Irredeemable/Incorruptible

Read the final issue of Irredeemable last night. I only started reading this son of a buck (and the spinoff, Incorruptible) a year ago so I don't quite have the same perspective on this thing that someone who was there from the ground floor might.

For those of you who don't know, the basic concept behind Irredeemable...

Mark Waid wrote:The beauty of Superman is that he can deal with that level of adulation without it going to his head, without it warping him, but he's a very special individual. We presume, whenever we write superheroes and we come up with superhero origins, that anybody who gets the powers of a superhero — even if they are like Spider-Man and they've got things they've got to work out that issue and responsibility and power and responsibility — we assume that they eventually have the emotional makeup it takes to overcome these things. Well, what if you gave that level of power to someone who, at heart, didn't have that emotional capability?

Basically, you've got The Plutonian, a sort of Superman archetype. For a long time, he handles being THE superhero among all superheroes capably enough. But then... well, one day he has enough.

And then millions of people die.

So anywho. Read the final issue on Thursday night. I really don't want to spoil things too much but there's a pretty fucking king-sized Superman reference in the final two pages. Clear, unmistakeable and pure Mark Waid. The minute I read the solution to the main conflict of the issue on the fourth or fifth to last page, I kinda wondered that we might get some kind of Superman reference but I wasn't expecting quite what we got.

I'm being vague here to avoid spoilers. It really is worth reading on your own and building up to that moment for yourself.

The final issue of Incorruptible hasn't come out yet (I guess that'll be next week) but I'm looking forward to that one. It's kind of Irredeemable in reverse (ie, a villain becomes a hero) so I'm wondering that Max may have a happy ending.

Well, they're both over now. It's odd. I felt like Irredeemable lost its way after a certain point. But the finale of that book was pretty solid. The final two pages... well, I don't want to get too spoilery here but I suspect they would be very familiar to some of you... partly in a good way and partly in a not so good way.

Incorruptible's final issue came out on Wednesday. Of the two, this had become the stronger and more consistent read. But the final issue... man, it just felt like it was ending with a whimper rather than a bang. Basically the events of the final issue of Irredeemable kind of robbed this book of the drama and punch it could've had. If I'd read the ending of Incorruptible before the ending of Irredeemable, it might've played better. But that ain't how they were released.

Anyway. I still recommend both series to all and sundry. Because, hey, the journey is more important the destination, right?

I think I read the first few issues of 'Irredeemable' last year. Can't say I remember too much about them.

How many issues total have come out?

37.

This is me playing Monday morning quarterback but I think Waid realized that the series wasn't so much an ongoing comic book so much as a really stretched out maxiseries. Early on, the series was really cooking. There came a point though when I think Waid lost direction. If you ever sit down and read the series, I think you'll know it when you get there. At around the time of issue #20, a major character gets kidnapped. You'll know it if/when you get there. From that moment until maybe the last five or six issues of the series, I think Waid just kinda floundered. It was as though he didn't know how to proceed. In some sense, you could argue that the book could've ended there.

Anyway. It's a good series and worth a read (if for no other reason than to see Waid toy with a Superman-meets-Darth Vader thing).

I'll have to see if I kept them on my computer, and to what issue it goes up to.