City of Heroes, Part 1

I admit that I'm an inconsistent collector of comic books.

However, that doesn't mean I've forgotten my roots: I started reading Pinoy komiks you get to read at your local barbershops, moved on to the one-off stuff you find at the grocery store like Spiderman, Batman and Superman and the like, and later on-- with the spread of comic book stores-- all the new stuff.

Likewise, I wasn't really much for the popular superheroes. I chose those comic books that either caught my eye due to the art or the idea behind it.

For example, when I was a kid, I went through a empathetic-collecting spree by going for the younger superhero groups like Power Pack, The New Mutants, and The Legion of Superheroes. Another time it was all limited series and their art, which jived exactly with the rise of the Image comic books and its four big titles: Jim Lee's Wildcats, While Portacio's Wetworks, Rob Liefeld's Youngblood, and Marc Silvestri's Cyberforce.

As you may have noticed, I have a tendency to choose group books: the more superheroes, the better.

Now, it's been several years since I've bought comic books. All my past collections have either been passed on to friends or younger relations, sold to avid collectors themselves, or mouldering in a cabinet at home. Likewise, a number of the comic bookstores that had set up when I was a kid had succumbed to the economic hardships and gone under.

But times are changing. At the local bookstores, collected comic book series are now prominently displayed, including those that are not only popular but also that have gained critical acclaim. What's more, I've decidedly become curious about new writers (and old) in the comic books field.

So I figured that it would be a nice time to dip my finger into the vat again. The ones I picked up over the past year include the first two volumes of Alan Moore's Top Ten, the first two volumes of Warren Ellis' The Authority, the first two volumes of J. Michael Straczynski's Rising Stars and the first volume of Brian Michael Bendis' Powers.

It's an eclectic bunch, I admit. You have a much-respected writer in the field (Moore), two good ones (Ellis and Bendis), and a crossover from the TV field (Straczynski). So, based on ideas, story, characters, and dialogue, how did the four fare?

Frankly speaking, grand old man Allan Moore-- with street cred for the critically-acclaimed Constantine, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, Watchmen, V for Vendetta-- is still the writer to beat. Top Ten is a police precinct station peopled by superbeings in a city called Neopolis full of superbeings. Think Hill Street Blues or NYPD Blue (or any of those cop shows on TV) in a superhero setting and you get the drift. Moore takes the idea of a city full of superbeings and takes it for a run: if your regular joe drunk can blow up cars with a glance or the married couple next apartment are having a spat complete with explosions, who are you gonna call? The more-prominent superheroes? Of course not. You call in the police-- albeit police with super-powers.

Moore's stories are thrilling, seat-of-your pants reading. Balancing an overall story-arc of rookie Toy Box's entry into the Top Ten precinct, Moore shows what kind of super-crimes would happen in a super-hero city. These include busting a pedophile ring disguised as a superhero group, confronting a drug-addicted corrupt police officer with the powers of a god, and battling a psychokinetic sociopathic Santa Claus. His characters are also well-formed: there's Irma Geddon, a mother with a husband, two kids and a nuclear-armed battle suit; Kemlo Ceasar, a talking dog with a humanoid exoskeleton and a way with girls; and Synaesthesia, who can sense sound as color and color as sound, and has a crush on a fellow cop who happens to be a Satan-worshipper. Likewise, Moore keeps the dialogue lively, whether it's humorous, dramatic or sentimental. I actually laughed at how Joe Pi, a supersmart police robot transferred from another dimension, managed to handle robot racism in one scene.

Besides, in a city where even the mice have super-powers and where you need super-cats to take them down, what's not to like?

Unfortunately, aside from the first two TPBs and a spin-off about Toy Box's constantly morose and always invulnerable partner, Jeff Smax, Moore is reportedly moving on from the Top Ten world after one last shot. However, noted SF writer Paul di Filippo is coming on board to write the next books so hopefully, these will also be good. (See this article.)

(to be continued...)