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Friday, April 4, 2014

Joe Pi from Top Ten by Alan Moore and Gene Ha

Top Ten is a world where after WWII the Americans put all of their super powered beings into one city, Neopolis. In this city everyone has a super powers or is special in some way. And like all cities, it also has it's mistreated minorities. In Neopolis it's "clickers" or robots or artificial intelligence.
Joe Pi is the new cop on the beat, a token minority, and worse, he's taking the place of an officer that died in the line of duty. And her partner is none too happy about it.



One of the really great things about Top Ten is all of the Easter eggs that Moore and Ha throw in here. This page is an excellent example. In panel 3 we have "Plastic Stan's Furniture" a reference to Stan Lee and his "Hollywood" personality. In panel 5, any Marvelite worth his salt will recognize the yellow costume of the Golden Aged, super fast Whizzer who, in this panel, is finally enacting what we've always imaged him doing as kids, though the "W" on his shirt has magically changed to a "U", "U" for "urination."











This post is continuing the robot theme that I have been working on. In this excerpt from Top Ten vol 1 #11, Moore gives us an interesting look at how artificial intelligence might play out in our world if it came to pass, a world where robots are looked down on for being inferior or not real people. It's interesting how he makes us feel for the robot as if it had feelings to be hurt. I guess this goes back to the old argument that Philip K Dick posed, "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" Are A.I. real beings if they can think and feel like us? What does it mean to be real?
 

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