Top Ten: The Forty-Niners

Submitted by Reviewer (not verified) on Saturday, November 12, 2005 - 23:34

Graphic Novels

Alan Moore: Top Ten: The Forty-Niners

Author	Alan Moore
Made	Wildstorm
Date	2005-08-01
Media	Hardcover
Catalog	Book
Sales Rank	735840
List Price	US$24.99

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Amazon UK £12.92

Reviews:

Rating 4.0/5 from 15 reviews

Worlds Apart

Rating: 5/5 2008-10-13

Once again graphic novelist Alan Moore teams up with artist Gene Ha to create the prequel to the award-winning "Top 10" series, set in the retro-futuristic post-World War II era. Teenage fighter pilot Steve "Jetlad" Traynor and former ememy Leni "Sky Witch" Muller start a new life in Neopolis, an experimental city where super heroes must now become law-abiding citizens (or join the police if they want to fight crime). The story follows Steve and Leni as they face everything from robots to mad scientists to even vampire mobsters! And Ha is able to turn them all into fine works of art. Moore, in turn, is able to take all these ideas that seem to have nothing to do with each other and use them to whip up a formula that simply works. It's almost frustrating to think that Moore can't seem to create a mediocre comic!

This comic is unrated: Graphic Violence, Brief Nudity, Adult Language, Adult Situations.

Unfulfilled Potential...

Rating: 3/5 (2 out of 2 think this is helpful) 2008-05-25

I am afraid to say that the Booklist review listed here is very wrong... This 6-part story is not superior to the original 'Top Ten' books.

While Gene Ha's artwork is fantastic, the one that doesn't come to the show this time is Alan Moore. It's all too crammed, half-baked and without the feeling that 'Top Ten' had. As inventive as some of the elements are, ultimately the writing of the characters and their dialogue is like weak tea compared to what Moore is capable of. It just all feels rushed - a story with a massive world like this needs more time given to it, both in the amount of pages (there's half what there should be) and from Moore himself.

If you are not a fan of Top 10... You Should Be!

Rating: 5/5 2008-03-01

If you did not manage to pick up the original Top 10 series while on the bookracks, then stop right here, go purchase the graphic editions, read them, then come back and buy the Forty-Niners.

If you are already a fan of Top 10, then this Sequel/Prequel will serve as a pleasant after dinner mint, or glass of cognac or port.

In the Forty-Niners you witness the founding of Neopolis the Science City. The mood and the feelins in the story are fresh, raw and with a rough edge. Moore's tale is like watching a movie, the story is engrossing and the characters although archetypical, feel fresh and new.

The majority of the characters are new, but at the same time feel like old friends. The themes ring true, trying to find your place in this brave new order of things.

The Forty-Niners does what great literature does, it touches and affects you to the point where for the next few days you are still thinking about it and caught up in the story.

Five stars!

Cheers!

Good art, story looks like Astro City too much

Rating: 3/5 2008-01-18

I adore Gene Ha's art and Moore's writing even more, but this book is good. So what's wrong? It is not GREAT like Top Ten Book 1 and Top Ten Book 2.

Satisfying retrodelic prequel to Alan Moore's futuristic super-series

Rating: 4/5 2008-01-13

This is a very satisfying prequel to Alan Moore's "Top Ten" superhero spoof. The "Forty-Niners" story arc plays things much closer to the vest and in not as broad a parody as the original series. Set in 1949, after an alternate-universe version of World War II, this details the founding of Neopolis, a futuristic city that also happens to be a government-sponsored reservation/ghetto for superpowered and supernatural beings of all kinds. Ever wonder why there are no vampires in the Neopolis of the future? This book will explain all. If you enjoy DC's frequent nostalgia trips into the era of the Justice Society, then you'll also like this -- there's a smattering of "mature content," but in essence this is the same sort of wholesome, gosh-heck superhero nostalgia trip... As far as the insider humor goes, I loved the sight-gags that involved various pre-superhero pulp heros and newspaper strips (Popeye, Yellow Kid, Blondie & Dagwood, Katzenjammer Kids, Tin-Tin, Little Nemo, etc) All in all, a fun read! (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)

Editorials:

Product Description

The multiple Eisner Award-winning team that brought you TOP 10Alan Moore (WATCHMEN, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN) and Gene Hareunites in its first original graphic novel to bring you the origins of Neopolis and the first officers of Top 10! America is swelling with postwar prosperity after humanitys greatest threat has been defeated, but the country faces a new dilemma: what is to become of its heroes? Where will they go? To the glistening towers of Neopolisthe city of the future. But Neopolis is full of the roughest and toughest villains the world has ever known. It is a city in need of taming by a new breed of cop, a super police force. Hence, the creation of Top 10. Youve met the current cast of Top 10Smax, King Peacock, Toybox, Joe Pi and more; now meet their forebears, the ones who blazed the trail and made Neopolis the city it is today.

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