TOP 10 SPECIAL #1

Review by: Neb


Size: pages
Price: 2.99

Top 10 has been one of my favorite series since I finally found the time to sit down and read through the trades last year. It’s so intricately detailed with amazing character moments and fun storylines. When Zander Cannon undertook the Herculean task of trying to recapture all of that with his Second Season of Top 10, I was more than skeptical. But Cannon did a masterful job of bringing the series back over the first four issues. While the storyline and issues themselves weren’t as expertly crafted as Moore’s comics, Cannon’s approach to the universe was pretty darn close, and to me, that was the real achievement of the second series.

But enough about the second series, let’s talk about the issue at hand. While I always love specials of every sort (because they give you an opportunity to take a step back and look at a different part of the universe), I found this special to be lacking. I enjoyed the approach that Cannon took to this issue. This is the Order side to the typical Law experience that we get with Top 10. And it was also nice to see what happened to a few of the characters after the ending of the last issue. My problems with this issue are mainly from a storytelling perspective. While the beginning of the issue feels well paced and densely layered, the issue moves at light speed in the last 6 or 7 pages. I think this is a case of Cannon needing more space to tell his story, or to look at it another way, he made choices with the opening of his story, that affected the ending. If I had written the issue, I would have not spent so much of the first half of the issue with so much space dedicated to Girl Two’s first trials and her return to the precinct. While these do help do some character definition, they lack any real importance to the overall story. While Cannon takes quite a few pages to set up Girl Two’s courtroom struggles, this could have easily been done in a panel or two with the same effect. It’s these types of storytelling choices that made the issue not flow as well as I’d hoped.

The art in the issue was ok, but it’s a little too cartoony in comparison to Ha’s style. I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that this will be the permanent replacement for Ha until his return, so it’s a style I guess I’m going to have to get used to, and maybe, over time, this style will continue to improve. So, while the art wasn’t all that bad, it’s definitely different, and I’ll need some time to adjust.

I still love this series and am looking forward to anything that will come out. My hope is that this special was just a rough spot for Cannon, and with the next batch of stories, we’ll see a return to form.

Story: 2 - Average
Art: 3 - Good

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