And of course, I have to love any page that has jokes based on both Victorian poetry and Homestar Runner. 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. Smax finds out that the only dragon he ever ran away from is still rampaging, and Toybox guilts him into confronting his responsibilities. 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. 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. This is the last Top 10 spin-off (at least, the last one collected in trade paperback format). Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.
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