Writer: Alan Moore

Art: Gene Ha, Zander Cannon

Colours: Alex Sinclair

Best described as The Shield with capes, Top 10 is an undeniably enjoyable cop drama with a heavy soap opera element that, while stopping it from ever being placed alongside Alan Moore's genuine classics, allows its characters to grow on you in a way his typically finite tales rarely can. Whereas volume 1 of Top 10 introduced us to the world of Neopolis through the eyes of rookie gal Toybox, Book 2 demotes that character into the foreground, with the large, eclectic cast given their moment in no order of preference. And the result is a far more enjoyable latter half of this "season 1".

Each individual issue in Top 10 features a standalone story, but Moore is never one to let a loose plot thread go untied, and if it feels as though there's often a dozen or so cases going on at once, it's probably because there is. New cases thrown into the teeming mix include a paedophile ring posing as a superhero team in order to recruit adolescent sidekicks, Detective John "King Peacock" Corbeau's tribulations in an alternate timeline where the Roman Empire never crumbled, and new cop on the block, Officer Joe Pi; a Shogan Warriors inspired robot who flaunts a far better sense of humour than his organic team mates.

But it's the city of Neopolis that is the star of this would-be cop show. This is definitely a universe I'd happily visit on a regular monthly basis. As with Watchmen, Moore succeeds at what so many of his contemporaries fail at; creating a universe that is plausible in its absurdity. His characters can fly, walk through walls and traverse multiple dimensions, but they’re a far more human assortment than many mainstream heroes. Several even have paunches, heaven forbid. Of course, the guys at Precinct Ten would scoff at the term "heroes" – they're just comparatively normal guys doing a comparatively mundane job.

2006, Marvel

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Art: Steve Epting, Mike Perkins

Colours: Frank D'Armata

There's definitely enough going on.

It's a shame that the second instalment of Red Menace is overall a little underwhelming, though still an enjoyable continuation of Brubaker's run. It's rather disappointing that the current Lukin plot culminates in such a cliché as a giant robot wrecking havoc on a city; as with the Winter Soldier arc, Brubaker's set-up is stronger than its resolution. But then I guess that's comics for you; always raising the stakes that little bit higher, until they've nowhere to tread but worn conventions.

2006, Marvel

Writer: Ed Brubaker

Art: Mike Perkins, Javier Pulido, Marcos Martin

Colours: Frank D'Armata, Javier Rodriguez

Covers: Steve Epting, Eric Wight

With the Winter Soldier arc tentatively pushed aside, Red Menace picks up that story's many loose plot strands, predominantly the relationship between Russian General Aleksander Lukin and Cap's eternal nemesis the Red Skull, who seemingly now exists quite cosily in Lukin's Skull.

Last time around, Crossbones kidnapped the Red Skull's daughter, Synthia Schmidt, aka Sin, who has been de-aged and reprogrammed by S.H.I.E.L.D. and is oblivious to her past. I loved how Sin's ludicrously convoluted back-story is detailed with such gravity. S.H.I.E.L.D. should sell their de-aging process to the cosmetic industry; they'd make a sweet packet. Crossbones' "re-education" of the poor girl is unavoidably sadistic, and juxtaposes well with the colourful, retro-inspired 65^th anniversary tale included here, even if the sudden reversion of Papa Skull's lil' sociopath to her wicked ways tastes like instant-mix Stockholm syndrome.

Story: Brian Lynch (script), Joss Whedon

Art: Tim Kane, David Messina, Stephen Mooney, John Byrne, Nick Runge, Fabio Mantovani, Kevyn Schmidt, Mirco Pierfederici

Colours: Jeremy Treeze, Iliara Traversia, Lisa Jackson, Leonard O'Grady, John Rauch, Lisa Jackson, Fabio Mantovani, Michelle Buscalferri

Given the dualistic nature of this volume and the previous, I'll keep this review short. Most of my comments on After the Fall vol. 1 apply here also.

So say that I was disappointed with the first volume of After the Fall  is something of an understatement. The series didn’t appear to have any direction. The scripting was uninspired and bland, the artwork was some of the worst seen in a IDW publication, and the entire package felt as though it had been put together by people who did not fully appreciate when and why the source material worked.

A series of shorts following each principal player from the television show's finale to the events of After the Fall 1, First Night is thankfully a better affair all round. The art, from a wide range of artists, brings Los Angeles, Hell to life with a vibrancy and character that Franco Urru's art never could. Peter Lynch's writing is more confident here, though I'm supposing he wrote these tales in tandem with the main story. Lorne's back-story is particularly noteworthy, narrated in a poetic fairy tale style that would be similarly at home in Willingham's Fables.

Lynch continues to rely on having his protagonists narrate their predicaments, which still jars with the franchise's dialogue-centric and postmodern style. The inclusion of Betta George, a psychic-fish-thingy that appeared in Lynch's Spike: Asylum and Spike: Shadow Puppets is a bit of a double-edged blade. On the one hand, it's great that IDW other Angel books are considered canon, much like the Star Wars comic continuity. On the other hand… nothing will repel readers who've clambered aboard this title with no prior knowledge of IDW's other Angel books than having a talking fish tell the story.

Art: Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Mike Perkins

Colours: Frank D'Armata

Volume 1 of 'Winter Soldier' finished with the excellent tangent story 'The Lonesome Death of Jack Munroe.' We find out that Munroe has been framed with the assassination of the Red Skull and the bombing in Philadelphia. And then there's the new Ruskie scoundrel on the block, Aleksander Lukin, whose possession of the Cosmic Cube appears to be rapidly diminishing his sanity.

As with much of his mainstream superhero work, I often get the feeling that Ed Brubaker would rather write something a little more risqué and less genre specific. He's definitely more in his element when conceiving ways for the sociopathic Crossbones to kill faceless G.I.'s than writing the dialogue between Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter. His decision to combine the Cosmic Cube, an old Marvel plot-device which grants its bearer God-like powers and is therefore the Golden Fleece for all respectable supervillains, with a darker and more grounded World War II plot.

2008, IDW

Story: Joss Whedon, Brian Lynch

Script: Brian Lynch

Pencils: Franco Urru

Colours: Jason Jensen, Art Lyon, Ilaria Traversi

Though the Buffyverse’s resurrection in comic form began with a pleasing enough bang courtesy of Dark Horse, there was definitely a sense that even Joss Whedon was unsure where the iconic vampire slayer was heading. Sure, Season 8 had a new big bad, an army of slayers and a giant-size Dawn, but it all felt a little safe and formulaic. If anything, Season 8 only emphasised the fact that Buffy The Vampire Slayer had reached its natural conclusion on television; as far as TV finales go, Buffy’s is still pretty much unrivalled.

Buffy’s Vampiric plaything Angel, however, was not so lucky. Though ‘Not fade away’ was an awesome swansong for the Los Angeles detective and his crew, few viewers who caught those final minutes of Lord of the Rings inspired hell-on-Earth were entirely satisfied with the show's sudden demise. Those invested in Angel may be interested in IDW's approach to the show's continuation, with a plot based on the material that was already planned by Whedon and company before Fox pulled the plug. Those who've read up on the possible future of the series via the interviews with Whedon and anticipated the Spike movie that (alas) never was won't find any real surprise here; After the Fall follows what was disclosed of the planned six series pretty faithfully. Los Angeles has been relocated to Hell, Gunn is now a vampire, and a deceased Wesley has discovered that his contract with Wolfram and Hart goes beyond the grave.

With this in mind, however, it's even more unfortunate that After the Fall fails to live up to its potential in any way. Perhaps more surprising than the direction Whedon and scripter Brian Lynch have taken each character is the manner in which the story unfolds, commencing several weeks after the climatic battle that we never got to see. The original issues of After the Fall were published alongside character-centric back-story books, which revealed what had happened to each member of Angel's demon busting posse between the Season 5 finale and this series. Those will be published in a second hardback, but sadly their omission here makes this volume excruciatingly perplexing on first read.