Irredeemable #17 – Review

By: Mark Waid (writer), Peter Krause (art), Andrew Dalhouse (colors) & Ed Dukeshire (letters)

The Story: More revelations about why the Plutonian flipped out!

What’s Good: Irredeemable is a difficult comic to review because it is hard to point to specific moments and say, “That was good!”.  You know what was good about this: The whole comic was good.  Mark Waid is just doing a great job of storytelling by NOT telling us everything in the first 3 issues.  He just jumped into the story and has been dolling out background information about the characters ever since such that every issue has some major/minor revelation and you get the sense that he could keep this up for 50 issues.  I’m very excited!

This comic has a LOT going on (without seeming cluttered), but there are two central themes and both work really well.  First, we get to see Cary/Survivor teach the professorial Quibit a nasty lesson with an assistance from a mob of farmers.  Remember how Quibit stopped the heroes from killing the Plutonian a few issues back……well that comes home to roost on Quibit here and I liked his comeuppance and his ultimate explanation for his behavior.

Finally, I really enjoyed that we teased into the relationship between Modeus and the Plutonian.  Every since this series began, Modeus has been teased as the Lex Luthor to Plutoian’s Superman, but we haven’t really learned much about the guy.  Here we see that Modeus has a little bit of the Joker in him too: He’s just a crazy dude causing mayhem and happens to focus his insanity on Plutonian.  We also get a tidbit that Modeus was building Plutonian robots to *ahem* service Modeus sexually.  Yet another example of this series’ bravado.

Through it all, Waid has made Plutonian a very interesting and three dimensional character.  You can really understand almost how the dude snapped: all the expectations of the public, the lack of gratitude and accusations when things went less that perfectly AND being the personal target of a villain who is a combo of Luthor and the Joker would make anyone snap.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

DS’ Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Brightest Day #9 – Brightest Day has been delivering the goods, albeit slowly, and I am still enjoying this series, even knowing that its other readers are dropping it or, like me, chomping at the bit for something more conclusive. That all being said, this is still a series worth watching and #9 is best of the past week.

Most Anticipated: Batman and Robin #14 – It’s a tie between Green Lantern #57 (a male Star Sapphire??) and Batman and Robin #14 (Batman Must Die, part 2 of 3!). Green Lantern is going to push forward Brightest Day, while Batman and Robin have one kickass villain. Both books are armed with great writers and amazing artists!

Other Top Picks: Batman #703, Batgirl #14, Red Robin #16, Daredevil #510, The Thanos Imperative #4, The Green Hornet Strikes #3

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Last Days of American Crime #3 – Not only was this a great issue, it was a great ending to a story.  We’ve all read a lot of stories that started with so much promise, but fell on their face in the final chapter.  Not so here as Rick Remender has created a wonderful crime story with a neat sci-fi hook.  Keep your eyes out for the trade!

Most Anticipated: Daytripper #10 – I am very excited for the final chapter of this great maxi-series from Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon, especially after they started to tie their story of poignant moments in a man’s life together.  Continuing the theme from LDoAC #3…..I will be sooooo disappointed if this falls on its face (but I don’t think it will).

Other picks: Batman & Robin #14, American Vampire #6, X-Men #3, Irredeemable #17, 28 Days Later #14

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Sweet Tooth #13 – In a week that was actually kind of lousy overall, Sweet Tooth was an easy pick.  This wasn’t even a particularly awesome or remarkable issue either, it just didn’t suck, delivering the same consistent quality the book has delivered throughout its run thus far.

Most Anticipated: American Vampire #6 -For me, this is probably the best new series of the year thus far and I can’t wait to see how Snyder will kick off his second arc, particularly now that he’ll be handling the book in its entirety.  Stephen King fan that I am, I actually preferred Snyder’s portions of the first five issue, so I’m expecting this to be absolutely killer.

Other Picks: Batman & Robin #14, Green Lantern #57, Daredevil #510, Invincible Iron Man #30, New Avengers #4, Thor #614