Irredeemable #12 (Boom! – Waid / Krause)
With Modeus at last revealed and standing by Plutonian’s side, the Paradigm–and the world–have no defense against Armageddon! But is this the end? Or only the beginning?
We have been hearing for well over a year Boom’!’s rallying cry that Mark Waid is evil. And honestly, there is no doubt that over the last year, Waid’s Irredeemable has made it’s mark as a “god gone wrong” tale and a 21st century deconstruction of the super hero genre. But, in issue twelve we get two very good reasons to believe that the statement is true and Waid is truly evil… and not the slick, hot “Baroness” type of evil. The first reason comes by the emotional “ickiness” he throws on the reader by his introduction and abuse of the Plutonian’s cognitively disabled step-brother. And the second is his multiple issue re-hashing of the story board and the subsequent fleecing of the fans.
As Waid continues to paint the Plutonian’s picture, it gets darker and darker to the point of being uncomfortable. Sometimes a writer uses big broad strokes of malevolence to show truly how morally corrupt a character is, but here Waid uses a razor blade to bring crystal clear attention to how really messed up the Plutonian is. We know know he has executed whole nation and brought cities to ruin… but somehow that is not nearly as gripping as him leaving his helpless wheelchair-bound, cognitively disabled step-brother to starve to death after murdering his parents in front of him. While I normally don’t shy away from a morbid stories on the edge, this just made me feel unpleasant.
Unfortunately, on top of seeing how morally murky he make a story, we get a totally recycled plot from last ish. No new information at all… yes some fight scenes, yes, some additional dialogue… but nothing really new.
When I get excited and tell people about how enjoyable it is to read the work of Mark Waid’s, this issue falls far from my description.
Issue Grade: D
