Top 10 #11A new rookie? Doesn't look like Michael Ontkean or George Sanford Brown.
(A very popular tv show, from 1972-1976, which launched Kate Jackson to prominence, before Charlie's Angels)
Creative Team: Alan Moore-writer, Gene Ha & Zander Cannon-art, Todd Klein-letters, Alex Sinclair-colors, Scott Dunbier-editor
Synopsis: Captain Traynor welcomes a new officer to Precinct 10, from the alternate reality, Parallel 9. As he leads him through the station, we see a bunch of easter eggs, including a group of workmen, made up of Ben Grimm, Doomsday, Swamp Thing and OMAC, a batch of Galactus' heralds and the mod Diana Prince, a batch from Dark Horse's Comics Greatest World line, and the Elementals.
The Captain speaks of the loss of Girl-1, who the new officer replaces. he also makes vague mention of Parallel 9 being something revolutionary and the officer, Joe, may run into some attitudes, in relation to that experiment. he is fresh from Turingville, the major city of that reality. He is introduced to Sgt Caesar, who is about to begin the morning briefing. As they move along, you can see people reacting in odd and unwelcoming ways. In the briefing room, Kemlo introduces the new officer, Joe Pi....
...a cybernetic lifeform. Officer Cheney (Shock-Head Pete) seems especially put out. He is partnered with Irma Geddon, and he says hello and offers his condolences, on the loss of Sung-Li (Girl-1). He offers his hand and Irma seems a bit awkward, but takes it and offers him a seat.
Kemlo continues the briefing, with an exposition dump. There is to be a restructuring at Grand Central and a new appointment as commissionaer, in light of the death of Ultima and her criminal activities. Det Corbeau has been released from there and is returning home, with the Gladiatorial Championship trophy. Lt Peregrine and Jackie Phantom are handed the Glenn Garland (Bluejay) murder investigation, while Officers Cheney and Bodine (Dust Devil) are assigned a killing on Diesel Street, in South Green. Pete isn't happy about that. Irma and Joe Pi are assigned as back-up. He finishes by mentioning that they received a letter, addressed to an Officer Macksun, but no one knows who that is and no one answers up. They are dismissed and Jeff Smax comes up to Kemlo and tells him that he is Macksun, and that it is his given family name. He then departs to visit Robyn Slinger, in the hospital.
Joe Pi and Irma talk on the way to their vehicle and the journey to South Green. Joe tells her he was sincere in his condolences and Irma says his feelings are just programming, to which he counters that the same is true of organic life. They arrive at the scene of the murder, where Pete Cheney is in a heated discussion with two cybernetic lifeforms, based on Perry, the cybernetic assassin in Elektra: Assassin and Robotman, from the Doom Patrol. Duane Bodine calls out to them, while Pete makes a stupid racist joke at Joe's expense ("Hey Joe, where are you going with that battery up your butt?"). Joe ignores it and Pete points out (to Irma, only) the elastic body and thinks the "clicker" gang are the likely suspects. One of the locals (based on Walter the Wobot, from Judge Dredd) yells out to Joe Pi and calls him a "spambo." He calls out again and Joe Pi basically gives him a verbal beat down....
Joe examines the body and an analysis says he was was suffocated in a sandslide, based on the presence of silicates in his windpipe. He notices a shadow in a window and says he will be right back. Pete continues acting like an ass and Duane tells him he is really riling his nerves. Pete continues and Duane reads him the riot act. Irma stays out of it, but then notices a morgue wagon pulling up and figures Joe alerted it electronically. A few minutes later he emerges with Shirley Teller, aka Beach Bunny, wife of the deceased, Trent Teller, aka Dr Incredible, who we saw in issue #1, in a domestic disturbance. She says "Sorry Doc," towards the body and it is clear that she had enough of his abuse and killed him. The others are stunned....
Det Corbeau returns from Grand Central and is greeted by his family and his partner, Wanda "Synaesthesia" Jackson (along with a lot of easter eggs and homages). She fills him in about Commissioner Ultima and Sung-Li's funeral. We then cut to the hospital, where Jeff Smax visits Robyn (and more easter eggs, including Dr Fate, Dr Strange and Dr Doom, in consultation). Robyn asks about the voice she heard while trapped under rubble and mentions The Rumor, but Smax thinks it was just a hallucination. he is taking care of Robyn's father, while she is laid up. he tells her about the letter, that his uncle, who raised him, has died. He says he will be taking some time off, to help put his affairs in order. Robyn offers her condolences and to say hi to everyone, at the funeral. Doctor Who and Dr Fu Manchu pass by, in the corridor.
At the station, Joe Pi brings Shirley Teller into the interrogation room. He offers to have a woman officer present; but she says she is comfortable with him and starts giving her statement, while Captain Traynor and Irma watch, via the two-way mirror. Traynor is impressed with Joe Pi's technique. Irma less so.
Elsewhere, Lt Peregrine and Jackie Phantom are working on the Glenn Garland case. They wonder about the revelations he was going to make to the papers and speculate on whether it was related to the music industry. The files indicate he was the sidekick to Perry Somerville, aka Kingfisher and that there has been more than one Bluejay. They also note "group affiliations" and Peregrine thinks Jackie had better alert the captain. She runs into Duane and Pete, in the hallway. Pete is getting a candy bar, from a vending machine, while continuing to make cracks about "clickers" and them being after human women. Joe Pi overhears and proceeds to make Pete look like an even bigger ass....
..via humor.
Jackie finds Captain Traynor in his office, looking at a picture of a man in a pseudo-military uniform, standing next to an airplane. He puts the picture down, as she enters and she informs him of what they found out, about Garland being the sidekick of the Kingfisher, who was a member of the Seven Sentinels. The captain picks up on her train of thought, that M'rrgla Qualtz was a member, and said something odd, about the Seven trying to kill her and something about a "showreel," and "Chicken-Supers."
Jackie says it is slang for sexually available sidekicks and they start to put two and two together and get pedophile ring. The captain says to continue their line of questioning and to pull in the other sidekicks of the Seven. He then says he has to prepare for the funeral, and looks at the photo, again.
Ast the Ghostlawns cemetery (with lots of homages, from ghostly figures to familiar headstones). The minister (Jesse Cutler, from Preacher) gives the eulogy. After the service ends, the officers are interrupted by Mickey Millions and Roy Radium, the creator os Girl-1. They ask how she performed, but less about the person she was. Irma walks away from the scene, tears in her eyes. outside the gates of the cemetery, she finds Joe Pi waiting, next to their cruiser. She balls him out for not going inside and he gives a reply....
She apologizes and asks him to take her home. As they stop outside, Irma tells Joe about Sung-Li and the tricks she would do for Irma's kids and then breaks down. Joe comforts her. After she composes herself, they go inside and she introduces Joe to Ron and the kids. Joe tells Ron that precogs are not banned from physics research and ron says he will check that out. the girls are sad at the death of Sung-Li and joe cheers them up with a trick, as he removes his head and holds it at his side, like a helmet, while speaking to them. he says his goodbyes and departs, as the family smiles.
We cut to Robyn's house, where Jeff gives a bath to Robyn's father, who is suffering from dementia. He makes a crack, asking Jeff if he doesn't have a father of his own and Jeff gives a rather apprehensive look and goes outside, to think.
Thoughts: Tremendous issue and one of the best, from an emotional and character building standpoint. In a single issue he brings in a new character and makes him relevant, without making it seem like he is being thrust down our throats. It's the old trope of a minority cop joining the force and being paired with a somewhat prejudiced cop, who learns to respect the new guy. The twist here is that he is an artificially intelligent lifeform, rather than a racial minority. This follows up on past issues, where we saw prejudice against cybernetic lifeforms, with slurs like "clickers", to which we can add "spambo," as the street equivalent of an Uncle Tom, someone who has sold out, to the oppressor. Moore might have been overdoing it with Pete Cheney; but, he has been shown to be the most bigoted and misogynistic; so, there is a logic to the excess. Even Duane, not the most enlightened guy, has enough of Pete's cracks. Irma starts out being stand offish, but she is really masking her grief, at the loss of Sung-Li, and she uses Joe's attempts to console her to deflect it on him, as anger. Joe earns her respect, though, through competence and patience, and she finally realizes that she has been treating him badly, then finally drops all facades and breaks down and cries, letting her grief come to the surface, so she can release it. Joe then wins her over even more, by picking up some of the role that Sung-Li played in their lives. We can also see, by the comments of Girl-1's creators, that Irma also realizes that Sung-Li was an artificial lifeform, who was intelligent and her closest friend, allowing her to see Joe for who he is and not what he is.
Joe Pi's design is an homage to Go Nagai's robotic and mecha characters, particularly Mazinga, with a dash of Spectreman and some Ultraman.
Easter Eggs abound, especially in crowd scenes and some were suggested on the Top 10 message board, for which Gene Ha provides some thank yous, in the form of name dropping the users who made the suggestions.. The is a furniture store seen, on a street, called Plastic Stan's, which features a caricature of Stan Lee, crossed with Plastic Man. The hospital scenes have doctor homages and patients, like the bandage-wrapped Negative Man and The Invisible Man, as well as the original Red Tornado, Ma Hunkel (in costume) leading two others, with pots crammed over their heads, like they have suffered accidents. You can also see Zok, of the Herculoids, and Dick Dastardly, in his plane, from Dastardly & Muttley (rather than Wacky Races). Later, you see stretchers entering the hospital, one with the skeleton of Wolverine, the other with his skin. King Peacock's (Det Corbeau) return, at the dimensional gate station, features all kinds of Easter Eggs, in the crowds, including the would-be conquerers, from the first issue of Marvelman/Miracleman, Wendy & Marvin (and Wonder Dog), from the Super Friends, the Warhols, from Miracleman: The Golden Age, the Captain America pastiche from The Authority (the one who gets F-ed up by Midnighter), characters from Futurama, Mary Poppins, with a flying vacuum cleaner, and Blue Falcon and Dyno-Mutt. In the street scenes, near the murder, whe can see a man urinating on an alley wall, who is the Whizzer, from Timely Comics, as well as Peter Parker leaving said alley, with his Spider-Man costume in the trash can. At the cemetery, we see Casper, Ghost Rider, Deadman, The Spirit, Elektra's headstone, the X-Men's headstones (from Days of Future Present). Mickey Millions is a pastiche of Richie Rich and Roy Radium is based on Roy, the sidekick to Dr Radium, from It's Science!
You also see Oscar Wilde, which Jess Nevins, on his annotations, couldn't figure out. Some suggested he was a substitute for the Gay Ghost, though I think it is a reference to the Melmoth segment of Cerebus, which is about the death of Oscar Wilde, who appeared earlier in the series, as a character. He stands next to the Hanged Man, from Astro City.
We get a continuation of the investigation into Glenn Garland's murder and the suggestion that his revelations to the press might have been about a pedophile ring within the Seven Sentinels. This speaks both to Frederic Wertham's assertation that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson represented a gay relationship (or rather, pedophile and victim, to be more accurate, since child molestation is not a sexual orientation and is about the age of the victim and, most often, the power the perpetrator has over them and the relation to the offender's past sexualization, often through abuse at that same age). This has been suggested by critics of sidekick characters, who try to apply deeper meanings to characters meant to be POV characters to superheroes, for children, to give them someone with whom they can identify. The idea was central to Rick Veitch's The Bratpak, where we learn that there had been several versions of the same sidekicks, of the adult heroes (pastiches of the Justice League archetypes). It also bears a resemblance to revelations of sexual abuse by clergy and the cover up, by the Catholic Church (and similar cases in other churches, though fewer as high profile), from the period, as well as dramatic presentations, such as Prime Suspect 3, which found Jane Tennison heading a vice operation dealing with rent boys (male child prostitutes) and the murder of one, where a youth advice center comes up as a nexus, and there is suggestion of a possible pedophile ring. There again, there is a problem of conflating homosexuals (in the form of a gay club, with a drag revue, where a main character, played by Peter Capaldi, is a performer) with pedophiles, with a link to the victim, who was going to the press, with names.
Prior to this series, in 1994, there was a documentary, called Chicken Hawk: men Who Love Boys, directed by Adi Sidemen. It features interviews with members of the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), who spoke of their relationships with boys under the age of consent. The film lets the members incriminate themselves, while trying to justify their preying on underage boys. "Chickenhawk" was a slang term, especially in the gay community, for older men who looked for young lovers, particularly underaged ones. It also depicts them being rejected by LBGT groups and also groups who have particularly targeted NAMBLA as predators. It gained critical acclaim and has been screened for the FBI and other professional groups, to aid them in their work at bringing such people to justice, as well as treating both offenders and victims. Here, Moore uses the term Chicken-Supers, to identify the superhero predators; presumably, the Seven Sentinels. M'Rrgla Qualtz's earlier references now have context.
The man in the photo that Captain Traynor looks at is an older man, dressed in a suit similar to Blackhawk, and who stands next to what appears to be a biplane. The suggestion is that he is an aviation hero. Captain Traynor, or to use his heroic name, Jetlad, was also an aviation hero. The image is suggestive, but lacks context. The implication is that there is some relationship between Jetlad's past and this case, presumably in the form of this figure. Next issue will make it clearer.
Really tremendous issue and one of the best of the series.
Next time, everything comes together, in the final issue of the original series.