Backing the Blue

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Top Ten: Season Two #4

Officer Pete Cheney is, as usual, a complete loser, and his partner, Duane Bodine, just keeps covering for him. Even sadder, the previously on-the-ball Sung Li is falling for Cheney’s lines. Meanwhile, Irma Wornow is on her way to the station to get an evaluation with the police psychologist before she can go back on duty after her suspension. Slipstream Phoenix talks his way out of another jam, but you can tell his luck’s running thin. The police commissioner is in big trouble, and someone put a wizard who hands out magic words in with a bunch of hardened criminals. When he empowers them, they bust out and get ready to tear the station down, but Irma saves the day when she grabs a blaster and pops ’em. After they get the crooks to say their magic words again and lose their extra powers, though, the resulting backblast hypercharges Cheney, who tries to kill Duane and ends up frying Officer Joe Pi. Kiss that badge goodbye, Cheney.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of stuff happening here, and I’m enjoying the way the story is developing. Everyone’s going through changes, which is actually a pretty nice change for your average comic book. And Dr. Gautama, the police psychologist, is a hoot.

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Top Ten: Season Two Special #1

This one, on the other hand, is a complete train wreck. All of a sudden, Sung Li isn’t a cop anymore — she’s a lawyer, a public defender, and she’s actually dating Pete Cheney, who is apparently a cop again, but he keeps getting suspended. I have no idea where this is supposed to fit in with the regular series’ continuity. And the art is wildly different from the main comic — all of a sudden, everyone looks like they came straight out of anime cartoons, and everyone’s cute and adorable and just not looking the way they do in the main series.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It goes out of its way to pointlessly wreck continuity, and it looks bizarre. The story would probably be fine, but not with this bizarro-universe version of Sung Li.

No Comments

  1. Kenny Ketner Said,

    March 30, 2009 @ 9:41 am

    I think the annual is supposed to take place after the events of season two…? The story is OK, but a little derivative and yeah, the timing uncertainty of it.

    I’m really enjoying Top 10 Season Two, though. Cannon is showing that he can inherit a dense Alan Moore universe and run with it. (Meanwhile, we’ll pretend that “Beyond the Last Precinct” just never happened.)

    Also, holler at me sometime this week so we can talk expo stuff. 🙂

  2. Scott Slemmons Said,

    March 30, 2009 @ 10:38 am

    Oh, crud, I forgot the Sunday Expo meeting again, didn’t I? Rob and Will are going to kill me. 🙁