Top 10

AUTHOR: Moore, Alan

ARTIST: Zander Cannon (illustrator); Gene Ha (illustrator); Todd Klein (letterer); Alex Ross (cover artist)

PUBLISHER: DC Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1999-2001

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 2000, 2002

Publication History

Top 10 was first published in twelve single issues from 1999 to 2001, as part of the WildStorm imprint America’s Best Comics (ABC). ABC was initiated by Alan Moore and featured different titles such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999- ), Promethea (1999-2005), Tomorrow Stories (1999-2002), and Tom Strong (1999-2003), written by Moore and drawn by various artists. The idea for ABC was conceived when WildStorm was still part of Image Comics, and Moore went through with the series when WildStorm was taken over by DC Comics in 1998. Moore is one of the most renowned writers in comics and came to Top 10 having written such acclaimed works as V for Vendetta (1982-1989), Swamp Thing (1983-1987), Watchmen (1986-1987), and From Hell (1991-1996). Gene Ha and Zander Cannon were both relatively unknown before teaming up for Top 10.

Top 10 spin-off series include Smax by Alan Moore and Zander Cannon (2003); a miniseries on one of the characters from the series Top 10: The Forty-Niners (2005) by Alan Moore and Gene Ha (a prequel to the events in the main series recalling the early days of Neopolis); and Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct (2005) by Paul Di Filippo and Jerry Ordway.

Plot

Having observed that superhero team-up stories rarely work well, Moore decided to fuse this particular subgenre of superhero comics with the concept of the police drama, where the narrative follows many story lines intermittently and sheds light on the police officers’ home lives as well as their crime fighting. Top 10 is named after the tenth precinct, wherein the protagonists patrol their part of Neopolis, a city where every inhabitant has some kind of superpower or special ability or gadget that makes them akin to a superhero. This idea is explored thoroughly, as almost every panel contains some inside joke played on the superhero genre or other references to popular culture decipherable by those in the know.

On her first day of work, officer Robyn Slinger is sent with her new partner Jeff Smax to the murder scene of a drug dealer named Stefan Graczik. As the investigation continues Slinger and her colleagues are led to Professor Gromolko, who fabricates the drugs, and Marta Wesson, Graczik’s partner and sidekick. Graczik has been double-crossing Gromolko and an unknown customer who is evidently powerful. When detective Wanda Jackson smells foul play by using her synaesthetic sensibility, it is made evident that the person responsible for the murder is Commissioner Ultima, head of all police forces. Most of the protagonist team takes part in the final battle scene in which Ultima and officer Sung Li are killed and Slinger is severely wounded.

Interspersed with this first story line is the capture of the Libra Killer, who has haunted the city regularly, murdering three prostitutes each October by severing their heads. Detective Cathy Colby leads the investigation but is unable to take an active part in the hunting down of the Libra Killer because of a broken rib, so officers Duane Bodine, Peter Cheney, and sergeants Jackie Kowalski and Kemlo Caesar round up the alien, former pornographic actor M’rrgla Qualtz, who is responsible for the killings. Qualtz is later killed during the fight at the police station with Commissioner Ultima, but not before she gives Captain Steve Traynor a lead that points toward her former superhero group, the Seven Sentinels. During the investigation of murdered former sidekick in the Seven Sentinels, Glenn Garland, the Seven Sentinels is exposed as a front for a pedophile ring with the celebrated superheroes exploiting the sidekicks in the Young Sentinels. The Top 10 officers arrest the group with officer Joe Pi inducing leader Craig Wallace to commit suicide.

In between these two main stories are the depictions of everyday police life in Neopolis, including attending a teleportation traffic accident, arresting a telekinetic Santa Claus, trying to solve a murder among gods, and responding to domestic problems between couples with various superpowers. When not on duty, the officers have to deal with the problems of interspecies love, a parent with Alzheimer’s disease, and unemployment for spouses with precognitive skills.

Characters

•Robyn Slinger, a.k.a. Toybox, is blond, of average height, and is part of the protagonist team of police science heroes. Her specialty is the use of her toybox containing small robots that can help her in difficult situations. She captures Professor Gromolko and she finds Martha Wesson, both of whom help the officers locate the drug ring supplying Commissioner Ultima, who is then neutralized by Robyn’s toy robots.

•Jeff Smax is an ill-tempered blue giant who seems to treat everybody equally bad. He does, however, hide a big heart beneath all the gruffness and ends up being particularly attached to Robyn. Because of his invulnerability, he is used in situations requiring stamina and strength. He takes on Commissioner Ultima and proves crucial to her defeat.

•Kemlo Caesar, a.k.a. Hyperdog, is a talking dog who moves around in an exoskeleton resembling a human body clad in Hawaiian shirts. He is well-liked and is brave when the situation demands it. As the sergeant of the precinct he leads the work and keeps track of the many missions his employees are on.

•M’rrgla Qualtz, a.k.a. the Libra Killer, is an alien who looks like a giant insect. She can shape shift, manipulate thoughts via telepathy, and has razor sharp monofilaments. She is an antagonist in the first part of the narrative, as she murders prostitutes to feed on their pineal gland fluid.

•Commissioner Ultima is a large woman who dresses as an emperor and is the head of all the police districts in the parallel worlds. She can create pink bursts of lightning, and she is, surprisingly, the main antagonist and person responsible for the murder of Graczik in an attempt to hide her uncontrollable drug habit.

Artistic Style

The teamwork between Gene Ha as finishing artist and co-creator and Zander Cannon as layout artist punctuates the story by explicitly underlining points made while structurally expressing the narrative. As both diversity and realism in a fantastic world is important in Top 10 on a thematic level, Gene Ha’s painstakingly detailed character designs and backgrounds ensure that the reader experiences the bustling city of Neopolis and its varied population. Both the protagonist team’s members and the many supporting characters have their appearances meticulously executed, which helps the reader keep track of the enormous cast.

Cannon’s layouts structure the content by using whole-page panels, splash panels, and half-page panels to set the scene of the places in the city where the various encounters between police and criminals take place. He then reverts to smaller square-shaped panels in the sequences involving the more intimate moments of interrogations and conversations. By changing the angle and point of view, he makes the difference in the size of people and buildings come across effectively as in the case of the monster Ernesto Gograh, who is shown from a frog’s perspective on a whole page to depict his size alongside the buildings. The level of visual information in panels sometimes makes the pages feel crowded and confusing, but this is a consequence when the intention is to load the story with intertextual references and visual Easter eggs (hidden visual gag or joke).

Todd Klein’s lettering helps distinguish the characters by making some speech balloons appear visually different and the use of both vivid coloring for costumes and onomatopoeia clearly supports the superheroic content. Alex Ross did the series’ first cover, continuing the superhero reference with work reminiscent of his and Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come (1996).

Themes

Differing from Moore’s other contributions to the revision of the superhero character, Top 10 is remarkable in its playful and constant intertextual references to clichés of the genre and also in its insistence on linking this colorful universe with realistic problems. A major theme in the story is power in its many varieties, implicitly referring to the classic superhero mantra “With great power comes great responsibility.” Commissioner Ultima is one of the most powerful people in the series’ universe, but because she misuses this power for her own agenda and neglects her responsibility, she is heavily punished. Similarly, the Seven Sentinels abuse the power relationship between adults and adolescents along with the power of their falsely achieved celebrity to abuse the members of the Young Sentinels.

Influence from the police drama genre is predominant in relating to power as a theme in Top 10, as emphasis is on the collective power of the team working together. The police in Top 10 are able to subdue and bring to justice the criminals through their collaboration, thereby underscoring the series’ additional themes of friendship and loyalty. The “power through cooperation” theme is emphasized through the foregrounding of dialogue and the many panels showing the interactions of the officers both at work and at home.

The diversity of Neopolis is mirrored in its police force, and themes connected with gender, race, and class are among those openly discussed that further link the superhero narrative with issues pertaining to real life, such as the discrimination against robots and problems of integrating different cultures in a society. This realism is mirrored in the way people and backgrounds are drawn, with an impressive variety of characters and elaborate attention paid to their uniqueness and identifying traits.

Impact

The series’ publication date places it almost fifteen years from the revision of the superhero begun by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), which prompted a new way of conceiving the superhero, in some cases as darker and more emotionally disturbed than before—for example, Grant Morrison’s and Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (1989)—but also as a character more complex and realistic than the black-white dichotomy between good and evil in the Golden Age hero or the science-fiction-infused, fantastic world of the Silver Age hero.

Top 10 has not received as much critical attention as other works in the ABC series, such as Promethea and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, perhaps because of its sometimes comically heavy reference to the superhero genre. Drawing on all the characteristics of both the myth of the superhero and his or her many incarnations during both Golden and Silver Ages, the series takes every opportunity to make a visual reference to other popular cultural icons or specifically to other superheroes as well as constantly playing jokes on the tropes of the genre, such as the canteen cook frying up hot dogs with X-ray vision or when the vermin of the city is ultra-mice, to which the only cure is atom-cats. Audiences have been divided, with some naming Top 10 as their favorite ABC comics and others putting it absolute last. The many references can be both a gold mine to be dug out by pop-culture aficionados and a pointless distraction that makes the series appear too lighthearted.

Top 10 represents the affection Moore, Ha, and Cannon feel for the magical imagination inherent in the genre and comments on the dark direction the superhero genre had been following in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s by striking a lighter tone and simultaneously discussing realistic subject matter. There have been critical voices raised on the true nature of the relationship between superheroes and their sidekicks, and in this series Moore discusses this particular setup in its most grim consequence. Moore helped transform the superhero in Watchmen and Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (1986), and Top 10 is his contribution to a reimagining of the superhero team concept.

Further Reading

Busiek, Kurt, Brent Anderson, and Alex Ross. Astro City (1995- ).

Moore, Alan, and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen (1986-1987).

Morrison, Grant, and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan (1997-2002).

Waid, Mark, and Alex Ross. Kingdom Come (1996).

Bibliography

Di Liddo, A. Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

Klock, G. How to Read Superhero Comics and Why. New York: Continuum, 2002.

Reynolds, R. Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994.