Top 10: Compendium by Alan MooreMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Top 10 Compendium collects all the Top 10 material to date. I wasn't planning on reading this but no one else bid on it so I scored it for cheap.
So this is great stuff. Top 10 is the story of the police force in a city in which everyone has super powers. The concept sounded stupid to me but I wound up loving it. In some ways, it reminds me of Astro City. Neopolis, the city of the tale, is where all the supers ended up after World War II.
Sight gags abound, as do homages to classic comic characters. Police procedurals featuring super heroes are old hat now but I think Moore was the first one to do it with Top Ten. The art is most of the book is great. Gene Ha and Zander Cannon split the art chores in seasons one and two and Jerry Ordway handles things in Beyond the Farthest Precinct. Cannon handles the art in Smax and Ha does the honors in the 49ers.
The bizarre mix of characters shouldn't work. The cops consist of an android, an intelligent dog in an exoskeleton, a cowboy with huge guns, a satanist wizard, a half ogre from another dimension, and others. They work great together, though.
The only negative thing I can say about this is things get a little chaotic after Moore leaves. Cannon and Ha do a great job on season two but they completely disregard Beyond the Farthest Precinct, which makes me think they should have put Beyond last in the book for easier disregarding.
Five out of five stars. This one is something else.
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