Review: Smax by Alan Moore, Zander Cannon, and Andrew Currie

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2004 (contents: 2003-04)
Acquired and read October 2016

Smax

Writer: Alan Moore

Artist: Zander Cannon
Inkers: Andrew Currie, Richard Friend
Coloring: Ben Dimagmaliw
Lettering, Logo and Design: Todd Klein

This is the last Top 10 spin-off (at least, the last one collected in trade paperback format). This takes Top 10 cop Jeff Smax back to his home dimension, a parallel Earth governed by the rules of fantasy stories, not superhero stories, accompanied by his partner, Toybox. Unlike Top 10, which smashes superhero stories and cop dramas together, this isn't really about genre collision; it's mostly an affectionate riff on the conventions of fantasy fiction, especially the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings/Dungeons & Dragons-based quest stuff. Smax finds out that the only dragon he ever ran away from is still rampaging, and Toybox guilts him into confronting his responsibilities.

Two things I like at once: jokes at the expense of Tolkien lineages, and jokes at the expense of the socially clueless.
from Smax #2 (art by Zander Cannon & Andrew Currie)

There's no deep insight into the fantasy genre, but there are good jokes: I appreciated the "politically correct" take on fantasy races, the idea of a bureau to authorize quests, Smax's inability to read emotions and utter conviction that he is reading emotions, the tedious dwarf funeral, and the fact that dwarves play RPGs based on being in middle management. And of course, I have to love any page that has jokes based on both Victorian poetry and Homestar Runner:

To be honest, it's a pretty high references-per-panel ratio throughout. It's interesting that Moore's post-Watchmen attempts to return to genres earnestly still do so self-consciously. Having deconstructed genre, can he only perform genre via reconstruction?
from Smax #3 (art by Zander Cannon & Andrew Currie)

I do wish that Smax played a bigger role in the resolution of his own story-- the ending is probably the only part of this that didn't work for me, as Smax is outshone by Toybox, and the romance subplot is resolved in a pretty rushed way, too. This isn't as good as Moore's work on Top 10 proper, but it's an entertaining diversion with a couple of its key characters.