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--- TOP 10 #11 Of all the books in the ABC line (Tom Strong, Promethea, and Tomorrow Stories), I think I can say that Top 10 is easily the best. Not necessarily this issue: What I'm saying is this series, Top 10, is the standout among Alan Moore's recent run of ostensibly mainstream-pointed books. It possesses none of the often prosaic retro-humor of Tom Strong, none of the metaphysical meanderings of Promethea, and not a shred of the episodic place holding of Tomorrow Stories. What Top 10 does have is the strongest supporting cast in comics today, augmented by clever associations with established comic icons: associations which both poke fun at and revere those works, while not stooping to simply redigesting those works. Surely we've seen enough regurgitated versions of Silver Age stories which (let's face it) weren't really that revolutionary in the first place. Top 10 ably leaps over these traps, mixing nostalgia and soap opera with science fiction and good old superheroic hi-jinks. The cast of characters is immense, but each of their stories remains distinct: Mr Moore makes writing an ensemble book appear easy. Perhaps this is one weakness of Top 10: No one seems to be struggling all that hard in the creative department. Mr Moore has reinvented the comics language in the past, giving it a literacy and maturity which only a handful of writers were experimenting with: Has he stopped? Is he content to drive the same car, having found one he drives quite well, with comparatively little effort? Hard to say. Top 10 #11 opens with the arrival of the deceased Girl One's replacement in the middle of her fellow officers' still-fresh mourning. He immediately is regarded with suspicion and outright dislike, reviled for his assumed intent to replace her emotionally as well as physically. So far, Status Quo-- nothing new here, right? But then the expected resolution, in which our protagonist finds some way to individually endear himself to his fellows, perhaps by saving a kitten or losing an arm, is changed when Mr Moore introduces xenophobia into the mix: Girl One's replacement is a robot/cyborg/artificial intelligence/something-or-other by the name of Joe Pi. And apparently, in Mr Moore's alternate reality of Neopolis, Woman Is not The Nigger Of The World, robots are. From outright "racial" slurs, such as "Spambo" and "Clicker", to obvious mistrust of his robotic police prowess, Officer Joe is beleaguered from nearly all sides. This is where Mr Moore does his thing, as Officer Joe makes awkward peace with most of the other officers by showing more heart and humanity than most of the rest of them apparently possess. This seems to be near the core of Mr Moore's message with Top 10: one of acceptance and kinship. Hard to imagine, perhaps, from a man whose publicity photo makes him out to be some bedraggled Bogey-man lurking in the closet, but nearly every story in Top 10 revolves around a problem in the connections between disparate groups of people, or even disparate individuals. In this way, Top 10 is almost like a literary playground, where weighty issues are explored, even as they are treated in a sometimes-hilarious fashion. For instance, at Girl One's funeral, the somber air of discomfort and alienation common to all funerals is disrupted by a string of ghostly cameos, including persons which resemble Deadman, Ghost Rider (on a flaming unicycle, no less), Shadow Lady, the Spirit with Ebony White, and that old fag Oscar Wilde; not to mention that the service is apparently conducted by a Jesse Custer lookalike. Similarly, a scene where Detective Smax and Toybox discuss the tragic events of issue ten is somewhat undone by the endless procession of doctors in the medical ward, including Drs Fate, Strange, and Who. The art of Top 10 has always employed these playful background appearances to good effect. However, even though, as the series progresses, it is becoming easier and easier to distinguish one character from another, the art is becoming scratchy to the point of seeming rushed, as if the artist had much more important duties to take care of; perhaps a hot-date beckons him away from the drawing table. There is so much detail that the panels seem cluttered, bursting, as if they are crowding to exit the subway all at once: Often important visual details are lost in the inky shuffle. But on the whole, Top 10 #11 is yet another high-quality chapter in the best of Alan Moore's mainstream work. I am terribly saddened, as I'm sure all intelligent people are, by news of its impending hiatus. But we must be brave. Girl One would have wanted it that way, wouldn't she? Oh, I think so. --- Top 10 is available monthly at finer retailers everywhere with the order code of DEC000458. A finer finer retailer in your area may be located at www.the-master-list.com --- ---
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