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Anyone familiar with the 'golden age of Vertigo comics' in the 90s is familiar with Alan Moore, legendarily prodigal and eccentric master of illustrated narration. His most famous works, V for Vendetta and Watchmen, were written in the 1980s, and have received very widespread acclaim and a fair degree of mainstream recognition. Alan Moore's more recent work with America's Best Comics (or "ABC") is comparatively less well known, but in many ways more polished and streamlined than his famous works, and Top 10 is one such example.

Top 10's premise is simple: what would law enforcement look like in a world where everyone is a superhuman? Heroes, villains, monsters, and freaks populate the Tenth Precinct of Neopolis, and the police are just as strange. They include a chummy middle-class housewife in missile-loaded power armor, a synethesiac psychometer, and an intelligent doberman in a man-shaped exoskeleton. They respond to the kind of over-the-top calls we all expect there would be in a super-heavy universe: domestic disputes (with an amorphous, rubbery husband), murders (perpetrated by psychic aliens), drug busts (against aged Nazi superscientists), and drunk & disorderly behavior (by 20-story Godzilla-esque monsters).

Superficially, Top 10 is a farce, both of superhero comics and of cop fiction. Imagine the Fantastic Four covering for the characters of Dragnet, or Spiderman behind the wheel of Car 54. By treating the incredibly strange as run-of-the-mill, the story nimbly counterposes the improbable logic of mainstream comics with the jaded 'seen-it-all' deadpan of crime fiction.

This is not Top 10's only purpose, however. In typical Alan Moore style, a wide range of characters are given remarkably distinct personalities in a a few brief panels through excellent dialog with sharp contours and the full gamut of demeanors. What Top 10 is really about is the greater underlying difficulties of police work: competition vs. teamwork, working with people who have conflicting beliefs, dealing with racial intolerance both in the citizenry and among officers. A careful read reveals surprisingly rich commentary about duty and sacrifice. How does law enforcement, composed of sometimes-rough-around-the-edges individuals, overcome individual differences to improve society? How do the police handle grief or anger? How do police overcome being understaffed and spread too thin? These are weighty topics for a basically comedic comic book, and Top 10 respects its source material astonishingly well for a farce.

That said, Top 10 isn't for everyone. As an ensemble piece, the characters are vivid but not necessarily deep. Many characters serve a function, and Moore's talent for painting characters with a fast brush will likely leave many readers craving more background that they must simply imagine. And with possibilities as unfettered as those of Top 10 (where nearly everything that could happen in any superhero storyline does), those backgrounds can feel unfathomable.

Also, Moore's willingness to push the buttons of both his characters and his readers will make parts of Top 10 quite racy for a sensitive audience. Like its crime fiction inspiration (and unlike mainstream superhero fiction), Top 10 doesn't shy away from prostitution, drugs, or other mature themes that police face every day. Then again, any fan of Alan Moore (especially those who slogged through From Hell) know what they're in for when digging into one of his worlds.

Despite these (in my view minor) failings, Top 10's first volume (of two in its main storyline) makes a solid read and will be a treat for anyone who enjoys superheroes, crime, or both.