Review: Irredeemable #2

Oh Lois, what have you done now?

The Plutonian is on a rampage, and is killing anyone and everyone in his path.  The question that is on every reader’s mind is, “How did he get this way, what caused him to snap?”  Issue two arrived in stores today, and it gives yet another clue to the mystery of the hero that is now irredeemable.

This issue finds Kaidan, a hero that can channel the spirit of a dead samurai warrior, looking for The Plutonian’s ex-girlfriend.  The remaining heroes of the world believe that she might be the key to finding out what caused him to flip out.  Alana Patel is indeed alive, and living in ground zero of The Plutonian’s original attack.

As she recounts her tale, Mark Waid pulls moments from every major moment in the superhero genre; the girl meeting the hero and falling in love with him, tales of her day job with fellow co-worker Dan Hardigan, and even how The Plutonian’s arch nemesis, Modeus, would bring Plutonian to his knees.  Alana even recounts how co-worker Dan pulled her into the broom closet and asked her to marry him, only to reveal that he indeed was the hero in disguise all along.

Now if this were a Superman issue, Lois would fall into Clark’s arm proclaiming, “Oh Superman, of course I’ll marry you, you big hunk of a man!”  What does Alana do?  She freaks out with the disbelief that Dan/Plutonian has lied to her all these years, and instead of keeping the secret, rushes out and tells her co-workers the big secret in a fit of anger.

The Plutonian does snap, but this isn’t the final straw.  He makes an interesting argument that explores the reason why it is such a big deal that secret identities remain secret.  Sure, those in on the secret may proclaim they’ll keep it close to the chest and not tell a single soul, but can they really?  A few drinks in a person is enough to loosen lips and sink ships, and even a passing, “I’ve got a secret about The Plutonian” would be to get the criminal element performing all sorts of horrors on the person or their family to get the secret.

The Plutonian’s anger is really justified, and is probably the moment when he realizes that his fellow man can’t be trusted at all.  It is the beginning of the end, but not the moment.  The scene is really well written, and it is clear that Waid has spent a great deal of time over the year contemplating the role of the secret identity, and those moments following the big reveal.  Even though these flashbacks seem like they could belong to any popular hero, Waid makes it fresh and works, actually creating a heightened sense of fear in the reader over the fate of the rest of this make believe world.

The art by Peter Krause is solid once again, but it seems his preferred method of aging a character is to draw them exactly the same, only with age lines drawn on.  It’s not a huge issue, but if many years have indeed passed, then I would hope Krause would address that in the art more realistically.

I was concerned that Waid would not be able to carry this as an ongoing series, yet the more we dive into the history of the character, it is easy to see that this series could go easily hit 48 issues simply covering the little moments in history that created the little cracks that eventually build to the huge split.  The story continues to be a strong one, earning Irredeemable #2 a solid 4 out of 5 Stars.