Written by Mark Waid
Illustrated by Peter Krause and Diego BarretoMake way for the brand new Paradigm! Survivor has put together a motley crew of supposedly reformed criminals and villains…and now they face their first threat! But can a group this dangerous and unstable actually make it through a mission without killing each other first? All this and an unlikely duo team-up to decide the fate of Plutonian! Another heart-stopping issue of the Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated sensation IRREDEEMABLE from Mark Waid and Peter Krause!
I have never reviewed Irredeemable for the site and we have not reviewed the past few issues, but it feels like the right time to jump back on board on reviewing this book, as Mark Waid’s Eisner nominated series will soon be losing its primary artist in Peter Krause. What’s the current state of the book, as of this week’s issue #26?
Find out after the jump.
For someone who has long worked with some of the greatest heroes in comics like Mark Waid (who had top notch runs on The Flash and Fantastic Four and many others as you all likely know), it may come as a surprise that he handles evil bastards like The Plutonian well. It makes me think back to his work on Kingdom Come, where a character like Magog in Waid’s hands was a megalomaniac driven by some very base and childish desires. The Plutonian is in some ways the evolutionary Magog, and given more time to develop him, Waid has turned him into a truly evil and terrifying character.
That is growing increasingly obvious in the current arc, one that finds The Plutonian on a massive insane asylum planet, essentially advancing level to level as he tries to make a way out, bending the worst the universe has to offer to his will effortlessly in the process.
This issue brings a lot of really interesting moments, and some delightfully malevolent ones at that. The Plutonian confronts three more of the big bads from this planet – one a demigod that feels like he comes straight out of Warren Ellis’ recent absolutely crazy mini-series Supergod, another an alien brute controlled by voices he cannot ignore or stop, and the other a mega powerful alien woman who just wants to cut herself but in the process harms everyone around her (an attribute that Waid depicts The Plutonian as sickly enjoying). These conflicts find Waid with the opportunity to take the action a lot of different ways, but the things he has his characters do are both increasingly fitting and artfully violent (I particularly enjoyed what he had The Plutonian do to recover his costume).
That is the interesting thing about this book for me: the title has been growing more and more apt with each passing issue.
And it isn’t just The Plutonian…every character has something innately dark about them. Even the hero everyone agreed was the best of them all ended up selling out countless lifeforms. This book is pitch black, and if you have no problem embracing that and just enjoying Waid’s very well plotted and executed story, then you should be quite liking it still.
This issue does a brilliant job of showing all of that. Because even humanity’s best hope is working with its worst (non former hero) villain, because even Kaitan shares that she isn’t perfect, because The Plutonian continues to make it rain death and destruction across the galaxy, we are given a relatively level playing field in terms of morality and right and wrong, and put into a position in which no one is easy to root for. I find this freeing as a reader – without that, I can just enjoy the character work and the plot for what it is. Remorseless, hopeless and often quite messed up.
The art is a bit of a sore spot for me, as I really do not like putting two artists on any book unless their styles bridge easily. While Peter Krause is obviously a damn good comic booker and Diego Barreto has done a nice job on the book as well, their styles for me have similarities but enough differences that it distracts me a good amount. Granted, they do a good job of separating them in the story so each is telling a different part, but it still removes me from the action when I realize there has been an artist shift.
Continued belowWhile I can’t believe I am saying this because I have greatly enjoyed his work on this book, but I am looking forward to Krause leaving if only because it will allow the book to achieve a level of visual consistency again.
Still, the art is good, but it throws me off. Not enough to bring this book down too much.
Mark Waid’s Irredeemable continues its excellent run, as the book carries on its path of darkness in massively entertaining fashion. I love how far Waid has taken the central plot, and all of the different and surprising ways he has had it feed off into. We know that The Plutonian will be returning to Earth sooner rather than later, perhaps with an army…the only question is what will his encore of destruction be? I for one cannot wait to see what happens next.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Buy
