REVIEW: Irredeemable #4
Release Date: 1 July 2009
Writer(s): Mark Waid
Artist(s): Peter Krause
Cover(s): John Cassaday and Laura Martin, Dan Panosian, Jeffrey Spokes
Colours: Andrew Dalhouse
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
The Plutonian is now officially a world threat, as far as the USA is concerned. The rest of the world? Well, not so much. As usual, they don’t see eye-to-eye with the good ole US, and things get pretty ugly in a hurry. To be fair, The Plutonian is so far gone, it wouldn’t have mattered if all of humanity put aside their differences, firearms, RPGs, and whatnot, joined hands and started to sing “We Are the World”. Yeah, things are getting bad for the planet as a whole. With The Plutonian starting to set things up for something big, and the Good Guys not seeming to be able to stay alive long enough to save the day, it doesn’t look like things will get better any time soon.
Like with the previous issues, this one starts out with one of the supers (Qubit this time) remembering the first time they met The Plutonian. Like with just about everyone else so far, they meet because he’s saving Qubit’s behind. Being the brains of the operation, he does think to ask Tony an important (and interesting) question: What’s it feel like to have all that power and responsibility? I don’t know why he would think it an embarrassing question in retrospect; the way someone answers that kind of question should say a lot about them. Tony’s non-answer should have been a clue that things weren’t running in the right direction with him, especially after Qubit’s next encounter with Tony. You know, if soaking up various countries around the world wanting to proclaim him their king/emperor and then going to said country and destroying it in a god-like manner didn’t do it.
The Good Guys have a run in with The Plutonian (two more are knocked out of commission), and loads of regular folk are mowed down like plastic toys. Things are so dire, that Qubit finally reveals what he’s been working on this whole time. Holy cow, I did not see that one coming. I mean, clearly, it should have been obvious to me that he was using the Modeus-bots for this purpose, but I was all “What the deuce?!” when I read that last panel. I mean, dude, that doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a good idea in the long run, but with everyone’s back against the wall what choice do you have but to bring out your enemy’s biggest threat and hope you can control him?
The writing and the art continue to be top-notch on this title. I keep drooling all over it every month in my reviews, but it’s really that good of a read. I fly through the issues every month because I’m on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happens next and what kind of cliffhanger Waid is going to leave up on. If not for wanting to see what The Plutonian does next, then it’s definitely worth reading to see what Qubit’s got up his sleeve and how that’s going to work in their favour.
