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Posted by Don MacPherson on April 1st, 2009
Irredeemable #1
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Peter Krause
Colors: Andrew Dalhouse
Letters: Ed Dukeshire
Cover artists: John Cassaday/Barry Kitson
Editor: Matt Gagnon
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Price: $3.99 US
While last week’s launch of Boom! Studios line of licensed comics for younger readers was a pivotal moment for the publisher (and by all indications, a successful one), the debut of this new super-hero genre title from editor-in-chief and industry star Mark Waid is clearly important to Boom as well. It’s certainly put a strong promotional push behind it, and it’s even recruited writer Grant Morrison to extol the virtues of Waid and Irredeemable. He lauds Waid as an innovator, dismissing the label of Waid as someone whose sensibilities are mired in the Silver Age of super-heroes. I both agree and disagree with Morrison’s assessment. Yes, there’s more to Mark Waid’s writing than simple love for the comics and characters of yesteryear. But no, Irredeemable doesn’t represent an exciting new vision of the genre. We’ve been down this road before, and that’s OK. I like what Waid offers in this comic, but while it’s dark in tone, it’s not exactly cutting-edge stuff either. Not so far, anyway.
The Plutonian, the world’s most revered and powerful super-hero, has inexplicably turned against his closest friends. The seemingly insane powerhouse has embarked upon a killing spree, murdering his fellow costumed heroes and even their loved ones. Desperate to stay one step ahead of their one-time ally, the remaining heroes gather to share information and to get to the root of the problem. They need to know what’s behind the Plutonian’s bloodthirsty transformation, and to do that, they need to know who the Plutonian really is.
Peter Krause is probably best known as the series artist on Jerry Ordway’s The Power of Shazam!, a DC Comics title that ran from 1995-1999. His work on that title exhibited a strong Ordway influence, and it’s still apparent in his work a decade later. There are also a couple of panels in this issue that put me in mind of the work of the late Curt Swan, the quintessential Superman artist for any era of comics. It’s fitting, given that the central figure in this plot is a twisted interpretation of Superman. The art is a bit brighter than what one might expect, given the harsh tone of the plot, but generally, it serves the story well. I also enjoyed the designs for the various characters. While the Plutonian’s design is fairly standard for the archetype, there seems to be a more inventive approach at play when it comes to the other super-heroes’ looks.
There’s a slight misstep in the script that leads to some confusion and takes the reader out of the story for a moment. After the initial scene featuring the antagonist’s murderous actions against one hero and his family, the story skips ahead with a banner that reads “One week later.” The problem is that the next panel is a flashback to years before. Now, the flashback is a vision and projected memory of one of the heroes in the present, but there’s a disconnect there that really wasn’t necessary.
There’s no shortage of stories about a Superman out of control, driven insane or corrupted, but then again, there’s no shortage of a lot of super-hero plots. Waid’s plot and script handles this particular deconstruction of the super-hero archetype quite well. One could argue that the violence in this story is over the top, that it’s included only for shock value. It’s definitely a sustainable argument, but I don’t agree. The point is that such unlimited power in the hands of a madman would be unimaginably devastating and terrifying. At its heart, Irredeemable really isn’t a super-hero story, but rather an entertaining piece of horror fiction. 7/10
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I’ve been curious about this series ever since it was first announced. If you continue to give it relatively positive reviews like this, I think I’ll check it out in inevitable trade form. I find sometimes, Waid’s stories take a bit of time to get going, but once he gets into a groove, it really picks up.
I see nothing but good things for this series.
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:57 am
This kind of crap is what killed the comics industry. The way to make adult comics is not to infuse juvenile adventure stories with over-the-top gore and sex. And it’s not to say that sex and violence don’t have a place in adult comics. It’s to say that when you put them into a superhero comic, instead of making superheroes more realistic, it makes them infinitely more absurd by comparison.
Once, Superman had a circulation of 1.5 million copies a month. Now Action Comics struggles to sell 50 thousand. Comics like this are why.
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:16 am
Jay wrote:
This kind of crap is what killed the comics industry. The way to make adult comics is not to infuse juvenile adventure stories with over-the-top gore and sex. And it’s not to say that sex and violence don’t have a place in adult comics. It’s to say that when you put them into a superhero comic, instead of making superheroes more realistic, it makes them infinitely more absurd by comparison.
First of all, there are no sex scenes in Irredeemable #1.
Secondly, your argument doesn’t really hold water because you’re generalizing. It’s fine if you don’t like Irredeemable, but to suggest that adult themes have no place in super-hero comics ever — ever! — seems reactionary to me.
What about Watchmen? It’s a comic for adults featuring super-heroes. What about Marvels? What about The Dark Knight Returns? They’re comics fot adults about super-heroes. I’m not suggesting that Irredeemable is in the same ballparks as classic works such as those, but your point is that adult concepts and super-heroes should never be mixed. Take issue with a particular work, fine. But sweeping generalizations and inarticulate phrases such as “this kind of crap” weaken your argument.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
“This kind of crap” is only an expression of my emotion and neither strengthens not weakens my argument. We all engage in sweeping generalizations from time to time. It is what it is.
Creators can put whatever they want into superhero comics, or any comics, and people should buy whatever they like. I don’t believe in censorship.
But when you take superhero comics and make them so a HUGE potential audience that controls a massive amount of disposable income can’t read them due to content concerns, it’s bad for the medium and it’s bad for the market.
It’s why comics, which used to account for one third of all magazine sales in the US are now a tiny niche market. It’s how you go from one and a half million a month to fifty thousand.
I think that Watchmen and the Dark Knight are largely responsible for destroying the comic book industry, so that particular argument doesn’t sway me.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:57 am
Jay wrote:
We all engage in sweeping generalizations from time to time.
True. Doesn’t make it right.
It is what it is.
Yes. It’s a poor approach to debating.
I think that Watchmen and the Dark Knight are largely responsible for destroying the comic book industry, so that particular argument doesn’t sway me.
I understand what you’re trying to say, but your argument is a gross oversimplification. You fail to factor in increased costs and competition. Yes, comics once represented a huge portion of magazine sales, but they also only cost a coin or two at a time when there were no videogames, Internet or 500-channel packages. And those just scratch the surface of what’s transformed comics into a niche market. Besides, comics were already on the decline before Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns came along.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Maybe it will help to explain where I’m coming from. I was not, until recently, a fan of superhero comics. I didn’t get them. I though they were all gore and misogyny. A friend tried to convince me how good comics were by loaning me a copy of the Watchmen trade. Instead of convincing me, it reinforced all the stereotypes I had about comics.
Recently, an older friend at work turned me on to old Spidey and Thor comics and some great DC Presents issues and a bunch of other stuff. And it’s great, great stuff that worked because it wasn’t camp but neither did it take itself too seriously. Almost all of it was published before I was born. Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell happened between then and now. If you can explain it to me, I’d appreciate it.
But I really, strongly don’t think it’s video games and the Internet. How did the manga boom happen then? Manga’s just comics, and man are they selling a lot of those.
I think that parents stopped buying comics for their kids because they stopped trusting the content, and so the major consumer for the product was driven away. To quote the White Stripes, “You can’t take the effect and make it the cause, I didn’t rob a bank because you made up the laws.” Comics became more violent post-Watchmen (something Alan Moore himself acknowledges and seems to regret) and young readers were pushed out. The tonal shift happened first. It did not happen as a response to the dwindling market, it created it.
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I agree that comics have become more “adult.” I use that in quotes because it seems like a comics for adults seems to equal excessive gore, nudity and violence to show that it’s a “mature” comic when it’s any thing but. See also, most anything by Millar, especially Kick-Ass and Wanted.
That’s not to say that there aren’t mature HANDLING of adult themes. Watchmen comes to mind. There is little excessive in what’s on display, a lot of it is muted, shadowed or shown in brief shots (the nudity is a non-issue during the sex/love scenes). The same can be said of other more recent works like Criminal or some Vertigo title (though some of Y: The Last Man and definitely Preacher are excessive sometimes, but still cover some adult themes maturely).
The thing is, yes, Action Comics used to sell 1.5 million a month (which might be an exaggeration), but that was before television grew bigger, movies were still growing and video games were 50 years from being a big market. Entertainment back then was radio and pulp novels and comics were a revolutionary new medium. But they’re not anymore and in fact, it’s a medium that’s struggling to stay relevant in the age of movies that can pull off the same kind of big special effects.
I agree with Don, though. To overgeneralize on ALL superhero comics is ridiculous. At the same time, though, I can see your point. DC Comics, rather than having a new rating for their comics to show that it might be not be safe for kids as the Comic Code states, chooses whether to have the Code on the comic or not. Marvel, at least, has a rating system similar to movies.
Personally, I’m getting a bit tired of SOME superhero books that feel the need to be excessive in the violence (an issue of Terror Titans with two characters having their heads split in half like a melon, the constant decapitations in a lot of Geoff Johns’s works). Comics are rarely for kids anymore, honestly. The target audience are 20s30s or older.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind a new style of rating across the industry, similar to Marvel’s movie-like ratings. At the very least, it would make a writer or artist think twice about depicting ultra-violence scenes (like Black Adam’s execution of Psycho Mask in Infinite Crisis #6, which I still feel was too much).
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Jay wrote:
Recently, an older friend at work turned me on to old Spidey and Thor comics and some great DC Presents issues and a bunch of other stuff. And it’s great, great stuff that worked because it wasn’t camp but neither did it take itself too seriously. Almost all of it was published before I was born. Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell happened between then and now. If you can explain it to me, I’d appreciate it.
I’ll explain it: you’re ignoring specific comics being published today in order to prop up your argument. You said the following over in the comments thread for “Quick Critiques – April 3, 2009″:
Then I read All-Star Superman and am blown away by the genius.
See? There are some super-hero comics that offer what you’re looking for, which flies in the face of your blanket generalization. You might also want to check out the Marvel Adventures line, Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam, Ultimate Spider-Man, the recent Hellcat mini-series, Amazing Spider-Man, The Brave and the Bold (both series) and many others.
April 4th, 2009 at 4:32 am
This argument is ridiculous. E.C. was BY FAR the most successful comic book publisher in the late 40s/early 50s and its comics were nothing but sex and violence. And if parents are that turned off by the “adult” content of modern comics, then why do games shops sell millions of copies of Grand Theft Auto to kids every year?
The direct market was already well in place by the time Watchmen and Dark Knight came out; they had nothing to do with the industry’s decline. Kids don’t read comics because they’ve either never tried ‘em or they’d rather play videogames. It has nothing to do with parental approval.