And we’re back.
Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Life has been hella-busy recently, with numerous competing demands on my time. You know how it is: shit gets hectic sometimes. I get busier than Arsenio Hall. I have to prioritize, and when I prioritize, that means that somebody gets the shaft. In this case, that somebody is YOU, Dave’s Long Box reader!
But now I am back and I’m ready to talk about my favorite graphic novel from the year 2005 -- Top 10: The Forty-Niners. Yes, I liked it even more than that Essential Spider-Woman collection*, Dave said ironically.
The Forty-Niners is a prequel to writer Alan Moore’s Top 10 comic series. This graphic novel, written by Moore with art by my homeboy Gene Ha, tells the story of the beginning of Neopolis, a retro-futuristic city full of superhumans, robots, and supernatural creatures. It establishes the historical background for the characters and events in the Top 10 series, which has accurately been described as “Hill Street Blues with superheroes.”
Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Life has been hella-busy recently, with numerous competing demands on my time. You know how it is: shit gets hectic sometimes. I get busier than Arsenio Hall. I have to prioritize, and when I prioritize, that means that somebody gets the shaft. In this case, that somebody is YOU, Dave’s Long Box reader!
But now I am back and I’m ready to talk about my favorite graphic novel from the year 2005 -- Top 10: The Forty-Niners. Yes, I liked it even more than that Essential Spider-Woman collection*, Dave said ironically.
The Forty-Niners is a prequel to writer Alan Moore’s Top 10 comic series. This graphic novel, written by Moore with art by my homeboy Gene Ha, tells the story of the beginning of Neopolis, a retro-futuristic city full of superhumans, robots, and supernatural creatures. It establishes the historical background for the characters and events in the Top 10 series, which has accurately been described as “Hill Street Blues with superheroes.”
The story is set in, duh, 1949, and it follows two newcomers to Neopolis: Steve Traynor, former high-flying child hero Jet Lad and future Neopolis police chief; and Skywitch, aka Leni Muller, a former enemy of Jet Lad’s who flew for the Axis during the war but defected in 1943. They try to adjust to life in the strange and wonderful Neopolis.
Muller joins the city’s police force, which begins a campaign against the Neopolis underworld, a criminal organization run by vampires. Only, don’t call them vampires, it pisses them off:
Traynor becomes a mechanic for the Sky Sharks, a Blackhawks-esque organization and develops a close – really close – friendship with one of the pilots, the studly Wulf. Traynor uncovers a plot to bomb Neopolis’s robot ghetto by the leader of the Sky Sharks, who just isn’t the same after the war.
The Forty-Niners is really about family and acceptance and belonging. Moore weaves different plot threads through the story, each exploring the idea of community. Skywitch and Jet Lad are immigrants to Neopolis, anxious to make a place for themselves in this weird city that is growing before their eyes. Jet Lad’s relationship with Wulf, the armored super cop Steel Gauntlet’s terrible secret, the discrimination against the robots – they all touch on issues of acceptance and belonging. Even the vampire gangsters talk about family.
If that is not enough for you, The Forty-Niners has got time traveling Nazis, aerial dogfights, vampire beheadings, and Skywitch’s kick-ass flying broom.
The Forty-Niners is really about family and acceptance and belonging. Moore weaves different plot threads through the story, each exploring the idea of community. Skywitch and Jet Lad are immigrants to Neopolis, anxious to make a place for themselves in this weird city that is growing before their eyes. Jet Lad’s relationship with Wulf, the armored super cop Steel Gauntlet’s terrible secret, the discrimination against the robots – they all touch on issues of acceptance and belonging. Even the vampire gangsters talk about family.
If that is not enough for you, The Forty-Niners has got time traveling Nazis, aerial dogfights, vampire beheadings, and Skywitch’s kick-ass flying broom.
Something for everyone, really.
Aside from Alan Moore’s wry dialogue and clever plotting, Gene Ha’s artwork really makes The Forty-Niners work. His art is finely rendered, almost delicate. Ha puts a painstaking level of detail into each panel, and the book is loaded with visual references to Golden Age comics and postwar pulp culture. The backgrounds are full of precisely drawn deco and futurist skyscrapers and ornate brownstones.
Aside from Alan Moore’s wry dialogue and clever plotting, Gene Ha’s artwork really makes The Forty-Niners work. His art is finely rendered, almost delicate. Ha puts a painstaking level of detail into each panel, and the book is loaded with visual references to Golden Age comics and postwar pulp culture. The backgrounds are full of precisely drawn deco and futurist skyscrapers and ornate brownstones.
It's insane - the book looks like it took ten years to draw.
In short, Top 10: The Forty-Niners ruled and it gets the double heavy-metal salute from me. I felt like I got my money’s worth on this one.
*I would argue that there is absolutely nothing essential about reprints of Spider-Woman. The trees used to print that book could have been put to much better use – like toilet paper. Ba-DAM!
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