Marvel’sGuardians of the Galaxymay use the head of a dead Celestial as a home-base, butAlan Mooreand DC Comics actually beat them to the punch. The celebrated writer’sTop 10series featured the head of a dead god being used as a location eight years before Star Lord and co. moved into the head of Knowhere.
Coming from the creative team of Alan Moore, Gene Ha and Zander Cannon,Top 10was one of the launch titles ofAmerica’s Best Comics, Wildstorm/DC Comics’ boutique imprint created specifically for Moore. The series concerns the police operating out of a precinct in Neopolis, a city where everyone has superpowers, and therefore citizens must deal with all the complications that brings with it.
Top 10#10 opens with a homicide at a famous nightclub in Neopolis, the building which just so happens to be the head of some dead god that looks an awful lot like theCelestial Hargen fromThe Eternals.
Top 10’s Club Eternal is Just One of Many Unforgettable Moore Details
Top 10was highly-acclaimed upon its initial release, with fans and critics alike delighting at the ways Alan Moore played with classic superhero tropes.Moore was inspired by cop shows likeHill Street BluesandNYPD Blue, wanting to blend the gritty, procedural aesthetic of those shows with superheroes.The visual sight gag of “Club Eternal” is just one of many in-jokes found throughout the twelve-issue run of the original series, which saw many panels packed with cameos and Easter Eggs galore of various superhero and science fiction properties.
Even though Alan Moore earlier swore off working for DC Comics, the writer found himself working for the company once again after Image founderJim Lee sold his Wildstorm imprint to DC
Top 10was often playful in its blend of superhero and police procedural tropes.One memorable story saw the detectives of Precinct 10 attempt to solve the murder of Baldur at a bar frequented by deities in Neopolis. Struggling to make sense of the nonsensical, the detectives ultimately realize that Baldur’s murder keeps happening over and over again, as the mythology consists of stories that are told again and again for all eternity. Not wanting to file the subsequent eternal paperwork, the detectives ultimately decide to let the murder slide.
Kept a mystery in Marvel Comics for several years, it was eventually revealed that the symbiote god Knull was the entity responsible for beheading theCelestial that would come to be known as Knowhere
Could DC’s Celestial Headquarters Helped To Inspire Marvel’s Version?
Considering thatTop 10#10 was published eight years beforethe first appearance of Knowhere inNova(vol. 4) #8, fans have to wonder if the previous comic was somehow an inspiration on Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Wellington Alves when they introduced the future base of the Guardians of the Galaxy following their formation at the end oftheAnnihilation: Conquestevent. Whatever the case, it’s interesting to learn that DC beat Marvel to the chase by using a dead god’s head as a location inTop Tenyears before theGuardians of the Galaxymoved into Knowhere’s abandoned noggin.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Cast
Guardians of the Galaxy is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, featuring Chris Pratt as Peter Quill. Abducted from Earth as a child, Quill navigates intergalactic adventures, becoming entwined in a conflict centered on a powerful orb coveted by Ronan the Accuser.
