Irredeemable—Volume 1

irredeemable volume 1 cover review trade paperback tpb
8.0 Overall Score
Story: 8/10
Art: 8/10

Interesting and fun concept

Wish the collection was longer

Comic Info

Comic Name:  Irredeemable

Publisher:  Boom! Studios

Writer:  Mark Waid

Artist:  Peter Krause

# of Issues:  4

Release Date:  2010

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Irredeemable #2

Reprints Irredeemable #1-4 (April 2009-July 2009).  The world’s most powerful superhero the Plutonian has gone bad.  The world now fears him, and no one knows what his next actions will be.  As the world is in fear, the Plutonian’s former teammates led by Qubit must discover a way to defeat their former ally and search for any means possible to stop him…before the Plutonian comes for them!

Written by Mark Waid, Irredeemable—Volume 1 collects the first four issues of the award nominated series and has art by Peter Krause.  The issues in the collection also has been collected as part of a Definitive Edition.

Irredeemable is a fun series in the line of stories like Watchmen or even Squadron Supreme where the twist is the good superhuman character has gone bad.  The Plutonian is an obvious Superman parallel and the character and in the volume, you start to get a bit of the origin of the character.  All that is known about him is that he’s a man named Dan Hartigan who might have come from Wyoming and he had a girlfriend who was a reporter…who in a parody of Lois Lane, did not that the revelation that Dan was really the Plutonian very well.

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Irredeemable #4

The series also shows a lot of potential in this volume.  It becomes obvious that Waid (who I generally find solid but not wildly creative) has a plan for the character and smartly starts to develop subplots other than just having the basic concept of the series.  It would be easy to just have the basic idea and not go anywhere with it, but the story looks like it could have a lot of directions.

I will say that Irredeemable is one of those cases where I hate how it is collected.  This collection has a fair cost of $9.99 and for four issues that isn’t awful, but later collections (also only four issues long) all cost about five dollars more.  This is a rather rip off to the readers even if it is necessary for smaller companies like Boom! to keep competitive in the comic book market (often you can find this series for much cheaper so look around).

Irredeemable is a fun comic, and I look forward to reading more.  Having read Irredeemable—Volume 1, I don’t know where the comic is going to go and that is a good start to a series.  Irredeemable presents an interesting story which soon gained its own spin-off title in Incorruptible Irredeemable—Volume 1 is followed by Irredeemable—Volume 2.

Related Links:

Irredeemable—Volume 2

Irredeemable—Volume 3

Author: JPRoscoe View all posts by
Follow me on Twitter/Instagram/Letterboxd @JPRoscoe76! Loves all things pop-culture especially if it has a bit of a counter-culture twist. Plays video games (basically from the start when a neighbor brought home an Atari 2600), comic loving (for almost 30 years), and a true critic of movies. Enjoys the art house but also isn't afraid to let in one or two popular movies at the same time.

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