Top 10 Compendium (2022)
Reprints Top 10 #1-12, Smax #1-5, Top 10: The Forty-Niners, Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct #1-5, Top 10: Season Two #1-4, Top Ten: Season Two Special #1
Written by Alan Moore, Phillip De Fillippo, Xander Cannon, and Kevin Cannon
Art by Gene Ha, Xander Cannon, and Jerry Ordway
In 1999, Wildstorm Comics announced a new imprint, America’s Best Comics (ABC). This initiative would be centered around the work of Alan Moore, best known for comics like Watchmen, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and more. Titles published under this banner included Promethea (a personal treatise from Moore on his magic beliefs), Tom Strong (an homage to pulp heroes), and the book Top 10 (a police procedural). Moore worked with artist Gene Ha on the first Top 10 mini-series and the follow-up graphic novel The Forty-Niners, with other creatives handling later series. The idea behind Top 10 is an intriguing hook: what would the police be like in a city full of superheroes and other fantastical beings?
The initial Moore-written work is the best, in my opinion, but I think that’s to be expected. He’s a creator who has proven time and time again that he produces quality work that can both make allusions to pop culture but never lazily revel in it; instead, Moore issues critiques. Top 10 doesn’t fawn over the police; in most instances, the big bad villains of his stories are those in positions of authority.
Top 10 is highly satirical, revolving around the lives of the police officers in the 10th Precinct of Neopolis, a highly advanced supercity in the United States. Moore uses this heightened premise to touch upon serious contemporary issues. The cultural prejudice towards robots is meant to remind us of the rampant systemic racism in the States. Vampires are spoken about less as a threat and more as an Othered group of Eastern European immigrants.
Gene Ha is working as an equal with Moore throughout the work, filling every page with sight gags & visual references. A group of neighborhood kids resemble classic comic characters or combinations of such – Charlie Brown + Doctor Doom. One officer’s mother deals with an infestation of super-powered mice, which the exterminator deals with by unleashing super-powered cats into the apartment. A battle ensues, culminating in a parody of DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, with reality-altering consequences. When the exterminator comes to collect the bill, all memory of his work has been wiped from continuity, and he’s arrested for harassing a poor old woman. That’s just one of several minor subplots threaded through the first 12-issues mini.
It’s an ensemble cast primarily focused on pairs of heroes who work as partners. Shock-headed Peter works with cowboy Dust Devil. Heavily armored Irma Geddon is partnered with bio-engineered superwoman Girl One. There are other officers like Hyperdog, a literal super-intelligent doberman who wears a human-shaped exoskeleton. Peregrine is a born-again Christian whose beliefs clash with those of her co-workers. King Peacock is a “devil worshipper” and a dedicated family man. Micro-Maid employs her shrining abilities as the most in-depth pathologist you could imagine. There are many more, and all are overseen by Jetman, a World War II hero who started in the profession at the age of 10 as Jetlad.
The first 12-issue mini sees newly hired officer Toybox join the precinct and partner with the moody troll-human hybrid Jeff Smax. Right away, they are called to a crime scene, which leads to Professor Gromolko, the original architect of Neopolis, who has become involved in manufacturing a potent superhuman drug. This is just the first seed of a complex conspiracy that the officers slowly unravel while balancing their increasingly complicated personal lives.
I first read a random issue of Top 10 I picked up from a back issue bin, and it wasn’t until years later that I read the entire series. With this being a re-read, I was picking up on foreshadowing and clues Moore & Ha were laying from the start, making me appreciate the work’s quality even more. I wasn’t a massive fan of Prometha when I read that a few years ago, but that was more because I didn’t have the depth of knowledge on the subject Moore focused on there. Here, the writer draws lines from popular entertainment like Hill Street Blues, Law & Order, and other cop shows to inform this unique take.
This isn’t a comic you can passively read. Between the densely populated backgrounds, the private lives of our characters, the many calls they get, and the large conspiracy they’re investigating, this comic delivers value. You are getting a lot of stories, but all are beautifully written. You will genuinely care about characters who conceptually sound ridiculous. Moore allows them to be these fantastic characters but also grounds them with the same struggles every human being is dealing with. Irma’s home life with her husband and two daughters is very wholesome. Jeff Smax is a deeply sad, isolated figure. Hyperdog appears to have found something he never thought he would love, but it’s with a human woman, which raises many eyebrows at work.
The first Top 10 concluded with promises the story would continue in a Jeff Smax-focused mini-series and a prestige graphic novel telling the origins of Neopolis. The former wasn’t drawn by Ha but by Zander Cannon, who gave it a different tone because of the altered style. That works as the mini is a satire of fantasy tropes. Smax comes from a dimension couched in fairy tales and folklore lore. He has to return home for a visit and brings along his partner, Toybox. Through this story, we learn Smax’s origins, meet his sister, and watch him resolve a conflict with a near-godlike entity that attempts to make its victims feel hopeless.
I don’t like Cannon’s art as much as Ha’s; it’s not full of all the detail we got in the original mini. It’s not until the second half of the series that I warmed up to it when he’s able to play around with perspective, creating some trippy optical illusions with the villain. A deep, dark cave suddenly becomes the maw of the beast, and stalactites and stalagmites become fangs. Cannon does an excellent job of conveying the all-encompassing nature of this threat.
Moore’s writing is very sharp and clearly draws on a love of fantasy literature and comics. He also weaves in taboo subjects centered around human sexuality, making this a mature reader’s book. How Smax came to be born is a dark story about a failed hero, and his relationship with his sister will still raise eyebrows today. Moore’s not advocating for modern-day incest to be accepted but folding in tropes from the folklore that has inspired much of Western European fantasy literature.
Top 10: The Forty-Niners is my favorite of the franchise. Set in 1949, it focuses on Steve Traynor, still known as Jetlad, as he moves to Neopolis along with tens of thousands of other superhumans, costumed crime fighters, supernatural beings, robots, and more. The U.S. government built this city as a gift to the people who helped give the Allies the advantage in WWII.
Traynor’s story is split between the events that will lead to the formation of Top 10 as well as a major development in his personal life. Traynor is gay, but not out even to himself, really. He has a friendship with Skywitch, a German heroine who switched sides during the War. He also reunited with the Skysharks, a band of ace pilots modeled after DC Comics’s Blackhawks. It’s clear Traynor is growing close to one member, Wulf, and this pilot makes it clear he’s open to a more serious relationship if Traynor wants it. The young man freaks out and makes a series of poor choices before realizing he has to be true to himself.
Gene Ha returns to handle the art, and this is beyond anything I’ve seen from him. I would argue that the art here is on par with Alex Ross’s best work. Ha is entirely in tune with the spirit of comic books across genres, especially the feel of the Golden Age. That doesn’t mean he mimics the art style of that period, but through detailed realistic character design, he brings those types of characters to life.
The Forty-Niners would be Alan Moore’s last time writing Top 10. The next entry would be another mini-series subtitled Beyond the Farthest Precinct. Set five years after the first mini, we follow the same cast of characters as they deal with the sudden manifestation of a new threat. In the sky of Neopolis, the grotesque visage of a figure named Hell Ditch Pilgrim appears. New officers are recruited, creating conflict between established members. Japanese robot Joe Pi has his outer shell reconfigured to go undercover and investigate a drug connected to the Pilgrim’s appearance. A new boss is put in charge, Sean Cindercott, who makes the officers sign loyalty oaths and tries to clamp down on the precinct.
The book is written by Paul Di Filippo, a science fiction for whom this was his first comic book work. He’d write a Doc Sampson series the following year, and that was it. Instead, he focuses primarily on science fiction prose, with twelve novels under his belt. I didn’t think this was terrible, but I don’t think it was on par with Moore. I think non-comics writers who enter from another medium often struggle with comics. It’s closer to screenwriting, not novels or short stories, though there’s some crossover. Di Filippo does better than most I’ve read, but after having just read Moore’s work, this feels much less.
The art is handled by comics veteran Jerry Ordway. I most remember Ordway for his work on the Superman titles in the 1980/90s and his Power of Shazam series. Ordway is pushing his skills to their limits here. He faithfully recreates Ha’s character designs and puts a lot of detail into his art. Again, when comparing it to what I saw in the Forty-Niners, I am underwhelmed. It seems a lot of this mini-series was seen as not entirely up to standards because, in the next and final book, a lot of these events appear to have been ignored.
The final mini-series is titled simply Season Two, which signals that it is more of a direct sequel than the last one. While Moore doesn’t return, Zander Cannon and brother Kevin take up the writing duties, and Gene Ha returns to handle the art. It’s not as good as Moore’s work, but better than the last one. New officers join, as well as a new police commissioner who enforces the uniform policy, forcing characters to temporarily abandon their costumes.
There are some intriguing world-building twists like Peregrine discovering her husband wearing another hero’s costume in private. This is revealed as a taboo practice called Crossover Dressing, which the devoutly Christian Peregrine doesn’t care for. Just as it seemed like Top 10 might have a new, continued life, it was unceremoniously canceled. The intent had been an eight-issue mini with two specials. We only have four issues and one special, meaning the story is left unresolved.
Top 10 was definitely a comic someone like me would adore. I love pages packed with detail and lots of characters to follow. If those characters are dealing with the average problems of the everyday person, I’m even more interested. Moore is exceptionally talented at deconstructing and taking the superhero concept in new and interesting directions. I doubt I will see him return to the book. Wildstorm was bought by DC Comics, with whom he has a contentious relationship, and has incorporated several of the ABC characters into the mainstream continuity through the multiverse, including the very personal Promethea. I expect things like that to sour an already broken relationship. I would recommend Top 10 simply because it’s unlike anything you will read.
