Review by Ian Keogh
Smax is the big invulnerable brute among the officers of the Neopolis 10th Precinct, but beyond power and a surly personality he remained relatively unknown in a cast Alan Moore otherwise gracefully peeled back. A plot left dangling in Top 10 was that he needed to return home, and he’d asked relatively new partner Robyn Singer to accompany him. Smax opens with that journey about to start, with Robyn not entirely recovered from her injuries, her leg still in a plaster cast.
A relatively simple running joke sustains Smax, that of applying human standards and regulations to a mythological and fairytale world, but for what’s far more comedic than Top 10 it never outstays its welcome. Smax is from that world, hates it, and were it not for the death of his stepfather wouldn’t be returning, although it becomes apparent there’s unfinished business.
Much depends on artist Zander Cannon being able to sell the ridiculousness of situations like a singing sword with a fondness for Abba without visual overstatement. He does that by creating a gloriously odd world where small blocks of flats appear on trees like birdhouses, transportation is via mouse-drawn pumpkin carriage and dragons lurk in caves. In the same manner as Cannon’s layouts for Top 10, this is also a very busy world featuring plenty of easter egg jokes, although one suspects Bergman’s version of death on the sample art is Moore’s suggestion.
For all the funny moments, Smax also satisfies as a fantasy quest. The one-note gruff character Smax displayed in Top 10, is unsustainable back in his homeland where he all-but reverts back to the frightened child who left it. For that to work effectively it needs Robyn’s presence as the stranger in a strange land to point out some realities, some of which are grim, the sort of stuff that routinely occurs in myths. However, compare a road of skulls to events under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and there’s an entirely different perspective.
It should also be mentioned that Moore exploits another common facet of myths, that of incest, and while relatively sensitively handled in the end, he doesn’t shy away from comedy. Some potential readers may find that it’s raised at all is beyond their tolerance.
Smax is also found in the Top 10 Compendium gathering all other material featuring the cast.
