Top 10: The Forty-Niners

(America’s Best, 2005)
™ and © America’s Best Comics, LLC

Sort-of a prequel to the Top 10 franchise, Alan Moore and Gene Ha return to the city of Neopolis, circa 1949. Fresh from Allied victory in World War II, America bequeathed to its “science heroes” this bustling boomtown to call home. How will a city full of robots, vampires, ghosts and super-powered humans all learn to get along? Perhaps, as Leni Muller who fought for the Germans as Sky Witch before defecting to the Allied side notes: “By taking our friends where we can find them.”

Muller’s first new friend in Neopolis turns out to be Steven Traynor, a fresh-faced 16-year-old war veteran who made a big name for himself as the fighter pilot named Jet Lad. Traynor parlays his knowledge of jet engines in to a job as a plane mechanic while Muller joins the police force as Neopolis’ second female beat cop. The Forty-Niners follows Muller and Traynor during their first few months in Neopolis as they struggle to get established in the strange, overwhelming city.

Gene Ha’s artwork benefits tremendously from Art Lyon’s muted color scheme which gives the book a strong vintage feeling. As always, Alan Moore’s peerless writing merges taught story-telling with a subversive, counterculture sensibility.

— Leland Burrill

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Notes

Writer

Artist

#1 Hardcover (Wraparound cover by Gene Ha)

April, 2005
Cover Price: $24.99
1 copy available for $24.98

Alan Moore

Gene Ha