Oct 22 2008
Top 10: The Forty-Niners
This week has turned into Top Ten week, although I hadn’t planned on it. After re-reading Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct, the mediocre sequel to the brilliant first series, for Monday’s review, I wanted to remind myself of why I loved Top 10. I intended to just re-read a couple of issues of that original series, and as happens with these things, I soon found I’d read all 12 and was pulling Top 10: The Forty-Niners off the shelf. And here we are with another Top 10 review.
Top 10: The Forty-Niners is a prequel to Top 10 Season 1. Set in Neopolis in 1949, when the city that would become filled with super-humans was just starting out, it tells the story of the rocky beginnings of the Neopolis police force. The city is new, and most of its inhabitants are being relocated there by the government - no-one wants super-powered crime fighters, science heroes, vigilantes, ghosts, vampires, talking animals, and robots living near them, so they are all being housed in one city that is still under construction and already has tensions building.
This is one of the best comics in my collection. Alan Moore was in great form, delivering a story that is even better than the original Top 10 series. The complex plot is great, the characterization brilliant, and the issues of sexuality, post-war politics, racism and sexism are handled very well. The art by Gene Ha and Art Lyon is beautiful and expressive, a career best for Gene Ha. There isn’t a misstep in the whole book.
Unlike some prequels, it is neither overloaded with characters from the original series nor does it require an in-depth knowledge of the world. Top Ten: The Forty-Niners can be read as a stand-alone graphic novel; in fact, there are aspects of the story that are even better if read with no knowledge of what comes later. Only one of the main characters, Steve Traynor, is in Top 10 Season 1, and the other character connections are minor. This is not a Star Wars prequel, where characters are forced in for the fans. Nor it is a comic-book prequel in the style of the limited series that Marvel and DC bring out, filling in aspects of characters’ pasts that have already been explained. This is a new story of a difficult time in the history of one of the best fictional worlds ever, and an essential addition to any serious collection.
Top 10: The Forty-Niners, from America’s Best Comics. A+. Look for it on the shelves with the trade paperbacks.
2 Responses to “Top 10: The Forty-Niners”
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Hi, There:
I have to agree with you on The Forty-Niners. I found this at my local library and was completely entranced. Not only were the characters believable and complex, they were likable, despite any flaws they may have had. I found this to be a completely engrossing book.
It’s arguably the best book to come out of America’s Best Comics. I’ve read it a half-dozen times, and it never ceases to entertain.