Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Irredeemable volume 1 by Mark Waid and Peter Kraus ::
by William the Bloody
Imagine you live in a world with superheroes and villain. Imagine the most powerful and beloved hero of all cracking under the pressure, going rogue and killing millions. This transformation from world's greatest hero to most terrifying villain is not the sort of thing to happen overnight, but it happened to The Plutonian. Slowly, over the years of being a fantastic hero, all of the little things started to chip away at his strong beliefs of goodness and that he was doing the best thing with his almost god-like powers. But when you can hear almost what everyone says everywhere due to super-hearing, even in a stadium full of people cheering you there is going to be that one ungrateful jerk who says "show off!" and to him that is the loudest sound of them all. To The Plutonian's allies in superheroing, the change from hero to villain caught them all off guard and they are trying to figure out what went wrong and when , reign in the widespread acts of violence and maybe, just maybe, "save" their old friend in the process. If he doesn't kill them all first.
The Good: I read author Mark Waid's introduction to the paperback collection and he had some interesting thoughts. He mentioned how it's kind of odd that almost every character in a superhero comic who puts on a costume and fights crime also coincidentally is emotionally capable of handling it completely. He wanted to make a character who started out being a great hero but then could not handle the emotional toll and went rogue. As I mentioned, it isn't one singular event that triggers this drastic change; no it is a series of little things over the course of The Plutionians career which make him lose his faith and direction. Imagine someone like Superman only he finds out that Jimmy Oleson has been selling Superman secrets to Lex Luthor and when Lois Lane finds out Superman is really Clark Kent the first thing she does is tell everyone she knows, and on top of these close to home betrayals there is also all of the little things the public does like calling him a show off after disabling a nuclear bomb or being able to tell when people are lying even right to his face. It all adds up to a giant superhero breakdown and he takes it out on the world. The way the story is unfolding is interesting because the emotional collapse of the Plutonian has already happened and millions are dead. We are getting bits and pieces of the old story of The Plutonian in his heyday as the remaining heroes attempt to figure out why The Plutonian cracked and gather what little personal information they have on him to take him down. The art is pretty good. It's not over the top amazing, but it is a professional comic (not self published small timers) and it suitably fits the overall mood of the story. It also does a good job of setting a contrast between the old good-times flashbacks and the present day filled with fear and terror.
The Bad: It was only four comics long, and that was kind of disappointing. When you have a story told like this, through the present looking at the past, I feel it takes longer to tell and so I could have done with at least two more issues in the collected edition. But then, it very well could have been the best "breaking point" in terms of story. There is some sort of weird sex fetish the Plutonian is exhibiting which we really haven't been given enough information about so for now it's just disconcerting to say the least.
Overall, it was very enjoyable. It's new characters in a new comic book world, so to see where it is all going and how it got there feels like there are no limits. When you have a story about an insanely powerful fellow on the rampage the thought of there being no limits is intriguing to say the least. I am definitely going to read more and I thin k any superhero comic fan would, too.
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