This is something Moore is apparently still advising on, but is written and drawn by others. The art I didn't like at all. Rexa goes from being huge as she's supposed to be (yeah, they continued the idiot story from Smax and they're also out as brother and sister lovers in Neopolis, yeesh) to being this cute little blue Barbie doll that's barely taller than Irma in some frames.

I just can't recommend this. It was poorly written and the plot was trite. The character situations were unsympathetic and even established characters felt shallow and one-dimensional.

On a different now, Arabian Nights is finally out, and I shall be devouring that one soon as well. I expect to be much more satisfied with Fables 7 than I was with this new season of Top Ten.

The colorblind joke from Top 10 is going to stick with me along time, Top 10 first TPB was great.

Lately Ive been reading Ex Machina, Y:the last man, and Walking Dead(zombies!) and I recently finally read astro city darkages all good stuff, are their any other ongoing series Ive missed that anyone recomends (other than fables)?

Preacher was fun and at times rather thought provoking, if ya liked that check out transmetropolitan!

First off, Moore was writing the series like a TV series. Each issue was really a new episode. You could have, with a proper budget, turned Top 10 into a series (granted, probably on HBO, but still). It wasn't a super-team comic in the traditional sense. It was a police crime drama in a place where everyone happens to be a superhuman (complete with code name). Certain stories took several issues to tell (the deal with the teleport accident and the Gamer sticks in my mind, for instance). That's why each TPB was a "season". Major story arcs.

At the same time, there were underlying stories. Amidst the deal with the teleport collision, the alien who took peoples' heads, Corbeau's adventure at Grand Central etc, they were subtly building up to something culminating with not just the Ultima story, but also the superhero pedophile ring story. It was big. It was important. And when you got there, it was IMMENSELY satisfying to see it all go down.

But you got a taste of everyone. They all seemed very three-dimensional. Even Smax was in a strange sort of way multifaceted.

When Moore left actively writing, it's obvious the new writers wanted to get as far from that as possible. They resurrected dead characters, introduced new (and not particularly dynamic) characters, eliminated supporting cast, outright booted some (I happen to like Jetman), etc etc. Then the ones left get rewritten. Toybox should NOT have powers. Smax is ALWAYS going to be an emotionally disjointed ass. They should have left his relationship with Rexa an uncomfortable secret...NOT something that's out. That was a very important secret, in my opinion. Blowing it off by jumping five years ahead sucks.

And the art was painful. When the original series came out and they showed the evolution of the character designs, it was OBVIOUS they did a lot of revision. Things were the way they were for specific reasons. Changing things was stupid. Rexa was a very masculine female; like a female body builder who uses steroids. She was not the barbie doll version of Smax.

Expanding the number of characters was a bad idea too. Look at the Law&Order series, look at CSI, look at Hill Street Blues; they all had a small core cast. You liked those characters, you were interested in them, even the ones with prejudices (Shock-Headed Peter's racist anti-post-organic attitude, for instance), and other problems (Kemlo is a dog. Fundamentally...he's a dog. Don't forget...he's a dog. Him and Neural 'Nette...yeah.) Expanding the roster unnecessarily just seemed forced.

Also I didn't like them uncreatively fucking with Peregrine's religion. That seemed unnecessary. Her religious beliefs were a very important part of her character in the first two TPB's. Now it was a joke that didn't go anywhere.

So yeah...Beyond the Farthest Precinct sucked.

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Leftover Mog's account was hax0red to write:
I too was realy disapointed by beyond the farthest precinct, and I kinda had mixed feelings about the 49ers, it wasnt bad, just nowhere as good as the original series.

Lately Ive been reading Ex Machina, Y:the last man, and Walking Dead(zombies!) and I recently finally read astro city darkages all good stuff, are their any other ongoing series Ive missed that anyone recomends (other than fables)?

Preacher was fun and at times rather thought provoking, if ya liked that check out transmetropolitan!

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Ex Machina is really shaping up to be an interesting series. I like the little flashbacks they do so we can see small, but significant, moments in his past. Deth has Walking Dead and I'll be reading that once I get through my stack.

My comic shop mostly has Y:The Last Man in TPBs, although sometimes they have the different issues. So I'm anxiously awaiting 8. I want to see more of what's going on with his Beth.

It's not currently ongoing, although there's no word that it was cancelled or anything, but have you read Powers? Another good super-hero cop comic. The remake of Supreme Squadron has been interesting as well, and they've released some one-character books about Nighthawk, Hyperion and Doctor Spectrum.

Haven't read it yet, ECP, but Deth has it and he says it's good. I also read the first volume of Planetary recently, but my comic shop never has volume 2, just 3, so I can't continue. I like the dynamic there though and I really like Snow.

But yes, avoid this new Top Ten. Maybe it will get better in subsequent issues, but I'm not holding out hope.

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Check out the big brain on Elvish Crack Piper!
Have you tried Preacher?

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Avoid.

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Everyone wondered WTF when Mod wrote:
Avoid.

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Under no circumstances.

It's a bit flat storywise following on the heels of such a monster storyline as the march of the wooden soldiers and the revelation of who the Adversary is, but hopefully since this was definitely a tweener type story, that action will pick up again in the next collection.

There's something a bit cute shaping up with Flycatcher, and I'm actually starting not to dislike Beauty as much as I did. Plus we get to see Sinbad as the Arabian delegate, which is pretty nifty.

All in all, it's a good read, and if you're a fan of the series, it's a must to keep up on what's going on in the world of Fabletown.

Planatery book 2 is where it gets really cool. My shop never had book 3 The planatery/jla/authority crossover book was a nifty elseworlds bit. I started just ordering the TPBs (3-9 of Exiles when the comic shop only had 1,2 and 10) from Barnes and Nobles, got them in like 4 days. I ordered the first available Stormwatch from the local store and it took over 2 months to get to me

What, does Preacher start giving texas a bad name past book 1?

Elvish Crack Piper fucked around with this message on 07-18-2006 at 02:05 AM.

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Lyinar Ka`Bael had this to say about Punky Brewster:
Fables: Arabian Nights and Days is a good tweener book.

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Expound.

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Mr. Parcelan thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
Expound.

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I don't want to give too much plotwise away, because there were some small surprises there that I don't want to ruin. Homelands had a ton of things going on in it, plus there had been an exciting lead up to it with March of the Wooden Soldiers and The Mean Seasons. Arabian Nights is setting things up for things to happen in the future. The secondary characters are starting to go more to the forefront as the previous main characters become just mere mentions (like you only see Snow in a few panels the whole TPB) so there's starting to be a better look into their characters. But the events happening lack the urgency the last few TPBs have had.

There are a few memorable events. We discover even more why Frau Totenkinder kicks all kinds of ass, and a couple new faces are introduced who I feel will lead to something interesting. It definitely is more of a set-up book, though. Still enjoyable, just don't go in expecting the punch that was in the last few collections.

That's what I meant by tweener. I think we're going to see some action again soon, maybe the next collection, or perhaps not till 9, but this definitely had the feel of getting all the pieces into their proper places.

Lyinar Ka`Bael fucked around with this message on 07-18-2006 at 04:42 PM.

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So quoth Elvish Crack Piper:

Planatery book 2 is where it gets really cool. My shop never had book 3 The planatery/jla/authority crossover book was a nifty elseworlds bit.

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Argh! Don't tell me that. They had 2 exactly once and I should have gotten it then, but I hadn't gotten the first yet and decided to wait. They always seem to have 1, 3 and the crossover book. I think I'm going to have to have them order it.

I haven't gotten into The Authority yet, but I've been intrigued by it.

The Crossover is its own thing, and it says, blatantly on the cover PLANATARY:Some weird title with pictures of the Big 3 DC capes and then has on the back of it talking about a crossover with JLA, Autority, and Batman on his own. I didn't spoil anything, I promise. Anything with Mr. Snow is bound to be cool right?

I'm pretty sure the following is spoiler free, I didn't think my last bit was wrong, sorry Lyninar

The authority rocked me. I really want to get back issues of Stormwatch(Half the authority team was on that team) now, since I can only get issues back to around 54 (Whichever issue introduced Jenny Sparks and Jack Hawksmoore, and is the start of stormwatch as far as modern day wildstorm is concerned). DC didn't re-release the oldest stuff, but I did find issue's 0-5 and a smattering of the teens and 20's for a dollar each at a travelling comic book store (big truck full of geek shit makes 46 week long stops at various places in the USA, very cool.) The only charecters from stormwatch issue one to appear anywhere in the first few trades of authority are in like... issue one, and then you never see them again in trades, because issue 23 of authority was left out of the TPBs because it was designed as a way to sell "The Monarchy" which I don't think ever went anywhere, as it was "The Authority, but we do weirder shit and our powers have even less of a realistic stop"

But on the topic of Fables: Arabian Nights And Days...

What I found interesting about it was that it dealt with the consequences of some of the actions of secondary characters. Prince Charming, who stole the Fabletown Mayoral election (largely by, as usual, promising things he couldn't actually deliver on) is discovering that being Mayor isn't about having access to unlimited funds, and is in fact hard work. All the promises he made during the election are starting to come due and he's really showing how inept he is at management. One of the major undercurrents here is that Charming almost single-handedly fouls up the first contact with the Arabian fables (who are coming to touch base with the western fables in preparation of defending against the Adversary), which causes one of the Arabian fables to unleash a weapon of magical destruction, etc.

Little Boy Blue is coming into his own. He started as a fairly weak second-stringer; Snow White's assistant, more or less. However, after the events of Homelands, he's really growing up. He (and he alone) strikes back at the Adversary, discovering some rather shocking revelations. That makes him a hero back in Fabletown, but there are consequences for his actions (he stole a great many high-end artifacts to manage what he did), and Charming isn't exactly an amazing manager of people, so Blue is punished.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the more competent Fables are turning up in the annex, where they keep the Fables that can't live in town. Rose Red is turning out to be a simply amazing manager, really coming into her own in how she handles things. Snow White is quite happy, it seems, to let Rose run the show there, and to simply raise her and Bigby's fuzzy little brood. Mr North is growing on me...where he was a pompous, vicious-seeming bastard for whom I had little care, he seems to be settling in as "grandpa" nicely.

There is NO word on where Bigby (or the seventh, invisible, pup) is. Mowgli (who has been sent to track Bigby down and plead for him to come back) is on the trail, but he's roughly nine months behind Bigby. I expect we may see Bigby at the end of the storyline they're shaping up, or possibly at the start of the next. There's not a lot he could contribute right at this moment anyway.

Let's see... Frau Totenkinder is quite a vicious old witch in how she handles the WMD the Arabian Fables bring with them. I was quite pleased. Beast is going to have a showdown with Charming in short order. Don't know how well Charming will survive that.