Broken Frontier

Mark Waid continues to build his dirty little corner of the superhero universe with the evil glee of a puppet master, and this is issue is just as good as previous entries. Hero turned villain and the “greatest mass murderer in human history,” as the villain Encarta calls him, The Plutonian isn’t seen a lot in this entry, but the repercussions of his actions begin to rear their head.

This is a turning point for this series. It begins with a flashback four years previous, in which The Plutonian (in his good phase) introduced his teammates, The Paradigm, to the world at a press conference, before showing the current incarnation of the team and their fractured state.

One of the members of The Paradigm, Charybdis, learnt recently that his power has now doubled since his twin brother’s death. With that new power came a boldness after a fight last issue which led The Plutonian to flee. Apart from being a sign of possible victory for the team, in this issue it also starts to point to something else; Charybdis’ ever-growing ego, and the dangerous things it causes him to do.

This latest development will surely prove to be a one-step forward, two steps backward scenario for the frustrated members of The Paradigm and I’m curious to see where Waid goes from here. After all, this issue sees The Plutonian show some self-doubt at the corpse of an old ally, while his former teammates delve deeper into the Dark Side. Perhaps the name of this series won’t apply solely to The Plutonian for much longer and that’s both frightening and entertaining. It’s good to see Waid and artist Peter Krause ease the focus on The Plutonian temporarily and bring some of the supporting cast into the spotlight. That’s the mark of Waid’s deft storytelling abilities, as issue after issue showing The Plutonian’s Earth-destroying rampages could only sustain itself for a short time.

Waid reveals that he has a larger plan in mind here and it’s even bolder than the first few issues hinted at. Layers are being constructed, and now with the spin-off series Incorruptible focusing on baddie-turned-goodie Max Daring, it’s becoming obvious that Waid never intended this series to just ride on what could’ve been a mere gimmick in a lesser writer’s hands. Krause’s slightly sketchy style works well for this series and he’s a consistent artist, showing angry and terrified faces with equal skill.

I can’t help also mentioning two things that I noticed in these pages. The cheeky disclaimer reads, “any similarity to actual persons, demons, anti-Christs, aliens, vampires, face-suckers or political figures, whether living, dead or undead, or to any supernatural events is coincidental and unintentional.” I also noticed a visual reference to Dr. Strange (which is fair enough as Waid is currently writing a mini-series about the Marvel character) in one sequence. Not that Irredeemable needs such novelties to be entertaining, but it’s a gentle reminder that despite the initial marketing for this series, Mark Waid isn’t all that evil.