I was recently introduced to a wonderful piece of comic book work known as "Irredeemable". A creation of, and written by, Mark Waid, largely drawn by Peter Krause, it's published by BOOM! Studios which also puts out Stan Lee's current creations, many Disney tie-ins, as well as books by Phillip K. Dick, Howard Chaykin, Keith Giffen, Alan Grant, and many more. It's a publisher with a very eccentric line of books from "Darkwing Duck" to "Muppet Sherlock Holmes" to "Irredeemable" and its companion book "Incorruptible". Now I haven't read any of the other titles from this publisher, but just based on subject matter alone, it's safe to say that BOOM! has something for everybody. Which brings me to "Irredeemable"....
The title of this blog is essentially the premise for this series: what would happen if a being as powerful as Superman went nuts? What if Kal El decided he no longer cared about humanity? What if he decided that humanity had to be punished? Whatever visions those statements stir in your mind...that is what happens when The Plutonian reaches those points.
"Absolute power brings with it absolute responsibility. And the pressure Plutonian felt to never make the slightest mistake for fear he'd hurt people and lose their love was incalculable. It finally broke him...and when it did, it unleashed in him a lifetime of pent-up rage and frustration." - "Irredeemable" Special #1
See The Plutonian is a Superman-esque character, but his specific origin is still unknown. Alien? Mutant? Science experiment? At this point it's anyone's guess, but what is known is that he was a foster child passed around from family to family as soon as the parents found out about his powers. Eventually he settled on a name, Daniel Hartigan, and blended.
The story is told from the perspective that Plutonian has already flipped his wig, decimated Earth, and murdered millions. The surviving members of the team he was once a part of, The Paradigm, are left to put together the pieces and figure out just what went wrong with the most powerful man on the planet.
I won't play spoiler for this story because, for something like this, it would completely ruin the moments that dropped my jaw or caused me to utter "holy shit" as I read. That is something I would not want to rob a person of if they know nothing of this story. It wasn't done to me, and it would be unfair to do the same to another unfamiliar reader.
Suffice to say that as this story unfolds, the moments that drive The Plutonian over the edge are completely understandable because, obviously on a much less cosmic scale, I think it's safe to say every person has had a moment where they so completely disappointed themselves or the people depending on them. The question becomes what does one do in that moment? Do you curl up into a ball and cave in? Do you suck it up and solider on? What do you do when something catastrophic happens to your life?
On the other hand, how would you react if everything you do is meant with some level of grumbling disapproval if not disdain? How does a cop feel as he attempts to apprehend a suspect but is greeted with disrespect & taunts from the very people he is trying to help? Is it insecurity that causes the saved to resent the savior? Or does the courage of a man (or superman) risking himself to help others merely point out the failings of those being helped? For example, there is a moment where The Plutonian saves a baseball game under attack from a giant robot, and while the majority cheers, a man with super hearing can pick out the insults and mockery littered throughout. At what point do those jeers become louder than the cheers and become more than a man can handle?
It's these sort of questions that are truly at the heart of "Irredeemable", along with the idea of whether or not someone is ever beyond the point of salvation. For this reader, looking at this character and everything he has done, I find it almost impossible for him to ever be redeemed. He truly lives up to the title of this series, and although there is no one in reality that could ever perpetrate the horrors The Plutonian does, it's almost a necessary question to ask yourself while reading if the same idea crosses over into real life.
Maybe I'm extending the ideas of the series farther than intended, but I think the idea of a person being beyond salvation is something that may pop into your head as well while reading this. Take out the ideas of genocide on a global scale or Irredeemable's own Coast City moment, and minimize it down to a man responsible for multiple homicides or, and I know this is a touchy subject, a sex offender. Our judicial system operates under the idea that man can be rehabilitated, that man can be saved, that someone can pay a penance (be it years in jail or holy confession) and come out a "better" person.
Whether or not that is true...I believe it's something that operates on a case by case basis, there is no simple solution or tidy package in which to wrap up the answers. Every person is different and whatever works for one person, likely won't work for the other. There will always be someone who thinks the offender can be saved, fixed even, and there will always be their counterpart who believes there is no redemption, that some crimes, and their perpetrators, are absolutely unforgiveable.
Both POV's are represented in "Irredeemable" through the various members of The Paradigm, as well as the opportunity to see how the (re)actions of the group play into successive situations. What happens to the psyche of a man who finds a way to stop the unstoppable? What do you do when you find out one stupid moment of weakness unraveled it all?
The questions this book asks of the players on the page, as well the readers, are ones that...at least for me...extended beyond the pages. This series is something highly recommended...something I think I would put on par with the best of Grant Morrison, the best of Geoff Johns, something that has a true resonance to it and...well I will close this with a quote from Grant Morrison's afterword in Volume 1 that really sums it all up...
"...it dares to look directly into the demonic churn of recrimination, fear, entitlement, and rage that drives our media discourse. Its spits venom across the you're-too-thin, too-fat, too-clever, too-stupid, too-old, too-young, too-flawed, too-human black hole of self-loathing judgement that spins at the centre of our culture and threatens to devour us all."
Pick it up here: "Irredeemable" on Amazon
Hello nice blog.
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