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Alan Moore and Gene Ha return to Top 10 to fill in some of the backstory of Neopolis. Following World War II, the United States confines its "science heroes" to the city of Neopolis. Heroes accustomed to ruling the battlefield during the war, like Steve "Jetlad" Traynor and Leni "Sky Witch" Muller, must adjust to life as civilians, and figure out a use for their powers outside of a military setting.

It's a book about finding your purpose in peace. Steve and Leni find theirs, but many of their fellow veterans can't manage it. Leni joins the Neopolis Police Department; Steve becomes a mechanic for the Skysharks, an aerial squadron. Though, since he's the captain of the Neopolis P.D. by the time of the present-day Top 10 stories, we know he must join up eventually. The original run of Top 10 revealed at its very end that Steve was gay (which he seemingly kept on the downlow from his fellow officers), and his finding of purpose is as much a finding of himself, as he tries to force a relationship with Leni that neither of them really wants in order to deny part of his own nature.

I really liked Leni, too: a statuesque woman who initially fought on the wrong side during World War II, now trying to make good. Her subplot, like the original Top 10 books, blends superhero stories with police procedural in a way I found satisfying-- instead of the police vs. the mob, it's the police vs. organized vampires.

Gene Ha is always a strong artist, but this is probably one of his very best books, with great character, clear storytelling and emotion, and some beautiful scenes. Art Lyon's subdued coloring adds to the retro feel as well as to the book's morose, contemplative vibe as its characters find their places in a less colorful world than the one they knew during the war.

Top 10: The Forty Niners
Author: Alan Moore, Gene Ha, Todd Klein, Art Lyon
Publisher: America’s Best Comics
Published In: La Jolla, CA, USA
Date: 2005
Pgs: 112

REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
1949: The science heroes, mutants and robots are being forced into resettlement. Normal people are uncomfortable living alongside them. The government has founded Neopolis where all exceptional people can live together. This is the story of Steve Traynor, Jetlad and the beginnings of the Neopolis Police Department. A new city is aborning with her labor pains including vampire gangsters and robot bigotry.

Genre:
Adventure
Comics and graphic novels
Crime fiction
Fantasy
Fiction
Mythology
Science fiction
Superheroes
Vampires
Witches, wizards and magic

Why this book:
It’s Alan Moore and Top 10. I’ve loved everything that I’ve read by Alan Moore.

This Stories are About:
courage, working hard, doing the right thing, greed, friends, jealousy, love, caring, happiness, sadness, family

Favorite Character:
Jetlad. We’re experiencing this early days Neopolis through his eyes, largely.

Least Favorite Character:
There’s a lot of unveiled bigotry of the imaginary robotic kind and human on human racism as well. Those characters engaging in that are horrid.

Character I Most Identified With:

The Feel:
There’s nostalgia, mixed with some real world of the 1940s-50s stigmata.

Favorite Scene:
The showdown with the protection scheme vampires at the bar. Good stuff.

The final battle with the Morgia and the Skysharks and the Neopolis PD.

Pacing:
The pace is great. The pages seemed to fly through my fingers.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Unlike the other Top 10s, this one doesn’t have nearly the thickness of background with homage characters and items leaping off the back page at you at every turn. While there is some of that here, it isn’t nearly as omnipresent as in the other ones I’ve read.

Hmm Moments:
Vampire mobsters.

Robot bigotry.

The ghosts and the animal characters made to ride in the cattle car on the train into town.

Why isn’t there a screenplay?
I’d be worried that they couldn’t do Top 10 justice.

Casting call:
Beth Behrs as Skywitch. Don’t know if she could do a passable German accent or not, but I’d love to see her in the role.

Frankie Muniz as Jetlad.

Last Page Sound:
That’s good stuff.

Author Assessment:
I would read anything with Alan Moore’s name on it.

Editorial Assessment:
Well done. I wish the colors had been more comic book normal. There was a lot of mood lighting to promote the period piece-edness of the story. And it was fine. But I would have prefered a more real 4-color look.

Knee Jerk Reaction:
real genre classic

Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library

Would recommend to:
genre fans ( )

Brilliant.

Call him what you like, but there's no denying it; Alan Moore is brilliant. And in Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, he proves once again that he can grip a reader without the usual "big name" comic-book characters.

That's not to say that the characters in TT:TFN are completely original. In fact, that's a large part of the charm; finding and recognizing characters who can't be identified within the text by name for copyright/trademark reasons, but who are identifiable nonetheless. Look carefully, and you'll swear you see Kal-El, or possibly his father...as well as his earthly secret identity. You'll catch a glimpse of a certain Friendly Ghost, if you're sharp. Not to mention a well-known large-forearmed sailor man and his rather enormous nemesis.

I even spotted a rather ghoulish couple who frequently graced the pages of the New Yorker in days gone by, and were later adapted to television.

But that's just the frosting on the cake. The cake itself is a cracking good story; the story of a city after the end of World War II, a new city filled with the various super-powered and otherwise incredible characters who participated in the war (including to my amusement an analog of comic strip adviser Mary Worth).

I won't spoil the book for you. But the characters and plot are up to the usual high standards of Moore at his best. The art is also quite good, with a unique and memorable style that makes the search for familiar characters (on the second or third re-reading) a pleasure. This was a book that I didn't want to return to the library. And when I finished reading it, I wished there was more. ( )

This is a prequel to Moore’s Top 10 books, about police work in a swarming city where EVERYBODY has superpowers. It’s a fascinating place to visit, and this book is no exception. Set in the early days, when Neopolis was just forming, this follows the formula of the other books: a plot line dealing with a mystery while throwing in a hefty dose of everyday life in an unusual city. This is kind of like what Hill Street would be like if everybody wore tights and the crooks shot lightning bolts and rayguns. The best part for me, as always, is how Moore uses Neopolis to toy around with the superhero genre’s clichés (such as it’s sexism, or it’s underage sidekicks) or to comment on social phenomena (such as the racism towards robots). And as always, Ha’s artwork is a delight to watch, full of winks and references to all sorts of popular culture. Here we also get the cute beginning of the love story between Wulf and Jetlad, tenderly told. ( )