Comic Review: Irredeemable #3

REVIEW: Irredeemable #3
Release Date: 3 June 2009
Creator/Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Peter Krause
Covers: John Cassaday with Laura Martin, Dan Panosian, Jeffrey Spokes
Colours: Andrew Dalhouse
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Publisher: BOOM! Studios

Once, The Plutonian was the world’s greatest superhero. Now, he’s the world’s greatest threat. Dudes, the world is in it neck deep now that he’s decided hero stuff isn’t as fulfilling as he would like it to be. Can the remaining members of Paradigm stop him before he destroys the entire planet? I’m thinking no so far, but here’s hoping they can pull some Old Time Hockey out at the last minute and save everyone.

We’re back in the present time for this issue, and things are just getting weirder and weirder as far as The Plutonian goes. In issue #2, we saw that Tony (that’s short for “Plutonian”) had a love of his life, who coldly humiliated him, and a group of friends who may not have known him well but looked up to him. In this issue, this guy gets scary. Not like a cheap scare where you laugh after you jump out of your seat. Nope, Tony’s shaping up to have officially cracked and turned into a full-on Psycho Killer type. With sexual issues. The kind of scary that makes you puke in your mouth a little because it’s just off putting.

Awk-ward. And that’s right at the beginning, too! I felt for Tony in the last issue, but in this one I think the guy’s a straight up freak. That little tear at the end of this strange Live Sex Show didn’t get back any sympathy from me. 1. The dude is forcing these two people to have sex in front of him, telling them what to say, and 2. The chick wasn’t even playing Alana, she was playing one of his teammates! I don’t know why that would have made this better, but I was thrown off by it for sure. The best part about this, and maybe what makes it most effective, is that you never see Tony physically forcing these people to play this scenario out for him, nor do you see what happens when they finish. Yes, he’s imposing, lording over the couple, but most of the threat is implied instead of blatantly shown to us.

One of the other questions that I had when I started reading this series was, is The Plutonian really a super villain now? As in, is he going to join up with the rest of the city’s villains? I’m pretty sure that question was answered in a BIG way by the end of this issue. Two more deaths are implied (it’s the comics, no one’s ever really dead), and I was surprisingly bummed out by them. I mean, it’s only issue 3; I hadn’t expected to have any kind of connection with the characters so fast.

If you’re all in the same boat as I am (using what little money you have left after bills to buy comics instead of, you know, food), I would highly suggest you pick this series up. It’s definitely a floppy worth buying every month, and it’s an on-going series that’s just started so you won’t have to drop loads of money to buy back issues (or wait forever for the trades). Everything about this title is aces and Mark Waid continues to explode my brain with it.