Top Ten

[Thaddy-Boy]

What a waste of time. I'm taking it back to my comic shop to get a refund.
I've never done that before. It was just that bad...

Was there supposed to be any dialog when the big Zombie guy comes out of the mountain? That was totally bizarre.

Horrible horrible start to a very good Alan Moore creation.

[Screwtape]

Is this the "Beyond the Farthest Precinct" spin-off? I was wondering what people thought of that.

[Lubichev]

What a waste of time.
Horrible horrible start to a very good Alan Moore creation.

I don't understand why it isn't Moore. Or Ha for that matter. That aint Top 10. Why let others muck with your characters? Especially when they do it so badly.

[The Adventurer]

I don't understand why it isn't Moore. Or Ha for that matter. That aint Top 10. Why let others muck with your characters? Especially when they do it so badly.

Well I can think of about....oh a couple hundred charaters/franchises that did just find with changing creative teams.

[Thaddy-Boy]

I don't understand why it isn't Moore. Or Ha for that matter. That aint Top 10. Why let others muck with your characters? Especially when they do it so badly.
Well I can think of about....oh a couple hundred charaters/franchises that did just find with changing creative teams.

I think what our fine feathered friend means is why the hell let a crappy creative team take over such a great concept and screw the pooch with it.

I dig Ordway's art. I've been a big fan of his for a while, but that writer has got to GO. HORRIBLE!

To paraphrase the Comic Book Guy: "Worst Mini-Series Ever"

[stealthwise]

Well I can think of about....oh a couple hundred charaters/franchises that did just find with changing creative teams.

This effort seemed doomed from the start though. The shift in style and, well, ability, is just far too drastic to expect anything but disappointment in this mini-series. Certain titles probably should not be taken over by new creative teams, and I would include Top Ten on a list with other such greats as Sandman and Preacher in that category.

[Samurai]

I rather liked it myself... I'm going to give it a few issues to mature. Like the original Top 10, there are several "cases" or storylines going on at once...

[Thaddy-Boy]

I rather liked it myself... I'm going to give it a few issues to mature. Like the original Top 10, there are several "cases" or storylines going on at once...

UNlike the original Top 10, none of those cases or storylines are even close to being interesting.

Look, I was all excited to get a new Top 10. I wish I had enough pennies to get the Top 10 hardcover, but alas, I'l have to wait for Xmas fer that one.

This was a huge disappointment. I still can't get that horrible horrible one page of the zombie coming out of the mountain out of my head. I mean, what the hell was supposed to be going on there???? Can someone, anyone, clue me in?

[Tobias March]

I had completely forgotten about this mini-series. I hadn't even considered buying it - picked up the 49ers instead.

So I did good there, eh? Pity. Top Ten was so self-contained and well written. You'd think ABC would try to pass on the series with enough chops to follow on. I'm not crazy about that guy co-writing Terra Obscura either, but that book's fairly inoffensive and occasionally fun. Top Ten though isn't just a police procedural, it's not just Powers. The shifting nature of the storylines and the character beats, not to mention the in-jokes, takes an encyclopaedic approach to superhero comics as a whole.

Not saying the next guy needs to be Alan Moore! Just that they have to realize Top Ten isn't just a cop drama with powers.

[Scott Beeler]

This was a huge disappointment. I still can't get that horrible horrible one page of the zombie coming out of the mountain out of my head. I mean, what the hell was supposed to be going on there???? Can someone, anyone, clue me in?

It was a Big Weird Vision that appeared in the sky for an unknown reason and then vanished. May well be connected to the robot druggies that also developed Freaky Zombie Heads right before that. Beyond that, we don't know (and neither do the detectives, as they mention later in the issue as they set out to investigate), which I don't think is unusual in the first issue of a miniseries. The transition from that scene was quite jarring, I'll admit, skipping right over the aftermath of the vision, but other than that it seemed reasonable enough.

I don't think this has much hope of living up to Alan Moore _Top Ten_, but I liked the first issue well enough, and thought the characters were well portrayed (if not as smoothly as Moore did). I think it may come up to the level of _Smax_, anyway.

I too am waiting for the softcover of _The 49ers_, though that decision is getting fairly agonizing now that I've seen a couple rave reviews of it.

[Donald M.]

What I wanna know is, how can a police department as busy as Top 10 afford to assign seven officers to the same case involving robot drugs and a weird vision. Hardly something that's seem that urgent.

[Lester C.]

I loved the first issue. I think people are responding negatively to this book because the legendary Alan Moore isn't attached to this book. While I admit Moore would do a better job this book is still a wonderful read.

[Pil]

I thought it was pretty good. Not nearly as good as Fourty-Niners, but I enjoyed it.

[Jack Destruct]

I'd at least wait a few issues 'til I started ripping into the new Top 10 team. A single issue from the first 'season' usually told you very little and it was only in the collected stories that everything seemed to mesh (with the exception of issue #8 which was beautiful and completely self-contained).

I'll probably just wait for the trade, and then I'll pass judgement.

[jerrymcl89]

Having read the second issue, I am getting a better handle on it. I'm not sure if I like the war on terror being brought over to the Top Ten-verse, but the story does seem to be clicking a lot better than in the first issue.

[Lurker]

why the hell let a crappy creative team take over such a great concept and screw the pooch with it.

That seems to be the trend over at ABC/WS: Just ask Wildcats' fans, and, to a certain extent, Authority fans.

[Lester C.]

That seems to be the trend over at ABC/WS: Just ask Wildcats' fans, and, to a certain extent, Authority fans.

I agree that the quality of books do tend to do down after the initial creative team leaves the book they made famous. But if you’re a publisher are you suppose to stop publishing because someone retiring or moving on to other creative avenues? I would argue no because sooner or later a new creative team will step up and fill the shoes of the old one. I could go into countless examples but one that pops up is The Flash. After Mark Waid left the book did go downhill but if DC had cancelled rather than waiting out the storm then we would never have experienced John’s run.

[stealthwise]

I agree that the quality of books do tend to do down after the initial creative team leaves the book they made famous. But if you’re a publisher are you suppose to stop publishing because someone retiring or moving on to other creative avenues? I would argue no because sooner or later a new creative team will step up and fill the shoes of the old one. I could go into countless examples but one that pops up is The Flash. After Mark Waid left the book did go downhill but if DC had cancelled rather than waiting out the storm then we would never have experienced John’s run.

Huge difference there, though. The Flash is a character with decades of tradition behind him, while Alan Moore's creations are tied so strongly with his own style and creativity. A better argument would be for continuing on with Swamp Thing after Moore left, but we all saw how that turned out...

[Lester C.]

Huge difference there, though. The Flash is a character with decades of tradition behind him, while Alan Moore's creations are tied so strongly with his own style and creativity. A better argument would be for continuing on with Swamp Thing after Moore left, but we all saw how that turned out...

Agreed in hindsight certain books should have been canceled after the creator leaves. However can you imagine what comics would be like today if all of Stan’s Lee books were cancelled after he left his books?

[Paradox]

Nonsensical blathering. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. :)

[dancj]

I agree that the quality of books do tend to do down after the initial creative team leaves the book they made famous. But if you’re a publisher are you suppose to stop publishing because someone retiring or moving on to other creative avenues? I would argue no because sooner or later a new creative team will step up and fill the shoes of the old one. I could go into countless examples but one that pops up is The Flash. After Mark Waid left the book did go downhill but if DC had cancelled rather than waiting out the storm then we would never have experienced John’s run.

I agree with what you're saying, but that's a bad example. With The Flash, the qualiry dipped before Waid left. Geoff Johns took over straight away and the quality rose back up. Then Scott Kolins came on board and it rose even higher.

[Spiff]

Agreed in hindsight certain books should have been canceled after the creator leaves. However can you imagine what comics would be like today if all of Stan’s Lee books were cancelled after he left his books?

Authors would stop bastardizing somebody else's work and maybe make their own characters?

I believe Erik Larsen addressed this in his column (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=20)

[siuntres]

I'm a huge fan of the orginal run, and was unsure how good the new team would be, but I havre to say I'm diging the new mini series.

Ordway's reputations precededs him, and Paul diFillipi has had a Joe Lansdale like career in sci-fi fiction, and now is doing solid scripting work on TOP 10.

Later this week, I'll be interviewing Paul at my website , and currently have a Gene Ha interview on the OGN the 49ers, and his view on the new series

these are free audio mp3 interviews, check them out.

http://www.wordballoon.com/geneha.html

[unkiedev]

One of the things I liked from the first series is that everybody had there particular weird angles and story-lines, but it was mostly background (Or maybe better paced). For example, Kelmo is a dog and wants to date a human, or Traynor's gay...it's their private lives, just like in real life. I don't know who at my office is gay, or trying to adopt.

This new book has all the characters behave like they are on Mtv's "The Real World", everybody's personal issues take the center stage. Let's team the lesbian with a shirtless fish woman. Let's team the robot racist with the robot. Let's have King peacock make a sexist comment in from of everybody and have everybody at work react to it.

I think this writer is awkward. I like Ordway, though.

[Ray Dillon]

I read it early on and liked it a lot. With Moore and Ha on there.

Haven't read it recently, but I was turned off by the fact that not even Moore was on the book.

[hangmanjury]

Everything in this series is just so forced. So incredibly forced. Establishing King Peacock's different rituals by stating it in front of everyone so blatantly, as opposed to Moore's way of establishing it - in casual conversation - is not only obscenely awkward, but it's also completely out of character, especially since King Peacock has been SHOWN in the past to know that not everyone follows his rituals. Establishing Peregrine as a Christian by calling everyone who disagrees with her sinners and then freaking out when Jesus gets wasted is just blatant hitting-over-the-head.

Paul DeFilippo is an awkward writer, and while I love Ordway, he's no Gene Ha. Not on this title anyway. The charm of the easter eggs, at least for me, partly, is that everyone is drawn in one style. See the PowerPuff Girls in issue 11 of the original series for what I mean. You KNOW they're the Powerpuffs, but they're drawn in the realistic, Top Ten style, that it's novel. Seeing Ordway mix style upon style doesn't work, I think... it just makes the book even more awkward than it already is.

[Tad Sivana]

I have to say that I am enjoying the series. I've been a fan of DiFillipo's fiction for some time and I think he's a good choice to extend the series NOT as a continuation of A. Moore, but in a new direction.
The War on Terror seems like a good start and I think we're in for an interesting ride, but a different tack on the series.
In Moore's work, we saw it mostly from the beat POV...I'm wondering if we're going to see more of the view from the top here as we get into it with the new management of Homedimension Security.
Looks like at least a fuschia alert to me.