- Joined
- Nov 27, 2018
So I took a break from the Legion and blew through irredeemable and incorruptible by Mark Waid.
Irredeemable serves as an interesting enough stab at the edgy superhero comics genre by Waid. Its about a superman Pastiche named the Plutonian who snaps and destroys the city he once protected. Compared to say the comics of Ennis and Millar the story keeps the violence, cursing, sex, and overall disturbing content to a minimum (at least in comparison to other "edgy superhero" books like Millar and Ennis or the Ultimatum or Heroes in Crisis and ect), but still manages to have one shocking thing per issue relying more on high concept ideas and psychologically disturbing moments (my fav comes in issue #5 where the Plutonian threatens everyone live on air and attempts to sow chaos in the population). Unlike other evil Superman stories like The Boys where Homelander was always evil or Injustice where one single moment causes Superman to Snap the Plutonian starts about as truly good and honest superhero who slowly looses it over time until something pushes him over the edge. When the comic diverges from constructing Superman's mythology it isn't as good imo, but the book moves at a steady pace with nearly each of the 37 issues having some major reveal, new plot point, or disturbing relation to make the story always move at a swift pace. It really fleshes out the idea of "what if Superman went mad" to its logical conclusion and pretty much does all it can with plot on its own. Its not perfect and I find the latter part of the series relies to much on byzantine gambits and characters endlessly one upping each other, but I still think its worth a read.
Incorruptible is the spin off of Irredeemable focusing on Max Damage, a villain of the Plutonian who reforms after seeing the Plutonian's rampage. The concept here is okay, the idea of a Super Villain wanting to go good but having no idea how, but in execution its pretty mediocre with some weird plot points. The first big flaw here is that this book is trapped in the shadow of Irredeemable, while Irredeemable is free to have all sorts of major reveals Max damage is stuck just fighting two bit villains in Incorruptible. There is two separate moments where characters in Incorruptible come up with plans to solve problems with the world only for the problems to be solved spontaneously and there is some narration going ("Oh yeah this issue was solved in Irredeemable"). Really the only important thing that happens in Incorruptible is the few issue arc which outlines the origins of Max Damage and the Plutonian. Otherwise the book can be summed up as: Max acts overly strict, characters tell him he doesn't know how to be a hero, Max acts like a hypocrite, characters call him a hypocrite, Max says he doesn't want to be a hero, and then at the end he decides to be a hero anyway with a less strict moral code. The villains he fights are dumb political allegories like a white nationalist gang run by a rich randian senator who created the gang to distract from his power and a libertarian super villain who has gangs attack people who work for free in the apocalypse, derogatively called "hangers". There is also the werid detail of Max being a pedo with an underage sidekick named Jailbait he bangs. At the start of the series he gets his sidekick and is like "I'm sorry I cant sex you anymore I am a good guy I can't be a pedo", but by the end he tells her he's counting down the days till she's 18 so he can fuck her legally and everyone laughs it off. Like Max is a murderer and a pedo yet we are just expected to accept him as a true good guy because he says he is in the last issue. The only positive here is the art by Marcio Takara from like issue 11 onwards its really stylized and kinetic and makes the action scenes pop even when the story is bad.
Irredeemable serves as an interesting enough stab at the edgy superhero comics genre by Waid. Its about a superman Pastiche named the Plutonian who snaps and destroys the city he once protected. Compared to say the comics of Ennis and Millar the story keeps the violence, cursing, sex, and overall disturbing content to a minimum (at least in comparison to other "edgy superhero" books like Millar and Ennis or the Ultimatum or Heroes in Crisis and ect), but still manages to have one shocking thing per issue relying more on high concept ideas and psychologically disturbing moments (my fav comes in issue #5 where the Plutonian threatens everyone live on air and attempts to sow chaos in the population). Unlike other evil Superman stories like The Boys where Homelander was always evil or Injustice where one single moment causes Superman to Snap the Plutonian starts about as truly good and honest superhero who slowly looses it over time until something pushes him over the edge. When the comic diverges from constructing Superman's mythology it isn't as good imo, but the book moves at a steady pace with nearly each of the 37 issues having some major reveal, new plot point, or disturbing relation to make the story always move at a swift pace. It really fleshes out the idea of "what if Superman went mad" to its logical conclusion and pretty much does all it can with plot on its own. Its not perfect and I find the latter part of the series relies to much on byzantine gambits and characters endlessly one upping each other, but I still think its worth a read.
Incorruptible is the spin off of Irredeemable focusing on Max Damage, a villain of the Plutonian who reforms after seeing the Plutonian's rampage. The concept here is okay, the idea of a Super Villain wanting to go good but having no idea how, but in execution its pretty mediocre with some weird plot points. The first big flaw here is that this book is trapped in the shadow of Irredeemable, while Irredeemable is free to have all sorts of major reveals Max damage is stuck just fighting two bit villains in Incorruptible. There is two separate moments where characters in Incorruptible come up with plans to solve problems with the world only for the problems to be solved spontaneously and there is some narration going ("Oh yeah this issue was solved in Irredeemable"). Really the only important thing that happens in Incorruptible is the few issue arc which outlines the origins of Max Damage and the Plutonian. Otherwise the book can be summed up as: Max acts overly strict, characters tell him he doesn't know how to be a hero, Max acts like a hypocrite, characters call him a hypocrite, Max says he doesn't want to be a hero, and then at the end he decides to be a hero anyway with a less strict moral code. The villains he fights are dumb political allegories like a white nationalist gang run by a rich randian senator who created the gang to distract from his power and a libertarian super villain who has gangs attack people who work for free in the apocalypse, derogatively called "hangers". There is also the werid detail of Max being a pedo with an underage sidekick named Jailbait he bangs. At the start of the series he gets his sidekick and is like "I'm sorry I cant sex you anymore I am a good guy I can't be a pedo", but by the end he tells her he's counting down the days till she's 18 so he can fuck her legally and everyone laughs it off. Like Max is a murderer and a pedo yet we are just expected to accept him as a true good guy because he says he is in the last issue. The only positive here is the art by Marcio Takara from like issue 11 onwards its really stylized and kinetic and makes the action scenes pop even when the story is bad.
