posted
Mark Waid is no stranger to the darker side of the super-hero genre. He wrote Kingdom Come, a story in which all super-heroes come out looking rather bad, even (perhaps especially) Superman.
He wrote Empire, in which a "big bad" type super-villain finally succeeds in doing it. He kills off all the super-heroes and conquers the world. And he remains in power, still master of everything by the story's end.
Now he's writing Irredeemable, which chronicles the shocking events surrounding the transformation of the world's greatest super-hero into its vilest villain. The first issue was mostly set-up. We see the fragmentary, confused memories of the Plutonian's former teen sidekick, almost but not quite able to recall a key clue as to why his ex-mentor became a monster.
It's been done before. Millions of times. "It's Superman, only he's evil! EVILLLLL!" Ho-hum.
Perhaps Waid realized this. In the second issue he throws out a few curve balls...ones that left me uncertain of where the story is going. Which is all to the good.
Kaidan, one of the sole surviving members of the Plutonian's former super-team has tracked down the woman the media used to call his girlfriend. What follows is a story about how she fell in love with the most powerful man on Earth...then everything went sour. When he reveals to her that he's secretly been the geeky, shy co-worker all this time, holding secrets from her for years...she freaks out. Hurt and angry, she dashes away and blurts out his secret to all their friends. And, well, things get worse from there. Waid has great fun with the fact that less "4-color" people won't react like they traditionally have in all the comics and movies. There actually seems to be some motivation behind the Plutonian's eventual madness.
The issue also introduces the enigmatic Modeus, who in the old days was the Plutonian's arch-nemesis. He doesn't get any lines, but the scenes with him manage to be as creepy as hell.
I've gone from mild interest to officially intrigued. Highly recommended.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I do not read comics generally, but these do all sound good. (Come to think of it, the only things I read at all nowadays are web-comics and web-fiction that appear for free in bite sized chunks. Not sure if that's good or bad)
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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