The real reason superheroes keep sidekicks

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Top Ten #12 explains the deal.

This issue also contains a scene folks who are sick and tired of DC's holier-than-thou "killing is always wrong no matter what the circumstances" attitude will appreciate.

Our officers head out to arrest the Sentinels.







Elsewhere in the city, the officers sent to bring in Atoman are having trouble getting into his impregnable Fallout Shelter.









See, Garth Ennis? This is how you properly do a piss-take on mainstream superheroes. The difference between this and stuff like "The Boys" is that this is actually clever.

(The full comic was 33 pages, so this falls within the page limit.)

Comments

[thanekos.insanejournal.com]

I always found it hilarious that in the process of said arrests, the Batman-esque one's butler used a flower vase's water on the electric guy.

[freddylloyd.insanejournal.com]

The Gump from The Marvelous Land of Oz is flying past in the last panel.

Oh, I'm sorry--were we supposed to notice anything else?

[skitty_kat.insanejournal.com]

Peter Pan and E. T., perhaps?

I love this series for all the characters in the background. They go to a hospital at one stage and there's at least one Doctor Who in there...

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Top Ten, more easter eggs than the Easter Bunny on amphetamines...

[stig.insanejournal.com]

The cave of Batman parody, the Hound, contains the bucking pink fairground elephant from "The Killing Joke".

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

If there's a single page of the original Top Ten which doesn't have half a dozen in-jokes, homages, cameo's or references, then I never found it.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

To the series's detriment, I'd say. Their pervasiveness was to the point where it was actually distracting and pulle me out of the stories. And the few that were truly clever and charming got drowned out amidst all the others.

From the script excerpts on Gene Ha's website, Alan Moore only asked for a small fraction of them. I'm probably in the minority, given how many fans of the series love the Easter eggs, but I honestly wish the artists had toned it down.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Well, if you're me, you notice that it's the version from the movie "Return to Oz," not the book version. :)

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

Nothing clever about this. It's a bunch of small minded people who can't take their minds out of reality for five seconds, so when they're presented with something they think is unrealistic they just tar it with the most offensive brush they can.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

The joke is wearing awful thin, to me at least. What Wertham searched for in indignation, writers supply with glee. Sometimes it seems like little boys drawing mustaches on pictures.

[batcookies.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, that's Alan Moore all right: small minded.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I need to find a snarky icon for when I don't agree with posts.

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

You can borrow this one

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Thanks, but I found one. You feel kind of defenseless here without a snide icon.

[statham1986.insanejournal.com]

Mmhmm, of course, because Alan Moore, of all people, who wrote a couple of the best Superman stories ever, an interesting take on the Joker and some great Green Lantern stories, amongst everything else, is absolutely just being a child by trying something different and actively tries to subvert the traditional superhero genre, which generally goes on unflinching anyway and keeps churning out much of the same.

I mean, for God's sake, just because Moore conjures up a parallel JLA here, doesn't mean he doesn't have love for those characters.

I hardly think you can brand Moore as small-minded, given the amount of work he's done in traditional superhero work. He isn't as blatantly offensive as Ennis, for instance, not by a long shot. If you don't like this, I'd expect you to be up in arms about something like the Pro.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

It's not Moore, I didn't say anything about Alan Moore. Sheesh. It's the whole cliche of super-heroes being pederasts. I know the scans_daily slogan is that it never gets old, but to me it definitely has. It's tired. It has the feel of grade-school vandalism about it, drawing naughty body parts on advertisements.

[batcookies.insanejournal.com]

The problem is that normally it's simply treated as a joke. "Ha ha, the JLA are pedophiles, aren't I funny?"

Top Ten is about a group of super-police in a city where just about anything from science fiction or fantasy is seen through the lens of police drama. Nazi superscientists run seedy drug labs making the highly radioactive substances needed to get Silver Surfer-like people high. There's a tragic hit and run collision between teleporters. The prostitute-hunting serial killer turns out to be an alien that needs part of their brains to complete the latest stage in its life cycle. The cops get called in to solve "who killed Baldur" at the Bar of the Gods. And yes, the pedophile ring is heroes and their sidekicks. There's some humor there, but first and foremost it's a "cop show" style drama with a twist.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right. This time, the cliche of pederast super-heroes really got under my skin. Maybe because normally it's presented as a sort of in-joke, clues put in for the readers to snicker at (Beavis and Butthead voice, "heh heh, he said 'touch it'.") But this time, it just seems too blatant and mean. Maybe all the Batman sodomizing Robin jokes built up to a critical point to me.

TOP TEN was an excellent series, aside from spotting all the little visual cameos, which is a fun game in itself.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

Put it this way: This isn't a story about superhero cops taking down superhero pedophiles. It's a story about cops taking down some pedophiles, the characters just happen to be superheroes. It's a police procedural first, and a superhero story second.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

Top Ten is pretty good overall.

And Joe Pi is aces.

But this?

You somehow managed to find the most uninspired, uninteresting story in the book.

No, it's not nearly as bad as Ennis, but there's also absolutely nothing new about it.

This is a phenomenally poor choice of material to make a sales pitch for Top Ten.

You might as well try to get people to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation by having them watch all of the episodes starring Wesley Crusher first.

[stig.insanejournal.com]

I agree that it seems worse when taken out of context, if mostly because it was Moore's last issue with the characters. The whole thing seems to be a rather up-close-and-personal examination of the genuinely creepy cheerfulness of most early superhero adventures, and looking at one logical explanation as to why that creep cheerfulness never abated.

Additionally, as shown by the cover, the issue is mainly comprised of the Top 10 going out and being the best police officers they can be - the way that some superhero comic runs end with a humongous battle to prove how great the protagonists are.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

This is a phenomenally poor choice of material to make a sales pitch for Top Ten.

Hey, count your blessings, arbre_rieur could have posted anything from the second series.

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

No such thing. I disbelieve the illusion. There is NO second series!

[drsevarius.insanejournal.com]

did moore write it, or someone else?

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

An SF author named Paul Di Filippo wrote it. It was pretty meh. Ha and Cannon's own "Season 2" sequel ignores it.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Alan Moore is the last comic book writer who needs folks doing sales pitches for him. I posted this mainly in response to Ennis's Herogasm thing.

[sianmink.insanejournal.com]

Dalek head projector!

DALEK HEAD PROJECTOR!

*SQUEE*

[jkcarrier.insanejournal.com]

No one could object to Joe Pi's "solution" here. But there's something genuinely creepy about how easily he manipulates people. He does it in a couple of other spots too, usually more subtly. I suspect Moore had something in mind there, too bad he didn't stick around long enough to follow up on it.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

I'd say the biggest casualty of Moore's departure was the Rumor sub-plot. I wonder what that was all about.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

The one thing that does not work in this, for me, is the stupid song supposedly playing in the background. Actually, just about every instance of this in Moore's work, one exception maybe being "the Vicious Cabaret," does not work, but it rarely does when anyone does it.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

Weren't you one of the people praising LoEG: Century to the skies?

In the case of Top 10, the songs work for me because the whole series is supposed to be a TV police drama series filtered through the lens of superheroes. I read the songs as his attempt to mimic the musical montages that TV shows, cop shows included, do. Their inclusion emphasizes the similarity to the source material, the same way the "End of Season One" line does.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

That one actually works--I could hear the melody. Still, well spotted.

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

OK, I'm confused about something. Isn't the "Young Sentinels" the underage partners of the adult heroes? If so, then how are they going to be "read their rights" for anything? It's not illegal for underage individuals to have sex with older people. What will they be charged with?

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

Prostitution, one assumes.

[statham1986.insanejournal.com]

Given some of them seem to be willingly going along with what the older heroes are doing to them, and one of the Young Sentinels actively warns Atomman that the police are coming, then it's likely underage prostitution.

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

Where are you and kamino getting that there's money being exchanged?

[statham1986.insanejournal.com]

Boots implies that with her partner dead, there was nothing better for her to do for a living.

I take it that they must be getting something from the Sentinels for what they're doing, other than a roof to sleep under.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

This.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Which would scare them enough to start talking and give up the adults.

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

Typically it's "Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" for underage folks I believe. Depending on what happened and how much like dicks the cops want to be, they might even try to finagle a charge of procurement if one of the kids recruited any others knowing what would happen.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

Just cosigning with the people who're saying even Moore couldn't salvage the premise of this story...

Ironically, Moore's take is more offensive than Ennis's, since...'hey, look how offensive I am' isn't his standard MO, and since it is with Ennis it's just...boring, at this point.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

Hrm, also, rereading it, that last page is chock full of Unfortunate Implications...

[stig.insanejournal.com]

If you read "The Forty-Niners", it makes more sense. The whole thing was a bit confused, but totally consensual.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

Thing is, the conversation starts with the premise that a 24 year old sleeping with a 16 year old (assuming they slept together, rather than just starting to flirt, at that point) is equivalent to child molestation (not a premise that I agree with, but the premise the characters are giving us with 'how was what we did different?') - how 'consensual' it all was...doesn't matter. It'd still be molestation.

'I love him/her' wouldn't make molestation OK. I'm sure, when taken out of the context of being compared to a pedophile ring, these two are a perfectly wonderful couple...but the comparison is being made on the page, and the difference being presented as 'I loved you', not 'you were young, but still sexually mature' is just...icky.

The 'gay molester' implications, knowing Moore, comes entirely from the out of context aspect, which tempers the cringing at that aspect, but it's still a bit twitch-inducing while drawn out of context like that.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

The ending seems to misfire somehow. It seems to be missing a clear point, maybe that was the idea.

And on a side note, Mary Kay LeTourneau was on the news yesterday, still married to the former student she went to jail for (having molested him when he was 12 and having his baby). There's a relationship they said would never last.

[stig.insanejournal.com]

Ah, but then as I said it makes a little more sense when compared to 49ers, where we see the young Steve desperately struggling with his sexuality at age 16, just after finishing the war. There's definite sexual interest from the older man, but he merely tells Steve that he is gay and gives him the choice of whether to hook up with him or not. After Steve awkwardly finding out that he's not into girls after all, eventually he chooses to go with Wulf. After that, they clearly show romantic rather than sexual interest in each other.

Interestingly enough, I think what Moore was going for was to have this scene pair up with the deliberately similar finale of '49ers', where Wulf is visited in hospital by Steve. Steve begs Wulf to 'stay with [him] forever'; the older, cynical German says that it's merely because it's Steve's first relationship, and that the two of them are as likely to last as this decrepit city full of super-freaks.

This, of course, creates a stark contrast with the Neopolis of today and the Steve & Wulf of today, where it's Steve being more downbeat due to his job as a cop and Wulf being more positive because he's found love and happiness that he thought wouldn't last.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

But again, that's not really addressing the issue I'm raising. Their longevity as a couple, Steve's consent in getting into the relationship, Steve's sexual confusion at around the time he meets Wulf...none of it is actually on-point.

Steve, here, compares their relationship to the Sentinels molesting the Young Sentinels. He asks Wulf what makes their relationship different.

Wulf says 'I loved you'. In other words, in the context of the conversation 'Yes, what we did was me molesting you, but that's OK, because, hey, it was love!'

Either you accept the premise that a 16 year old and 24 year old having a relationship is the same as child molestation, and Wulf's response is a child molester rationalizing his crime (transparently), or you don't, and you're left with them believing themselves to be a child molester and his victim, which doesn't seem to follow from the way they're portrayed.

[xandertarbert.insanejournal.com]

One of the points you have to bring up is intent. Is the older person having sex with them because they love each other, or because the older person is using the younger? Or is the younger person using the older? With the pedo-ring, it was an obvious older-abusing-younger, with maybe a few younger-using-older. Kind of a co-using, it the wacky sense people can make. While Steve and Wulf loved each other, are were expressing it with sex.

I'm kinda biased, since I have a pair of friends that fell in love when one was 29 and the other was 17. It's been a couple of years, and they're now happily married with a two year old. As far as I know, sex didn't start till after she was 18 (which doesn't matter in this state, since they weren't married at the time and you have to be married to have sex here. Oh, and it has to be missionary style sex too.) but they're a couple that work.

Read Forty Niners, everything will makes sense

[politicalzombie.insanejournal.com]

See, the thing is, Wulf finally met Steve when Wulf was 24 and Steve 16, in Neopolis...however, Wulf showed him the old film wheel from back in the war when Steve was 11, and in the film, a 'Jerry Jezebel' was giving him the eye even though she's 'old enough to be his Auntie'! Wulf then points out that plenty of women, and men, in the cinema, was giving Steve the eye, because Steve looks great.

There are...different sets of dates for, when it's alright to notice someone is cut,e when it's alright to notice someone is sexy, when it's alright to date, when it's alright to have sex, and when it's alright to throw the gloves off.

Like, me personally, it's alright for me to enjoy how pretty anyone who has hit puberty looks like, but I refuse to date anyone under 18, and I refuse to have sex with them unless they are over 20, or over 16 and already has had several HEALTHY sexual relationships before moi.

Everyone have different rules regarding the dates about this, the important thing is, /no harm/. Wulf and Steve is definitely different because they BOTH loved each other, so there is consent. In regards to the age note, they lived in earlier times when people die earlier, and yes he was eleven in the film, but he was already killing people (what happens when you shoot down planes?), AND noticing how good he looked in the film aside, Wulf didn't approach him until he was 16, with caution.

I noticed older women when I was...twelve, and I was already flirting with them then, in the sucking up to the pretty English teacher in class sense, of course it would have been harmful if I started sleeping with people THEN! But flirting is alright.