Book Review: Irredeemable Premier Edition Vol. 4 by M. Waid et al.

Irredeemable Premier Edition Volume 4 written by Mark Waid, illustrated by Peter Krause, Diego Barreto, Eduardo Barreto, and Damian Couceiro, colors by Andrew Dalhouse and Zac Atkinson, and letters by Ed Dukeshire

See my review of the last volume here.

After a lot of wild jostling around, the Plutonian's mad rampage has gotten him into an insane asylum in the heart of a star (with the usual "science is magic" explanation for how the prison works). On Earth, former Plutonian ally Survivor is trying to restore order though he has become as monomaniacal as Plutonian. The other heroes reluctantly go along, though they are starting to make plans to deal with him and all the criminals to whom Survivor has promised amnesty if they help fix things.

Plutonian starts an escape, which leads him deeper into the prison planet which gets weirder and weirder. Along the way, he picks up some other prisoners who are aliens and want to escape. Meanwhile, Qubit and Modeus (Plutonian's greatest enemy) have teamed up to find him. Modeus has realized he's in love with Plutonian because being his greatest enemy makes him his greatest admirer (if that really makes any sense). The two manage to teleport to the heart of the prison just as Plutonian's gang arrives. After a brief fight, Plutonian escapes back to Earth while Modeus and Qubit are stranded. Plutonian resumes his mad rampage, now with alien super-criminals on his side.

Survivor has been trying to fix all of Earth's problems and generally failing. The criminals are not good at civic order and harmony. The other heroes' schemes to bring down Survivor are paltry and do not deliver what the Earth needs. Meanwhile, the acting president of the United States meets with some Asian leaders who have their own plan to deal with the return of the Plutonian. They have some super-powerful beings who should be able to bring down the wayward hero. The only cost is a huge nuclear blast that frees those beings, creating a cloud of radiation that will kill a third of the people on the planet.

My misapprehensions about where the story was going once Plutonian was taken off as a prisoner in space have been confirmed. His storyline becomes more or less bat-poop crazy. The revelation of Modeus's affection for the Plutonian also seems forced and false. And there's a surprise twist with Survivor that does not make sense with what has come before, like a murder mystery that brings out a brand-new characters in the last twenty pages who should have appeared much earlier. So many disappointing parts, what happened to the writing?

Not recommended.