Irredeemable #3 (Boom! – Waid / Krause)
A comic book industry event: a new original ongoing superhero series from Mark Waid! IRREDEEMABLE dares to ask the question: what if the world’s greatest hero decided to become the world’s greatest villain? Does Plutonion’s past hold the key to his current deadly rampage? Or does it even matter? A “twilight of the superheroes”-style story that examines super-villains from the writer of KINGDOM COME and EMPIRE!
The first two issue of this series blew me away, real “wide-eyed” moments as I started to take in the landscape Waid’s new world. Issue #3 is still good, but not as mind-blowing as I would have hoped. The third issue doesn’t necessarily give us any more hints to the question of “why is the Plutonian now a villain?”, as much as it gives us a little bit more insight into the psyche of the Plutonian.
The best scene, by far, is a group of baddies who have busted into this universe’s version of the Batcave after Batman is dead. They are looking around to find a way to take down the Plutonian and discussing what does it mean to them now that the world’s mightiest being is now a villain, when the man himself shows up. After a small monlogue about an ungreatful world, the Plutonian offers them a deal to join him. Which they decline – too bad for them. But this leaves some wiggle room for the reader as to how much, if any, mercy is still left in the Plutonian’s heart. Like I said – great scene! And also in the issue as an aside, we see the Plutonian forcing a hero and a villainess to dress up and perform sexual fantasies for him while he watches – sort of a WTH moment. This alone doesn’t seem to fit the form that Waid was trying to mold… but we get to see that the Plutonian, while not being human, still has some major issues.
Irredeemable still has me, just not in as much of a deatch grip as it did last month.
Issue grade: Solid B
