Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Top Ten by Alan Moore and Gene Ha ::
by William the Bloody
In a completely different world from our own, welcome to Neopolis; a city in a universe where every conceivable comic book/sci-fi concept lives. So, just about 90 percent of the population has super powers, the ones who don't have neato high tech gizmos, are aliens, under water people, giant monsters, intelligent animals, or just plain gods! A world ridden with super beings needs a strong police force, and here's Neopolis' Tenth Precinct's newest member, Robyn Slinger aka, Toy Box, who has a box full of toy soldiers, cars and helicopters which all obey her mental commands. She joins a squad with a cybernetically enhanced dog, a Satanist, a ghost-like girl, a woman in a battle suit, a gymnastic chameleon, a high tech cowboy, a nearly invincible blue behemoth, a woman whose senses work differently, and a guy who shoots electricity out of his head. Together they must keep Neopolis safe from crime that you would see in any city with a sci-fi slant.
The Good: The characters are all extremely well-written and their dialogue is quite exceptional. Their super-abilities are truly unique and used in interesting and new ways (the colour changing chameleon woman, Girl One, chooses to walk around nude, but nobody can tell; Synaesthesia uses her unique senses to see sounds and feel colours at crime scenes; Micro-Maid shrinks to microscopic size to to a coroner's report from inside the body). The idea of just about any comic cliché you could think of being combined into one universe is used in an entertaining way (picture a Godzilla-like beast with a drinking problem trying to get his son out of jail... oh and cosmic mice??). Moore's attention to detail is a strong as it ever was, which ensures excellent continuity and timing. Gene Ha's art compliments this book well, wonderfully rendering everything from sexy prostitutes to tendrilled aliens to robotic body parts.
The Bad: This comic felt really, really BUSY. There were A LOT of characters and sometimes quite a few subplots all going on at once. It was occasionally difficult to keep events and characters straight. The murder at the Godz night club and the telekinetic Santa Claus plots just felt too silly for their own good.
Overall, it was GOOD, but not GREAT. Going into a story written by Alan "Watchmen" Moore made me expect GREATNESS, and so as a result, I got disappointment. It was interesting and had good characters, but too many of them. At times it felt like this was a Toy Box and her partner Smax oriented book, but then it would suddenly change gears on us to feature Duane Dust Devil instead. There ARE loads of interesting concepts used in new ways which in of itself make this world Alan Moore created fascinating and sometimes even funny.
B
