Review by Ian Keogh
Shown as a decayed and overcrowded technical wonder, the city of Neopolis is also a multi-dimensional hub connecting many alternate worlds, an aspect not greatly explored in Book 1, but integral to the main continuity of Book 2. An immediate threat in the early pages has the consequences of teleporting results from trans-dimensional aliens playing a game. Alan Moore channels both his Warpsmith creations for Miracleman and a memorable episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. It’s sad, tragic and introspective, very much a contrast to the lighter tone of earlier episodes.
The darkness doesn’t completely take over for the remainder of the selection, but it’s always there and more prevalent than in the first book, especially when investigating teenage sidekicks. Yet there’s also charm, emotional connection and some understated humour.
John Corbeau travels to HQ on what he expects to be a murder investigation but ends up in gladiatorial combat, the case of the alien superhero turned murderer is completed, and there’s a new officer assigned to the Top 10 precinct. Moore doesn’t steer entirely clear of familiar dramatic territory, but it’s always fed with original thoughts. Corbeau being taken to what’s in effect a higher enlightened authority discovers a place where racism is not only prevalent, but barely disguised, where he’s seen not as an individual, but a “Nubian”. Pre-cognitive prediction hangs over a character, yet Moore confounds expectation, he raises the question of whether the intelligence of a computer chip is no more or less programmed than human genetics, and twists the interrogation room scene common to police drama on its head.
Layout artist Zander Cannon and producer of the finished art Gene Ha continue to supply art of jaw-dropping quality. Not only is it first rate storytelling showing how a wide and divergent cast feel, but an entire afternoon could drift away through studying the extra detail on every page. A fair proportion of the design work occurred in the preparation for Book 1, but because Neopolis and associated environments are so populated, there’s a constant need for visually noteworthy background characters. The giants having coffee on the sample art is impressive enough, but don’t miss the added visual joke of the hapless tiny cleaner. Ghost Rider on a unicycle is another great background gag, as is the one about the Blues Beetles.
The sordid version of the Justice League ending the volume is the weakest element, not because it’s messing with icons, but because it’s too obvious for Moore despite some clever aspects. By anyone else’s standards, though…
Later editions of Top 10 combined this with Book 1, as it’s essentially twelve connected chapters and reads better as such. By the end Moore had said all he had to say about Top 10 as an entity, so subsequent projects Smax and The Forty-Niners look into fantasy and the past respectively, leaving Cannon and Ha alone producing Season Two, mystifyingly unavailable in book form until 2023’s all-encompassing Compendium. That also includes Beyond the Farthest Precinct, completely the work of other creators.
