Friday, June 26, 2009

Mark Waid's "Irredeemable"

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"Everyone's afraid of their own life
If you could be anything you want
You'd be disappointed, am I right?
No one really knows the one's they love
If you knew everything they thought
I bet that they'd just shut up."

-Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse-
(from the opening lines of the song, "Lives")

That particular piece is off the 2000 album The Moon & Antarctica. Mainstream listeners probably only know Modest Mouse's radio hits, and they really aren't one trick ponies. (I, for one, am pretty upset when people only know my music for just one song.) You can listen to this particular diddly here.

The epigraph relates to what I'll be discussing today. It's something I haven't been able to shut up about for awhile: Mark Waid's "Irredeemable."

There will be spoilers. I already know that most people don't read comics unless if a new superhero movie comes out, in which everyone doesn't shut up about Spider-Man, Batman, or Watchmen. Hopefully you will think differently about comics after reading this as there has been a lot of great literary works that have come out after the first wave of underground comics (Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar) and modern comics (Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and yes, even fuckin' Frank Miller.)

This isn't to say that there isn't a lot of lame comics out there. Some "adult" comics have nothing really mature about them, and are just excuses to show titties and dicks. Superhero books try to be "dark" by unreasonably inserting bizarre love affairs, deaths, and deals with the devil. So, no, not everything is gold, and sometimes you just got to listen to word of mouth. For the most part, that's what I do.

I first found out about Irredeemable from Blair Butler's Fresh Ink Blog. It just sounded like something I would be interested in, and I usually tend to see eye to eye with Blaire. I generally hate comic book bloggers, but she is one of the better ones if solely for the fact that I feel there's a certain level of sincerity, as opposed to other comic book reviewers who try too hard to come off as "cool" or "funny." (Furthermore, she likes The Luna Brothers, Brian K. Vaughn, and Damon Lindelof, and that's always a plus for me.)

What caught me about her words about Irredeemable was that it was a "superhero deconstruction," (I love any literary deconstruction) and that the premise had to do with: "a Superman-esque hero who finally gets tired of being a 'good guy,' and kills everyone."

When I first heard that Irredeemable was written by Mark Waid, my initial reaction was: "What? The guy who wrote Impulse??" Impulse was a series of fun, teenage stories. It was entertaining, but I certainly would not expect the writer to do something such as Irredeemable. Well, needless to say, I was wrong, and I certainly did not know Mark Waid.

I did not know that Mark Waid had written two critically acclaimed works: Kingdom Come and Empire. Kingdom Come dealt with the "ethical price of superheroism," and Empire had to do with what would happen if the super villains had won. In regards to Irredeemable, Waid has stated that it is ""about how the lessons we learn about right and wrong as children can become warped and twisted when challenged by the realities of the adult world" and "how does a man go from being the world’s greatest superhero to its greatest supervillain?"

It was a hunt to find the first issue being as it sold out at most places. I eventually did find it, but it took walking into the comic shop with the worst customer service. (It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?)

Needless to say, I was pretty blown away by it. The beginning to it is pretty nuts. If you'd like to stop and check out what I'm talking about, here's a preview of the first seven pages.

Three issues have been released, and this is the story thus far: "The Plutonian, Earth's most powerful and beloved man, has gone rogue. In recent weeks, millions have died at his hands and entire cities have been lost. Now, his former teammates, the Paradigm, are combing through the Plutonian's past, searching desperately for clues as to why a god has turned evil, what he wants... and if there's any way to stop him."

My favorite panel comes from the first issue. The Plutonian's sidekick, Samsara, recollects when he first met his mentor. It was during a baseball game in which the great superhero defuses a nuclear bomb, saving the lives of everyone in the stadium. Nearly everyone is cheering for the rescue, but you got to consider that The Plutonian has super hearing:

How's that for good character work? Look at his facial expression!

Whereas superhero comics tend to have characters who have big hearts to go along with their powers, Waid has stated that his character does not have the emotional capacity to not let the world get to him. He also pointed out that by classic superhero rules, heroes can't concern themselves with what people think of them. His counterargument to this is: "if you are so far removed as to not care what people think of you, it takes one less step to not care what people think."

This following page should be one of the all-time greatest moments in comic history. Issue #2, features a flashback of when Alana Patel (the Lois Lane of the series) finds out that mild mannered Dan Hartigan is The Plutonian:

She feels that this whole time Dan Hartigan had been laughing behind her back, and that this was all a joke to him. The Plutonian tells her, "You mean everything to me and I'll protect you forever. I swear. Alana, you love me. I showed who I am and you still love me." Alana is freaked out by the whole ordeal and responds with, "Love you? I don't even know you!"

I won't go into detail about the third issue, but all I can say is that the opening pages features probably one of the most disturbing things I've ever read. What happens in the beginning sounds like something you'd hear from your crude, immature friend sharing a story about some porn he just watched.

Regardless, I still feel that Mark Waid's Irredeemable is an intellectual work that everyone should check out. Do I think it's going to end well? I really hope so. I'd hate to see another series with a strong beginning, but a crappy ending.

What I really love about Irredeemable's first three issues is that it is turning out to be the ultimate story about the nice guy going bad. There's the age old theory that a person is only an asshole, because originally he was too much of a good guy. I'm not going to say it's like Christopher Nolan's film "The Dark Knight," in which the character Harvey "Two-Face" Dent had his whole spiel about, "you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain," because whereas Dent always showed signs of being corrupt, flashbacks of the Plutonian portray that he was lovable, dependable, highly logical, friendly, and just had the makings of what you'd expect from your typical "goody, two-shoes" superhero.

But as the more "superhuman" you become, the more disconnected you are from things. The closer you get to godliness, the more people begin to look like statistics and ants. If you've saved the day, and did the right things a billion times, every thing becomes formulaic, and it always hurts the most when you're right, when you want to be wrong. (And believe me, issue three has a part where The Plutonian is unfortunately right about people.)

While I am by no means, a superhero, I can certainly relate to The Plutonian. I'm pretty sure a lot of people can. How many times have you done what you felt was "the right thing," and still have things blow up in your face? You can have all the praise and adulation from everyone, but suppose the one person you love the most was still an unrequited situation? Perhaps you do favors for people, but they don't ever think about checking up on you; all they care about is what else you can do for them. (The characters in the comic are feeling the ramifications of never getting around to knowing who the Plutonian truly was.) You can't be a caring person in this world without being a martyr, and I feel that The Plutionian character has taken all the bullshit that he can, and has pretty much decreed, "fuck it."

The 1986 Alan Moore graphic novel (Irredeemable is loosely inspired by Moore's "Twilight of the Superheroes" concept) Watchmen has a joke involving the clown, Pagliacci:

"Heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, 'Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up. Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor. . . I am Pagliacci."

The Plutonian is probably a lonely guy who has no one to confide in, and nothing can cheer him up.

I'm sure if you read Irredeemable, you'll think that The Plutonian is an asshole, but I feel he's more human than most superheroes.

Irredeemable is published and copyrighted by BOOM! Studios. (2009.)

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