Review by Ian Keogh
Procedural mysteries and character dramas in a sprawling city populated with superpowers and with access to alternate worlds is Top 10’s premise, featuring a police cast assigned to the Tenth Precinct. This volume combines Alan Moore’s original story with all follow-ups and associated projects. For longer discussion about individual projects follow the highlighted links.
Moore’s twelve chapter original series is delicately and densely illustrated by Zander Cannon (layouts) and Gene Ha (finished art) and remains a delight. It’s plotted with possibly even greater precision than Watchmen as the cast is larger and more diverse, with minor incidents gradually growing in importance and the character moments flowing from them. Cannon alone draws the amusing short ‘DeadFellas’ about the Cosa Nosferatu, absent from earlier collections.
When Moore obviously wasn’t interested in a direct continuation that was left to Paul Di Filippo and Jerry Ordway in Beyond the Furthest Precinct. It’s serviceable, with some caveats, and Ordway’s excellent art (sample left) drops innumerable easter eggs, but as an idea it’s a pale imitation of the original with little depth to the cast.
Moore’s interest was in two completely contrasting associated projects. Comedy fantasy Smax, sees the big brute of the opening story return home for the first time since leaving, and while relatively trivial provides the entertainment Moore intended, with Cannon selling the ideas. The far more sombre prequel The Forty-Niners is drawn by Ha and less easily defined. Set in the earliest days of Neopolis post World War II, it’s a love story, a noir mystery and a plot about the precinct Captain in the present day coming of age in 1949 as the then small police force faces an existential threat.
Strangely, ‘Season Two’ was never collected in paperback. It’s a direct sequel to the original series picking up days after the ending. A new commissioner who’s a stickler for detail is appointed, the squad are ordered to wear uniforms, and use of heavy ordinance is to be limited, which some feel will endanger officers’ lives. The art is still Ha following Cannon’s layouts, but instead of being pencils and inks, Ha works digitally on most of the opening chapter (sample right) and it’s not a greatly successful experiment, with posed people and expressions. He reverts to his previous style for the remainder, and that’s infinitely more polished. Cannon’s plot, produced with Kevin Cannon, is far more true to Moore’s methods than Di Filippo’s sequel, expanding on the known characters, using people who played lesser roles in the earlier material and introducing cases that build. It’s not slavish imitation, though, with Cannon’s observations about use of super powers interesting.
However, it’s a story that reads as if truncated and prematurely finished, with a follow-up chapter set quite a while later having very little to do with Top 10 as a concept, nor picking up dangling plots. It’s a courtroom drama featuring only two of the cast, with Daxiong’s art good, but nowhere near as good as Ha.
Top 10 Compendium is a collection where the dips are to average, not poor, while the better material is excellent. Anyone who’s never read it before has a real treat awaiting. You may be tempted by 2013’s Absolute edition, but it omits ‘Season Two’.
