1 February 2005
Top 10, issue 8, page 25
Top 10, issue 8, page 25. Peregrine (Cathy Colby) watches as two victims fused together in a teleporter accident expire. One, Mr. Nebula, was returning from a vacation with his wife who was killed instantly. The other, a "gamer" named Kapela, provides a dry philosophy of life as a game between the black of space and the white of the stars.
Who else but Alan Moore could write a story about a city filled with super-heroes?
Imagine a city where every citizen, from poorest slum-dweller to corporate honcho, has unusual powers and abilities--not to mention an alter ego and costume. How would you police such a city? Join the unusual law force of Neopolis on their day-to-day rounds and find out!
Moore goes all out with creating hundreds of characters to fill the pages. The dozen or so main characters include the captain who's an intelligent Doberman who wears a robotic humanoid suit with jokey t-shirts (What part of 'woof' don't you understand?
), a hostage negotiator named The Word who has absolute control over others using his voice, an indestructible officer named Smax, and a lesbian named Jack Phantom who walks through walls. The streets are filled with mundane or oddball super-heroes (Andy "Airbag" Soames inflates like a pufferfish), street gangs of drug-selling super-heroes, and even prostitute super-heroes (such as "Immune Girl"). It's apparent that Alan Moore was just warming up with all of the characters he created in Watchmen.
Putting all of the comic-book references aside, the stories are still entertaining. It's got a Hill Street Blues feel about it with its mix of serious social issues and wry comedy. Although Top 10 doesn't deal exclusively with super-heroes (one storyline involves a murder among the gods in a bar where various religious deities hang out), and it covers a rich array of subject matter, the heavy veneer of comic book in-jokes will limit this series primarily to the geek readership. It is his forte, but I still hate to see such skills in a limiting genre.
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