Saturday, December 10, 2011

Irredeemable #32

Hey there X-Maniacs, X here with a slight change of plans... You see, I was originally planning on posting two reviews tonight, but you know what they say about the best laid plans... So instead of two reviews, it'll only be one review for tonight. However, that actually sets up the rest of the week rather nicely, so here's what my posting schedule SHOULD look like for the next few days... Sunday: Hellblazer Annual #1 & Fear Itself: The Fearless #4, Monday: X-Men #22 & Villains for Hire #1, Tuesday: Teen Titans #2 & Teen Titans #3. And that'll bring us to Wednesday and New Comic Day, which, after taking a sneak peek at the books coming out next week, should be FANTASTIC! So there ya go, that's what the next few days should look like here at the blog. For now though, here's tonight's post.

Irredeemable #32:

What Happened: Last issue the Plutonian's “parents” arrived on the scene and captured him, this issue we learn more... WAY more. The Plutonian's parents, gigantic energy beings, after having seen what their “son” had done to the Earth, decide to take him to the end of time and leave him there, knowing that would FINALLY end the Plutonian's reign of terror. However, before freezing to death, the Plutonian asks his parents to tell him of his creation, since he had never known where he came from. The Plutonian's parents agree to this final request, and the Plutonian simply smirks... Uh-oh... The Plutonian's parents were other-dimensional beings who were assigned to watch the Earth, since all of their “people” traveled to different times/dimensions/worlds and observed them. Upon reaching Earth, the Plutonian's parents were so enthralled by the humans they combined their energies and sent out a probe to experience all of humanity's complex emotions. The probe wound up being drawn to a nearby woman who was driven by one desire, to have a child. The probe, responding to the woman's strong will, transformed into an infant and appeared in the woman's arms, thus the Plutonian was born. Unfortunately, the reason the woman wanted a baby so badly was because she had killed her first baby in a fit of madness... Yep, the Plutonian's Earth mom was a nutcase! The woman's madness would occasionally manifest itself and she would try to murder the Plutonian in various ways(feeding him rat poison, setting him ablaze, etc). One day the crazy woman went to her car, turned it on and put a hose from the exhaust into the window and sat inside with the Plutonian, figuring that would kill him. Instead it killed her and the Plutonian was rescued and put into foster care where he terrorized many families who couldn't deal with a super-strong baby. From there the Plutonian's parents ask him about his earliest memory and he tells them about the time he lived alone in the woods, just wanting to stay away from others. One day some teenager went searching for the Plutonian, who the locals thought was an urban legend named the “Wolf Boy”. Plutonian spotted the teen sneaking around and grew enraged by him, seeing in the teen all of the foster families who abandoned him, and callously murdered the teenager. After committing his first murder, the young Plutonian felt terrible shame and flew to a church where he was adopted by another family. It's at this point that the Plutonian realizes why he feels no real compassion for others and seemingly has no real moral compass, because he was formed in the image of a mentally unbalanced woman. Plutonian rails against his real parents for allowing that to happen and the Plutonian's parents realize that while they were initially controlling their trip through time, it seems that the Plutonian had been leading his parents through the last few flashbacks...

The Good: 32 issues in and we FINALLY learn about the Plutonian's origin. And you know what? It was REALLY different and interesting. So kudos to Mark Waid for that. I never once became bored reading this issue. It was a relatively lengthy read(there was a lot of narrative to read through), but I wouldn't call any of it boring. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the Plutonian's formative years, and now understand why he became the asshole he is.

The Bad: The Plutonian's energy parents should have just left him at the end of time! It was a fitting end for one of the greatest mass murderers in comicdom... Since the Plutonian's parents seem to be so powerful, and can obviously travel through space and time, I don't get why they asked him what his earliest memory was... If they wanted to know you'd think they'd have simply took a look without him around/already knew.

The Verdict: I enjoyed reading this comic book a lot. I mean I literally have ZERO idea how Waid is going to end this storyline... Logically, it HAS to end with the Plutonian's parents dropping him off back at the end of time, but doing that would kill the Plutonian, and as satisfying as that event would be to read, it would also mean the end of this series... So in other words, the Plutonian has to figure out a way to outsmart his parents, thus returning to Earth AGAIN. For me, there's only one way this story can end in an acceptable fashion(hint: the Plutonian dies!), I can't wait to see what tricks Waid has up his sleeves to tie this one up.

Score: 9 out of 10.Well, that explains why the Plutonian is such an insane mess...

5 comments:

  1. Speaking of personnal mess there, my personnal "Fuck you." to uncanny x-force or whatever Marvel is doing with this guy now

    http://devilkais.deviantart.com/art/Why-Bishop-and-Nate-Grey-are-unsung-heroes-273339638

    They 'd better remember who saved them from that reality

    http://devilkais.deviantart.com/art/SPOTLIGHT-X-man-273322511

    a handful for the road & YES I was inspired by Rob Zombie's halloween to draw that version of Nate

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  2. A Nate spotlight?! You KNOW I'm there, Saidi! :D Naturally I liked 'em all(you really draw an awesome Nate), but my fav was Kid Nate(X-Man #-1). He was absoltuely perfect. You know, I haven't read All Saint's Day in ages, next time I do some retro-reviews that's DEFINITELY getting a reread.

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  3. Honored that you liked it! All saints day felt nice since the moment you see Nate playing Basket with a kid who's clinically at death's door, you can say SHUT UP to anyone who says he's an unlikable dude. Sure he's a loner but he's good-hearted (even though prone to cause destruction whenever needed...) The best solo Nate issue for me is the one where
    I drew Kid Nate to remind people how scary Nate can be! He even made Sinister uneasy with a stare,hell that creepy “I’m going to put a chainsaw up your ass” stare!
    the tricky thing is that I have to retain the distinctive facial feature to differentiate everyone. Hell even twins should have proper features, I always give Cable a no-nonsense expression while Stryfe should have some manic glee. Gambit for me should not look too pretty, his face is pretty normal but all his charm comes from a mischievious shady expression. As for my take on Nate, yeah he's a shaman but I wanted him to look like a doormat to infiltrate the darkest corners of District X & not look too out there, after all he works best when dealing with situations no one would expect, & you know I prefer a ruthless Nate (read AOA or shaman take) to the tame version of DXM (only page I liked was his reaction to Quesada's Marvel, & I'd pay for a MAX version where he goes Mortal Kombat on the Fraud Avengers, & I don't need to precise how he deals the fatalities...
    My take on Jean will come soon,I just need to find a theme song but keep in mind that her absence is a completely different reason (hey my continuity & all that!) from the BS of here comes tomorrow. As for Emma , since you know my deep love for the real one , her spotlight is coming soon but let's say that the perfect iteration of future Emma is a mix between the Gen X & version & Agent L from M.I.B cartoon ( I really think Jennifer Lien stoic voice fits the character..).

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  4. Read Bru's Cap America , much as I love his Red Skull & his Bucky (for that , it's undeniable that HE MADE James Barnes!) & as I dislike his Batman (he writes him WAY too much as Bat-Jerk, he Doesn't capture the nuances of the dark knight that well) & as I hate his x-men stint (then again it is M-Day & I'm gone already BUT his reaction about fans asking for Cyclops to grief for his father Corsair was just plain rude, he basically said write your own fanfic for that. ya know dissing readers aint a good idea & hey ED, I do so & X-cutioner Song is STILL a fucking awesome story so up yours). His Cap run is excellent up until issue 21, the gangrene known as CW came , & unlike C& D which I could mostly save with photoshop & altering the issues order, I could not do nothing for the follow up. Sure the Skull plan was cool but try eating a steak injected with shoe wax... anyway the best issue was the Death of Jack (FUCK DO I MISS NOMAD....) & the best arc was the Winter Soldier, then again since Disassembled CW & HOM never happened for me, well I still left Bucky on the loose & Johann in Luskin's body, Now I may later draw a different ending & a different reason for Bucky to become Cap (well not so different but a bit more... FINAL...)

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  5. I'd definitely agree and say that the best issue of X-Man that Terry Kavanagh ever wrote was that -1 issue, Saidi. I've been very vocal about my dislike about Kavanagh's X-Man run(besides the obvious, it sucked, Nate swapping spit with the clone of his mother was just plain creepy), but that issue worked, possibly because of the art. And just so you know, I'd buy 2 copies of an X-Man MAX mini-series where Nate just wanders around destroying everything that was wrong with Marvel post-House of M. I'll def be interested to see what you do with Emma, I mean really, ANYTHING you do HAS to be better than what Marvel has done to her since Gen X.

    The Cap series was def hurt by Civil War, no doubt about that. There were a few post-CW issues that were pretty good though, especially the ones where Bucky decides to murder Tony Stark for his role in Cap's "death". Seeing as that I HATED Tony back then, I loved seeing Bucky mess him up, armor and all. Much like Dick Grayson's Batman run, I actually enjoyed Bucky's Cap run. We all knew Steve(and Bruce) would be getting their mantle back eventually, but it was fun while it lasted. It's funny that you mention the Nomad issue, because I convinced a fellow comic fan to give the Cap series a shot, and even though they hadn't read anything else with Nomad in it, they became a huge fan of the character. That says a lot about how great that issue was. I still say Bucky should have taken up the Nomad name, it's better than using the name the Soviets forced him to have, and would be a nice way to honor Jack.

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