Top 10 Vol 3 #3

America’s Best Comics
Script: Paul Di Filippo
Artist: Jerry Ordway

If you’re like me, you want this to be really good. The first two volumes of Top 10 are among my favorite works in comics but, given the new creative team, I could only muster a very guarded optimism about this third run. And so far, this volume of Top 10 isn’t bad, but isn’t really good either.

As hard as he’s trying, Di Filippo can’t seem to muster the Superhero Street Blues feel that Alan Moore tapped into. He’s got the characters, the wide ranging plot threads -- any of which might lead to the main conflict of the series, a la Moore -- and there’s even a touch of the earlier Top 10’s police procedural vibe. But as a whole it feels like an off, off Broadway production of a successful play. We recognize the themes, roles and situations but everything is just a beat slower than the expected rhythm. Kelmo’s two page, 500+ word monologue on being a police officer -- which nearly ground this entire issue to an unrecoverable halt -- is case in point.

Jerry Ordway’s art has left me very underwhelmed. The precinct cast has grown to a ridiculous level, making for overcrowded group scenes and weak transitions – not completely Ordway’s fault but not helped by his renderings either. Yes, the earlier volumes had large casts but rather than splatter all the characters up front and sort things out later, Moore was able to bring things along at a pace that allowed for some actual insight into the characters. And Ordway can’t manage to capture the Neopolis skyline the way Gene Ha and Zander Cannon did, and worse, he seems determined to depict it as ToonTown – which I could ignore, but shouldn’t have to.

The book isn’t without its moments. Kemlo’s adoption sequence was perfect and developments around Joe Pi are intriguing. The new watch commander is bit of an abused stereotype but we’ll see where that goes. There is some of the expected character interaction and although it suffers under the weight of an expanded cast it gives hope for more in the remaining issues.

Comments

[Scott]

I'm seeing the same lack of color or vibrancy, which is really odd, considering how gonzo much of Mr. Di Filippo's prose fiction has been. I mean, I hear Di Filippo is writing comics, I expect something comparable to Grant Morrison or to his own novellas, which featured things like a newt double of young Queen Victoria and Franz Kafka as a superhero.