Smax

 

By Alan Moore & Zander Cannon with Andrew Currie (ABC)
ISBN: 1-4012-0325-6

Here’s a delightful return to sardonic, edged humour for Alan Moore in this spin-off from the superhero crime series Top Ten. When big blue strong guy Smax is summoned to his home dimension, he drags along cute punkette co-worker Toybox.

The place they find themselves in is a land of magic and fable, full of Elves, Dwarves and Dragons. It’s a perfect setting for street-smart super-cops to crack wise and act baffled as they go through the Tolkienian motions of a quest, traditional and emotional.

Moore’s ironic and twistedly absurdist comedy successfully delivers a swift and long overdue knee to the cods of the ubiquitous Fantasy Fad. Parents and overly sensitive Christians might want to vet this before buying it for the kiddiwinks though, as it contains some sexual concepts that might pummel their world-view.

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