Top 10: The Forty-Niners

Top 10: The Forty-Niners
File:49erscover.jpg Cover to graphic novel.
Publication information
Publisher	America's Best Comics
Publication date	2005
No. of issues	1
Main character(s)	Steve "Jetlad" Traynor
Creative team
Written by	Alan Moore
Artist(s)	Gene Ha
Letterer(s)	Todd Klein
Colorist(s)	Art Lyon

Top 10: The Forty-Niners is a graphic novel published by America's Best Comics in 2005. It is a prequel to the ABC series Top 10, a police procedural set in the city of Neopolis, where superpowers, robots, monsters, and other comic fodder are the norm for all citizens. It was written by Alan Moore, drawn by Gene Ha, and colored by Art Lyon, with lettering, logos, and design by Todd Klein. Unlike the original series and its spin-off Smax, it was released in one 112 page edition instead of being released in separate issues and collected later. It won the 2006 Eisner Award in the "Best Graphic Album: New" category. The Forty-Niners is set in 1949, in the founding days of Neopolis. After World War II, realizing that average citizens do not want to live next door to the science heroes, mutants, and robots largely responsible for the Allied victory, the U.S. government built Neopolis, where all of these exceptional people can live together. The story primarily follows a young Steve Traynor, a.k.a. Jetlad, the boy fighter ace who will later become Captain of Neopolis Police Precinct 10, from which the series derives its name. The primary story lines follow Jetlad's meeting with the great love of his life (seen at the end of Top 10: Book 2) and the formative days of the Neopolis Police, as they try to prove that they can bring order to the chaos of Neopolis in the face of vampire gangsters and bigotry against robots. The story features several characters who either appear in the original Top 10 or else who are alluded to in conversation or background picture.

Cast of characters

see List of characters in Top 10: The Forty-Niners

Plot summary

Steve "Jetlad" Traynor is aboard a train going directly to Neopolis, a new city created in America that will house all the science heroes, scientists, magicians, vampires and any other 'special' person throughout the United States and even parts of the world. On the train, he happens to cross paths with the Skywitch, Leni Muller. The Skywitch and Jetlad were enemies in the beginning of the war, before Leni defected to the Allied Power after learning how evil the Nazi regime truly was. On the same train car they meet a Hungarian man, who is also a vampire, covered in head to toe to save himself from the sun's light. Jetlad and Skywitch reminisce about their past and discuss their future in Neopolis. They share a cab to City Hall where they register and join an assembly to hear from the mayor, John Q. Public. The mayor explains to all the new citizens that the city of Neopolis is a new, social experiment full of the specials of the world, making them paradoxically normal in the city, and to make certain that they do not become vigilantes. After the assembly, Jetlad and Skywitch find a boarding home run by a Betty Doesgood, one of the first citizens of Neopolis. She explains to Steve and Leni that the first citizens of Neopolis were not science heroes but public characters, like Betty Doesgood who ran an advice column. Leni and Steve soon decide to visit a nearby bar to learn their surroundings and for Leni to inquire about a singing job. While in the bar, Leni and Steve meet the members of the Skysharks, a group of international pilots that fought against the Axis Power in World War II. Some of the Skysharks are impressed that Steve Traynor was Jetlad at such a young age. They all sit together and the Skysharks offer Steve Traynor a job at their hangar as a mechanic, which he readily accepts. Soon a pair of vampires enters the bar, demanding that the owner pay some protection money. Jetlad and the Skysharks get up to help the owner and suddenly three police officers, The Maid, Rocket Ryan and Steelgauntlet, enter the bar. The Maid, with her powers being divine, scare the vampires out of the bar, but not before they warn that they will be back. The Skywitch is inspired by the police officers, particularly by the Maid, and asks her if there are any positions available as a police officer. Skywitch is given information on how to reach the city's precinct and is told to apply the next day. Jetlad works at the Skyshark's hangar as a mechanic and starts a friendship in particular with Wulf. Their conversation sometimes leads to awkward lapses and Jetlad finds himself lying, saying that Leni Muller is his girlfriend. In the hangar's canteen, Sharkey speaks to Jetlad and Wulf, informing them that the mayor of Neopolis may consider shifting power from the police and giving it to the military, to units like the Skysharks. The city of Neopolis is overrun with crime from the vampires and the robot population and Sharkey feels that the military could do a much better job than any police officer. Meanwhile, the Skywitch begins her first day as a police officer in Neopolis. She meets her captain, Doctor Omega, who has Steelgauntlet introduce her to her fellow police officers, including Sea-Knight and Major Lilliput. He then introduces her to her new partner, Black Rider. They go on patrol and shortly stop an act of vigilantism. The pair are then called to the Institute of Science, where pardoned, former Nazi scientists and science heroes work to make Neopolis as advanced as possible through architecture and other ideas. When they arrive at the institute, they find the body of Herr Panzer, a scientific advisor, on the floor, an apparent victim of murder. Black Rider opens Herr Panzer's helmet to find his skeleton covered in ash. They recruit the assistance of Major Lilliput to bring Herr Panzer's body to the station to be investigated further. The Skywitch tries to interview the Nazi scientists and advisors, but none are forthcoming with motives or any other information. That night, Jetlad and Wulf arrive at the bar near Betty Doesgood's boarding home and find the Skywitch nearby. Still feeling awkward over some of the exchanges he has had with Wulf during the day, Jetlad becomes very forward with Leni, even kissing her in front of Wulf. Leni is very surprised to find Jetlad this way and they both go back to the boarding room, leaving behind a grim Wulf, where they attempt to be intimate, but Jetlad is unable to go very far. That night the vampires that tried to racketeer money from the bar owners arrive back and kill the owner and his wife.