenty going on, so there are several different stories going on at once. All of the cops felt like real characters, with a wide array of gifts and personalities. I particularly liked the power of the pathologist, whose nickname is Micro Maid: she wears a suit that can shrink her, so she can go spelunking in the arteries of corpses and really see what went wrong. This power also comes in pretty handy when the drunk has-been movie monster Gograh (a Godzilla type) comes looking for his son and causing all kind of wreckage.
This is delightful stuff, and I can't wait to read more.
| Title: | Top 10 (Book 1) |
|---|---|
| Author: | Alan Moore |
| Date published: | 2001 |
| Genre: | Graphic Novel |
| Number of pages: | 208 |
| Notes: | recommended by GeeksOn |
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