Irredeemable #5 – Review

By: Mark Waid (writer), Peter Krause (Artist), Andrew Dalhouse (Colorist)

The Story: The story opens in Plutonian’s secret fortress, where he takes a disk associated with Modeus, his arch-foe, and uses it to speak to the entire world at once. He doesn’t have a message for the world. He just wants to scare everyone even more. Waid then opens up an old memory of Volt’s, back when he was just starting with the Paradigm, when he noticed something between Plutonian and Bette. And we finally see a flashback that starts to show some of what may be driving Plutonian’s anger. In the meantime, Qubit’s Artifical Intelligences have been working to try to figure out where Modeus has gone, because Qubit figures that to fight Plutonian, they’re going to need better advice. What the AI’s uncover is mysterious and startling at the same time.

What’s Good: Waid and Krause are in fine form and deliver a strong story that sustains the tension of the series. Plutonian continues to fascinate. You can’t look away from a mass murderer, especially when no one can stop him.

I’m really enjoying the Qubit and Volt characters. Qubit is the cold brains archetype, while Volt seems to be the chip-on-his-shoulder, Luke Cage-type. Like in the last issue when Waid knitted together Qubit’s flashback to the present story, this month he does the same with Volt’s. The flashback shows us what Volt used to be like, and the present shows us how he has changed. Qubit’s AI’s are intriguing and I can’t wait to see more of them.

Artwise, Krause just keeps getting stronger. He uses deft, scratchy lines to shadow scenes and alternates between low-detail, broad views where people are parts of the environment, and close-up, expressive faces to show fear, insanity, desperation, overconfidence and distrust. Yet none of this takes away from the dynamic, but realistic poses needed to communicate energy and movement in the comic book medium. I also have to take my hat off to Andrew Dalhouse. Many of the pages bear dominant colors, either in the panels or even outside. Dalhouse effectively signals changes in mood and scene very subtly with this technique.

What’s Not So Good: Waid and Krause are treating us like intelligent readers, so only through strategically-placed flashbacks do we see the back story coming together with its clues. This means that the reader has to do more work to keep up, but the effort is well worth it.

Conclusion: A tightly-plotted story with great art, priced to bring in new readers. Get it while you can.

Grade: B+

-DS Arsenault

Irredeemable #4 – Advanced Review

By Mark Waid (writer), Peter Krause (artist), Andrew Dalhouse (Colorist)

The Story: Qubit starts the story reminiscing about the first time he met the Plutonian five years before, the Superman-like figure who has gone sociopathic. Cut to the present, where Qubit is burying one friend while other heroes turn to him for leadership. They don’t know why Plutonian hasn’t killed them yet. At the United Nations, international politics are reacting to an unstoppable killing machine. As representatives squabble, Plutonian arrives and in the chaos, allows Singapore to make its pitch to ally themselves with him. Plutonian flies away to Singapore to send a message. Qubit and his allies race to Singapore.

What’s Good: Wow. I was blown away. I agree with other reviewers that Irredeemable is a high-concept story. It takes one very simple idea (Superman going sociopathic), but leaves everything else in the same, and then teases out the implications of that one change.

The writing was very solid in this issue. It’s really difficult to create a whole new pantheon of superheroes with their own mythos and history and have it look like more than just pulling stuff out of a hat. Waid has done this and shows the history through the way that the heroes interact. Waid did something realistic here. Furthermore, Waid  effectively made the plot really solid here, through his use of flashbacks. In the scene where Qubit asks Plutonian a question that at the time seemed innocent enough, but five years later, plays a determining role in Singapore, was a memorable and subtle device.

As for the art, Krause brilliantly gets the good job. Krause’s style is scratchy and rough, but that grittiness fits the dark tone of the story. The faces are expressive and therefore memorable at all the intense moments, and the action scenes are well-done, giving the comic the appropriate exciting  quick pace to accompany such a story.

What’s-Not-So-Good: Minor points on the art distracted me at times. Some of the shadowing was heavier than it needed to be and some of the poses were over-dynamic, but again, these were minor points in a very solid offering.

Conclusion: You NEED to be following Irredeemable every month.

Grade: A-

-DS Arsenault