ADVANCE REVIEW! Irredeemable #23 will come out on March 9, 2011
Plutonian — still out of his damn mind, and too much for the Vespans to handle — ends up jettisoned to a prison on a sun. Back on Earth, the remaining Paradigm recruit more ex-villains for their cause.
The delicious Irredeemable #23 is just as good as previous issues, if not better than ever. It seems all the plots, subplots and the rest of the weird, extra-super-strange twists going on in this Mark Waid-led dose of sequential awesomeness would have caught up to a weaker writer by now, in a sort of convolution conundrum. It’s amazing to me the adept consistency and ability he has, not only to just get by with all these excessive goings-on, but to excel incredibly at it.
This issue’s initial Plutonian rescue sequence on the surface of a sun reminds me of Ma and Pa Kent finding a helpless Kal-El who fell to Earth. These alien versions bring him home, care for him, and, uh… become, as one alien observer puts it, a new “hump thing” for them.
Did i mention i love this book? What keeps happening in Irredeemable is not a just a series of last-minute Twilight Zone-ish twists, but a continuing trend of just plain original storytelling, which grabs a hold of your mind and twists it all about. As long as it ends as strong as it currently is, there’s no question in my mind that this book eventually will be considered among one of the greats.
Later on, Qubit learns a startling secret (which we don’t learn! Suspense!) about Survivor that may potentially lead to another Plutonian-esque situation. By the end of this issue, the truth about Plutonian’s “prison” is revealed in true “To Be Continued…” fashion.
Wait! Hold everything: I found a flaw in this book! Towards the end, I noticed that Peter Krause gives an alien a left hand instead of a right. Knew it was too good to be true! But seriously, the art is smooth and solid as can be. I’m glad there’s not a revolving door of guest artists — that would take something away from the book. Krause’s artwork and Waid’s script smoosh together perfectly, like peanut butter and jelly.
I experience total glee every month I get to read Irredeemable. I’ve been giving every issue a 4 out of 5, but if this continuing excellence keeps up, I will probably drop this guy a 5-spot until for some godforsaken reason it falls off the map. Knock on wood.