Completely Self-absorbed Top 100 Comic Runs You Need to Read

[Colin YNWA]

Chart run down 133 - 120

For some reason I had the 90s TOTP music running in my head as I typed that not the 80s or even 70s chart rundown music... I blame BBC 4's repeats of TOTP for that!

Anyway I'm going to pop an occasional post of the list to date on here for easy reference ... cos I know folks will be returning to this as an essential comics reference for years to come... ahem... they will... honest...

ANYWAY.

133 - Copperhead

132 - Nexus

131 - Shade the Changing Man

130 - Orbital

129 - Nowhere Men

128 - Gotham Central

127 - Giant Days

126 - Avengers by Roger Stern and John Buscema (and Tom Palmer)

125 - Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev

124 - Lazarus

123 - Fatale

122 - Dan Dare by Garth Ennis

121 - Bat Lash by Nick Cardy and Sergio Argones

120 - The Li'l Depressed Boy

NOT ON THE LIST

Saga

[Fortnight]

Even though I've not even heard of 86.66^r% of these titles, this thread has been an excellent read! I've got at least Orbital on my list of things to find in the future (once I get through the acres of comics I already have and the gamebooks and the regular books I'm always reading :)

[Colin YNWA]

Even though I've not even heard of 86.66^r% of these titles, this thread has been an excellent read! I've got at least Orbital on my list of things to find in the future (once I get through the acres of comics I already have and the gamebooks and the regular books I'm always reading :)

Cool Beans - thanks Fortnight. Loving chatting away on your thread too. I promise if you keep read those comics you have a load more will appear... just some might be a while yet!

[Colin YNWA]

Number 118 - Johnny Red

Keywords: World War II, Battle, Formative, Boys own adventure

Creators:
Writer - Tom Tully (and others apparently but...)
Art - Joe Colquhoun, John Cooper (and Carlos Pino apparently, but...)
Colours - All in that lovely black and white so no colour here.

Publisher: IPC, now owned by Rebellions but I'm really talking about the Titan reprints

No. issues: Not sure to be honest, there are however 4 lovely hardcover collections from Titan as mentioned above which cover the first couple of years.

Date of Publication: Originally 1977 - 1987

Last read: 2016

There are certain comics that form cornerstones of your memories of reading comics as a young kid. However well or otherwise they hold up to the modern eye with an objective view they remain endlessly enjoyable to you ... well in most cases The Sarge didn't make this list as in re-read I didn't enjoy it half as much as I remember. A number of these that do hold up will appear on this list as we go on and the first to appear is


Copyright - Rebellion these days

So we all know Johnny Red right, particularly since his adventures also appear to be a cornerstone of Garth Ennis' childhood reading and as such he appears more than any other Battle (or Battle Action) character in the Treasury's ongoing and increasingly fantastic revival of British comic classics. The story centres around Johnny Redburn, a cook onboard an arctic convoy vessel. When his convoy is attacked he takes to the 'catapult' Hurricane fighter on the ship he serves on, resisting attempts to stop him.

Flung into aerial combat, he could fly the plane as he'd trained with the RAF before being kicked out, he saves the day but must then flee as he knows he'll be court marshalled for his actions. He flees to Russia, crash lands and before you know it he's flying and saving the day countless more times with the Falcon Squadron, within the Russian Air Force. It's real boy's own stuff.


Copyright - Rebellion these days

I read Johnny Red in my brother's copies of Battle (hi Robin), it started when I was 3 years old, I'm not sure if we got it then, I think it might be later in the run as I'll return to. If I'm honest I can't remember too much about those early experiences or those comics. Except to say that there are images from the stories burnt into my mind. There is also a distinct impression that these comics mattered to me an immense amount. Most of this review will be based on having read these stories in the four Titan hardcovers releases between 2010 and 2016 and I'll not really go much beyond those, except in the vague terms of the impact of those early reading (or I imagine at first just looking at the pictures!) experiences left on me.

It can be all too easy when doing a list like this to just throw things on because they feel so formative, but from those more recent readings I'm going to try to work out quite why they had such an impact and why therefore these stories make the list. What made them so good then, that they still impact on me now? Stories that if I'm honest if I read them for the first time today I'd find very of their time and while I'd enjoy the craft wouldn't, possibly, get too much from them, certainly not enough to get onto this list.

Nostalgia of course plays a big part of that. I remember loving this strip and so they can throw a warm blanket around me when I revisit them. That's too simplistic though. I think stories of this type that make this list do more. They've shaped the way I approach imaginative fiction in any medium to the extent that I still see them as great comics now, however much I see their problems. They have built the foundations of what I look for in story and I still see those fundamental elements so clearly today. So what are those elements?


Copyright - Rebellion these days

Well since I suspect when I first saw Johnny Red I was just looking at the pictures let's talk about the art. Johnny Red is synonymous with two artists Joe Colquhoun and John Cooper. The Titan volumes are mainly drawn by Colquhorn and that disappointed me so much and I was so relieved when we eventually got to the fourth volume which showcases John Cooper's art... okay, okay that statement clearly requires a LOT of qualification. Joe Colquhoun's art is astonishingly good on the series. He's simply magnificent. For all the energy, dynamism and meticulously realised hardware he most importantly nails the human horror of war with a power that few others, if any, have ever bettered.

John Cooper picks up those traits and runs with them. His work, certainly in his early time on the strip when he's taken over, is very influenced by Colquhoun and feels tighter than his work on say 'One-eyed Jack'. To be very straightforward he's not as good as Colquhoun objectively, but his work just feels right to me on this series. He's a perfect fit because I assume of those early impacts his art had on my forming brain. I do wonder if I read many of the Colquhoun stories as a kid, certainly it's John Cooper's art I see when I reflect back.

It's more than just that though the art of both feels so real. The war they portray feels so scruffy and dirty. Everything feels covered in oil, mud. The filth of war permeates far deeper than outward appearances though. It's etched on characters' faces, subtly carried in their broken body language. It fills every corner of the world and the people forced to inhabit that brutal world. Growing up in the 70s that was how the world looked to me. It was dirty and broken so this felt right. We were also starting to be exposed to a more honest view of the brutalities of war but rarely was it presented so clearly then in comics like Battle.


Copyright - Rebellion these days (not my original art alas!)

Secondly the 'boy's' own high paced adventure action starts to be tempered by ongoing long plots and subplots that build and develop genuine tension. The stories themselves stand up today for their craft regardless of how naive they may seem at times.

The high paced action really works for this strip; it doesn't feel rushed and compacted to the modern eye... well okay it does a bit, but it still works. Johnny and the Falcon Squadron's life is lived in quick bursts of fast moving action and the 3 to 4 page weekly instalments force that to the fore. The fighters go on these missions at high speed, cutting through the air and when they enter combat it is quick, brutal and finishes with sudden deadly accuracy. So unlike a lot of strips of the time the compressed storytelling really works to enhance the tales, not compromise them.

Add to that Johnny Red builds longer running stories that keep you hanging. They go on these high octane missions and flights but know they will return to have to deal with the evil squadron leader, or evade the secret police when they are back at base. The characters seem to develop and grow over time and actions have real consequence. Johnny Red is one of the first, if not the first UK strips that handles that balance masterfully. I'm not Tom Tully's biggest fan. Much of his 2000ad work doesn't quite get that balancing act right for me and in 2000ad his work does feel old to my modern eye. Here though he nails it. The stories, both plots and subplots working together to drive you along. To make things feel driven and breathless, but also grounded and 'real'.


Copyright - Rebellion these days (not my original art alas!)

I'm going on way too much about this now, so the final thing to reflect on is the characters. I love these characters. Johnny 'Red' Redburn himself is just so damned cool, then and now regardless of nostalgia. He's a tough, rugged anti-hero, then so at odds with the norms I came to expect, now so in keeping with characters I love. He's rough around the edges, coarse even, but under that brash exterior is a heart of gold (cliche maybe but it's hard not to love him). He has a strength and determination to not only fight hard, but to fight for the right things however difficult that may be. He pushes back against authority, when authority is wrong, with a braveness I've admired since I was a kid, and I do now, though I lack to the extent that Johnny has it. He's to be admired, even if I can't quite live up to him. The type of hero I'd not really seen as a child, and the type of hero I love in fiction to this day. Heck he's Han Solo flying a propeller plane... except harder... and cooler.

Heck he's from Liverpool too and that's always been cool and I didn't see that as a kid*, heroes from working class cities like my own Liverpool (well I'm Wirral but...) so I thought that made him even cooler. He was even a Liverpool fan to boot!**

So yeah there's Johnny himself but there's also a cast of fantastic supporting characters as well. From the Falcon Squadron, Yakob, a bear of a man being the standout, but others come and go. Nina Petrova and the Angels of Death - I mean a girl in my comic yuck... but okay she was kinda a cool girl... but NOOooo I didn't want to kiss her or anything.... The villains might have been a bit moustache twirling but they did it so well and the Russian military leaders seemed as much of a threat to Johnny as any German pilot, which spoke to a boy hearing tales of his dad's bosses. They all felt so real, like folks on my street at home. They all feel like characters, however simplified, I can translate as real now. It's a fantastic set up.

Add to that real situations from World War II which I was starting to understand and learn about, largely from my older brother and it's a period that I have a grim fascination with to this day. Everything about the series felt built for me, or in part build me, or the way I approach fiction at least, and those foundations still work and translate into a strip that works for the reader that has grown from those foundations. We could discuss cause and effect here, but there's little need. Whatever early paths these laid in my route to being a massive comics nerd today, whatever building blocks they laid to how I would engage with imaginative fiction in all media, however much that anti-authoritation streak reflected the life I was being brought up in, well that doesn't matter. What matters is the craft on display here is superb and nostalgia is weak in and of itself, nostalgia with great storytelling and art, when that's a powerful and potent mixture that helps us understand who and what we are and what we love today.

*I did always wonder how come you never saw the train station on Lime Street where the Leopard lived!

**Well he wasn't explicitly but come in it's all there, surely...


Copyright - Rebellion these days

Where to find it

As said this is all really based in the four Hardcover volumes from Titan published between 2012 and 2016. I'm not aware of these being available digitally yet alas.

I reckon you can get that second volume in the aftermarket easily enough. Or just wait for Rebellion to think enough time has passed and they can start reprinting his stories.

I will go off track here and note that thanks largely to Garth Ennis' love of the character he's making quite a comeback. There's a collection of Titan's 8 issue mini-series written by Ennis and drawn by Keith Burns in 2016.

Johnny Red also appears in a host of Rebellion's Battle Action publications, with more on the way. I'll link to the Battle Action 2022 special but there are others and these are available digitally and the more we buy um the more Johnny Red we'll get!

Learn more

Obligatory Wikipedia page

The smarter Colin has a really good write up of the first volume on his excellent 'To busy thinking about my comics.' blog.

A short interview short interview with John Cooper on the sadly abandoned (I think) Johnny Red Fan Page.

Down the Tubes has lots of different things if you follow this tagged link and scroll down. Including reviews of the volumes I've discussed here.

[broodblik]

My favorite Battle character, wish Rebellion can do a similar collection to the Charley's War collection.

[Le Fink]

Thanks for another great write-up Colin - your love for this one really shines through. It's not too long a write-up - make 'em longer! It wouldn't have the nostalgia factor for me so I'll not be massively seeking it out but that art looks bloody good so if I happen upon it I'll certainly give it a look. When I was a kid it was the beano, dandy, whizzer and chips, no war comics, alas. Clearly I missed out!

[Colin YNWA]

My favorite Battle character, wish Rebellion can do a similar collection to the Charley's War collection.

I reckon we'll get there when the schedule allows. Then we'll have the dilemma I had with Charley's War as to whether to replace the hardcovers with the new editions.

Thanks for another great write-up Colin - your love for this one really shines through. It's not too long a write-up - make 'em longer! It wouldn't have the nostalgia factor for me so I'll not be massively seeking it out but that art looks bloody good so if I happen upon it I'll certainly give it a look. When I was a kid it was the beano, dandy, whizzer and chips, no war comics, alas. Clearly I missed out!

I mean any one could do worse things with two quid burning a hole in their pocket!

[I, Cosh]

A truly marvellous thread Colin.

I don't know how you can write them so quickly that i don't even have time to comment in between.

I didn't realise Nina Petrova was in the original Johnny Red stories. I assumed it was Garth doing a sort of stealth crossover with his Night Witches stories.

[Colin YNWA]

...I don't know how you can write them so quickly that i don't even have time to comment in between....

Well I tend to find not worrying about good spelling and grammar, sentence structure and whether what I write makes a jot of sense to anyone else is a real time saver!

BRILL to see you here Pete. Don't see enough of you these days. Keep your eyes peeled you get name checked soon in a post coming up in the none to distant future!

[Fortnight]

Johnny Red was one of the big stories from Battle that I only knew about once Battle got absorbed into Eagle, and since that happened after I stopped getting Eagle as a kid, I only knew about it as an adult when I decided to buy up all the issues I'd missed both during and after I'd stopped getting it.

Unlike Charley's War, which I did read in Eagle once I'd finished collecting it, I only sort of skimmed through Johnny Red. I bought the Rebellion volumes and read those, but I didn't have the same enthusiasm for JR. Colin's enthusiasm as spurred me to add it to my list. Maybe I'll get the Titan volumes, or (since I've got plenty to read right now) I'll wait and see if Johnny is given the same treatment as Charlie by the time I'm stuck for something to read. In 2044.

[Colin YNWA]

Well slight delay due to X-Mas but I'm nothing if not relentless so onwards with go with one I suspect would be quiet regardless of when I posted it!



Number 117 - Hourman - Tom Peyer amd Rags Morales

Keywords: Grant Morrison, hidden gem, mainstream, superheroes

Creators:
Writer - Tom Peyer
Art - Rags Morales (mainly a few fill ins here and there)
Colours - John Kalisz

Publisher: DC Comics

No. issues: 25
Date of Publication: 1999 - 2001

Last read: 2013

As the cliche goes, everyone has their 15 minutes of fame, so there's an opening for the fact that Hourman gets well... you can do that yourself... except it's barely true. This comic is the very definition of a hidden gem but one that's worth hunting for if you like leftfield superhero comics.


Copyright - DC Comics

In the late 90s Grant Morrison was a big name at DC, arguably the biggest and he created a new version of the classic hero Hourman during his JLA run. He wrote a short synopthesis for a possible ongoing series that was given to Tom Peyer who took that and exploded it into a magnificent, self contained 25 issue run.

The story focuses on Matthew Tyler the aforementioned new Hourman, an android from the 853rd Century cast back to the 20th (and then 21st, it was that time) century and his relationship with the world around him, legacy and time itself. He meets Snapper Carr - as Rick Jones is to the Avengers so Snapper Carr is to Justice League America... only less well remembered I think - at the Happy Harbor Coffeehouse. The two bond and together explore who and what they are. The events that have shaped them and the impacts those events have had on them emotionally, and in Snapper's case physically often. Oh but it's funny as well, very funny and it balances its different tones incredibly well, and naturally. Just like life at times it can be flippant and amusing, at times heartbreaking and sad. Just like life it always feels a bit of a roller coaster.


Copyright - DC Comics

When I reflect on this comic I really think about it being set so often in that small town coffee shop. I honestly don't think that happens all that often, the characters are cast through time and space, exploring many astonishing things and ideas, but it's indicative of the tone and feel of the comic. It feels grounded with real characters trying to deal with life and its consequences, just in hyper-realised superhero comic book ways. At one point (and it's been a while so excuse any errors in the specifics here) the Happy Harbour is literally attacked by demons haunting Snapper Carr.

In that sentence alone you get a good sense of how the series plays out. It could have been just an odd couple goof ball comic. Hourman is superhumanly intelligent, yet naive and childlike, lacking any experience to help him cope in the real world. Snapper has seen it all, lived a life and is now pretty broken, but worldly. Playing off those characters against the silver age fun and imagination that they encounter would have been fine and fun... but it's not that... well it is but it's much more.


Copyright - DC Comics

The idea of an android, or other form of artificial human or alien trying to learn how to cope in the 'real' world, teaming-up up for a world weary friend who guides them while smiling at their difficulty in ordering coffee is an old well worn path. Rarely though has the trope been handled with such aplomb and maybe even depth.

The story is as much about Snapper Carr's growth and 'journey' (yuck) as he copes with his guilt for past actions. He famously betrayed the Justice League back in the day when folks wanted to write him out of the series, he has a failed marriage - which we'll come back to. Snapper is damaged and even at times depressed and his struggles and the growth Hourman helps him with is actually more interesting. The two are an odd couple but it slides around the cliche and finds new territory to explore and ways to explore it. Tom Peyer crafts a fantastic tale of two people trying to adjust to their lives and find redemption.


Copyright - DC Comics

That might have been enough in itself to carry the series, but there is a cast of supporting characters that elevate things further. Bethany Snapper's ex-wife develops a romantic relationship with Hourman, and while she may be drawn as an example of 90s cheesecake, she is fantastic and adds so much to the series and has her own well developed 'story-arc' across the 25 issues. Legacy is explored with Rick Tyler, the original Hourman and his family as he nears the end of his life. Tomorrow Woman, another android, created to battle the Justice League, has a wonderful and powerful story. Even lesser characters who fill the pages feel complete and well developed and all add to the tapestry the series weaves.

Possibly most impressively is the way the villains, and don't lose sight of the fact this is a superhero comic with lots of that kinda things, super-villains that is, are brilliantly handled. Amazo, another android created to battle the Justice League (this time in the silver-age) is a recurring villain, but here he too is trying to discover himself and understand who and what they are beyond a construct designed to destroy. There is work with other classic villains as well. Professor Ivo, evil genius type who originally created Amazo and T.O. Morrow, the evil genius type who originally created Tomorrow Woman, all have the chance to shine and are used in a way that transcends the normal treatment of super-villains in the mainstream. There's even a demon who comes through in the attack on Happy Harbour and stays to become an endearing character (I really hope I'm not misremembering that... I can find no reference to this online, but sources are scant, you'll just have to read the comics to catch me out!).

All in all the cliche that this is a character driven story feels oh so true and the advantage here is there are just so many great characters driving the story.


Copyright - DC Comics

Then there's the art. Rag Morales does the majority of the art in the series and his art is fantastic, perfect for the tone of the comic, mainly inked by David Meikis, though others step in on occasion. His style here is slightly 'cartoony' figures and facial expressions just slightly contorted, not in a way that diminished a sense of well realised art, rather to add emphasis and expression. Everything is just a touch hyper-realised so as to add punch and impact. Both in action and emotion. This is a mainstream comic, the art has a mainstream edge to it, but just slightly off centre, slightly different, slightly leftfield. In perfect keeping with the series itself. This is DC comics as you know them, but not quite as you expect.

There are a few fill-ins and these get more frequent as the series goes on. As Rags Morales became a superstar, in large part I imagine due to his wonderful work on this series, I guess he was given other things to do? That's a shame as none of the artists who come onboard for an issue or two here and there aren't able to deliver quite the same feel nor capture that unique place this comic and Rags Morales' art holds so well. None of the fill-ins are horrible, none of them are great either though. The monthly cycle means the series isn't the artist triumph it would have been if this had come from a different publisher, one who was able to wait for the artist to complete every issue.


Copyright - DC Comics

The fact this isn't a superhero series from Image, Dark Horse or the like are this series biggest blessing and curse. The fact that something so unusual, yet in so many ways is firmly rooted in DC lore and history means it stands out as something different. The fact that it's wrapped in other ongoing mainstream series emphasises the unique things the story provides. It also means it's a little held back maybe, the art isn't quite what it might have been. Its came out as the original image guns and pouches period was coming to an end and just before mainstream comics dived into a gritty, harder period. It slips quietly between these two and so I suspect it gets largely forgotten.

Though it is a mainstream DC comic, told in shorter two, three issue chunks doesn't stop it being a really satisfying cohesive single story. The fact that Hourman is a legacy DC character and apparently goes on to make appearances here and there in the years that follow takes nothing away from this.

Even if you have no interest in mainstream DC comics. No knowledge or interest in the rich history and surrounding universe which frame the series, it doesn't matter. You can pick up (well see below) this series on its own and enjoy a really wonderful, whimsical and hard edged, humorous and serious and entirely satisfying story built not on that history or extended universe but on the characters you met and grew to love in Happy Habour.

Where to find it

These comics have never been collected to my knowledge. They are available digitally via what was Comixology (as of today as I type I'm having to move over to Amazon Kindle - wish me luck!)

Other than that your at the hands of the aftermarket, be patient and you'll get these for bobbins.

Learn more

Obligatory Wikipedia page except it's not really this is the page for Hourman the character, well characters, but since legacy plays such a big part in this series we'll go with it.

There is a Wikipedia entry for Matthew Tyler specifically as well.

Well at least someone cares Sequential Planet ran a review of the run to mark its 20th Anniversary.

After that I'm kinda scrapping. Good Reads has reviews of most the issues... other than that... well...

[Fortnight]

Another one I've never even heard of, but I hope at some point he was in Havana...  ...    ...    ...  ... 

They are available digitally via what was Comixology (as of today as I type I'm having to move over to Amazon Kindle - wish me luck!)

I refuse to bow to the increasing dominance of the you-never-really-own-what-you-buy culture that Amazon champions; presumably Bozos does it because it gets the horn from the power of control. (Yes I did just use an impersonal pronoun as an additional insult.)
I might be forced to buy digital books from Amazon but I won't buy a Kindle and I keep a Windows 7 virtual machine with the software to remove their shitty DRM on standby so I can convert them to ePub or cbz where I can read on my own choice of eReader or tablet, and Amazon can't reach their filthy cadaverous soul-starved fingers in and delete my purchases.

It's so much easier to get a pirated comic than it is to buy and de-DRM your own fairly-bought purchases that it's a wonder anyone bothers to buy them at all.

I want to buy my digital products legally, but Amazon has dominated the ebook market and they don't make it easy to do the right thing.

/rant

[Colin YNWA]

Yeah I have to admit I use Amazon more than I should and accept the risk of things changing therefore. The loss of Comixology was rubbish as the Kindle store is like 20% as good and all it really means is I buy a lot LOT less digital comics. Shame but there you go! I have quite enough to read... as do you!

[Colin YNWA]

In that Tween-mas (whatever its called I'm old) losing track of days thing BUT thinks its Thursday so...



Number 116 - Irredeemable

Keywords: Superheroes, deconstruction, brutal, Mark Waid, Superman

Creators:
Writer - Mark Waid
Art - Peter Krause and Diego Barreto
Colours - Andrew Dalhouse

Publisher: Boom! Studios

No. issues: 37
Date of Publication: 2009 - 2012

Last read: 2018

Irredeemable takes the trend in superhero deconstruction to its sadly logical conclusion of going full on breakdown into supervillainy. It makes for a hard hitting story that deftly manages to avoid falling into the trap of just being a Millareque 'LOOK HOW BRUTAL I CAN MAKE THIS' by moving things into some very interesting directions.


Copyright - them what created it...

Plutonian is Superman, but unlike Clark Kent, raised by loving adoptive parents in the good ol' US of A to live life right, Plutonium is raised by a damaged mother and comes from a broken home. Which gives this series its weakest point, which I will return to. So what if you had those incredible powers but in a human with all the weakness and frailty that us regular folks commonly have. Well eventually you snap. Something gives, the pressure, the adoration, the separation from humanity twist, turn and eventually break you. When Plutonium breaks bad, he breaks on a scale fitting of a creature with his massive power and after killing a few folks here and there he levels Sky City, the stories version of Metropolis.

He truly is irredeemable.


Copyright - them what created it...

Now so far this will all feel so familiar. There have been countless Superman analogues over the years, numerous tales of how Superman would have turned out if his origin had been different. We've seen superheroes break bad through the ages. There is nothing in that introduction that would make a reader think they are getting anything different. Yet you do. Mark Waid pulls off an incredible sleight of hand.

Firstly he's a bloody good writer and he delivers this tale as old as time, well as old as Superman at least, with the smart intelligence that his comics at their best offer. It's so well written you don't really feel that you've read it all before. At first he also does it with such gusto and commitment that he pulls you along. He takes that Mark Millar trick of throwing excess at a story and thinking his forced sense of scale will make it exciting and does what Millar so often fails to do and adds intelligence and character to the piece.

Plutonian is a terrible, broken person, and you feel that. You get a real sense of him and the extremes he knows he's fallen to and the pain that has driven him to this. His sense of power and inadequacy are laid bare. Yet he's made to feel real enough to be relatable... well as fair as that can go for a monster and you become invested in him, his story might be terrible but you engage with it and him. He's compelling.


Copyright - them what created it...

This is enhanced by a rich supporting cast. Initially focused on the heroes and villains who have the paths they have chosen shaken to their core by Plutonian's actions. In the main these are super-powered folk on the whole. Paradigm (what a great name for a superhero team!) serves the role of the Justice League. Those that survive Plutonian's initial onslaught are terrified and desperately try to formulate plans to stop him. Samsara fulfilling the sidekick role seems to have a privital part to play as well. Then there are the villains, and particularly Modeus who fills the Lex Luthor role as Plutonian's super intelligent arch nemesis. Others join as the series continues.

All these characters are so well realised and freshly drawn that though a cast of archetypes they feel new and different. Nothing here feels tired and old, even when it should. The world these characters have inhabited is turned on its head and so then is irtheir role in it. This is so well handled it's made believable and yet the supporting cast all retain a sense of who and what they are.


Copyright - them what created it...

Waid has another trick up his sleeve. He keeps things moving at a really brisk pace. There are twists and turns a plenty. The large cast offers all sorts of different avenues for the story to move down. More than that however Mark Waid takes you to places you just don't expect. Just as the series could move into territory that makes it feel as old as its premise suggests, Waid will jig to the left, spin to the right and grab your attention by moving things in a direction you simply don't expect. You simply don't get the chance to sit still long enough to doubt what you are reading. Not in a way that feels manufactured or forced, it all fits together quite organically, but sets Irredeemable apart from other stories of a similar nature. Character reveals feel earnt and make sense, or if they don't you don't get the chance to reflect on it too much before the next plot beat slaps you in the face to grab your attention. Its breathless stuff, but while it keeps you moving its energy and commitment to its themes and characters keep you moving along with it.

There's magical mystery supre powerful alien races, robotic duplicates, extra-dimensional super demons, every exciting superhero trope is thrown into the mix. And there are some new concepts as well to keep things fresh. Gehnom, an asylum in the heart of a sun created to imprison the most dastardly of evil entities, is my favourite and provides the best example of how the series goes to the most fascinating extremes.


Copyright - them what created it...

There are a few things I have problems with. Lots of folks seem to love Peter Krause and Diego Barreto's art across the series. I have to be honest, while it's always fine, it's never more than that. Its functional, tells the story perfectly well, but doesn't take it to vistas of wonder it might have done in braver hands. That might be entirely deliberate, the solid art keeping the astonishing concepts and power on display grounded, keeping things focused on the characters and their reactions to staggering events. A great artist could have balanced these two with more skill and daring. To be clear the art isn't bad at all, but it's just there and doesn't quite live up to the highs the story takes the reader to.

I also think it's a shame that Plutonians' upbring is so rough. It almost provides too much of an excuse for what he becomes, well excuse might not be the correct word, his actions are inexcusable, but makes the reason for his fall too easy. I feel it might have been better if his upbringing had been more normal, given him a solid foundation, the contrast with Superman would have been stronger. The idea that such immense power can corrupt even the most well balanced of people would have been much more interesting. It would have emphasised the ideas that only the most exceptional of people can handle the fact that with great power comes great responsibility.

Neither of these things take too much away from the series but do mean it's lower down the list than it might have been. 


Copyright - them what created it...

A few endnotes before I leave you. There is a twin series by Mark Waid, Incorruptible that started a few months after Irredeemable and takes an opposite view in examining what happens when a supervillain is forced to become heroic due to the actions of Plutonian. For reasons that escape me I've not read this one, though I fully intend to at some point, just too many comics out there. It ends in parallel with the ending of Irredeemable to after 30 issues.

Irredeemable is also in the zeitgeist at the moment. The series was meant to return in 2023, quite how escapes me given the magnificent ending of the series. But I've not heard more about that for a while now. This might relate to the fact that netflix is also apparently developing the story into a movie. It's gone quiet on that front, possibly due to the writers strike, who knows and maybe the comic returning is designed to be coordinated with the movie. Time will tell.

All that said, Irredeemable is a brilliant, hard, entirely satisfying self contained superhero story that really does take modern reimagining of the superheroes to its logical end point. If that tickles your fancy then this is the series for you.


Where to find it

There's a really good value complete collection if that works for you.

There are also two digital omnibuses if you don't like the idea of such a lump of a book!

Smaller trades and collections are also available in the aftermarket as well, though with all the attention this series has been getting of late the original floppies are beginning to get pricey.

I personally got these digitally via a Boom! Humble Bundle and it might well be worth taking a risk and waiting to see if there's another of those as they are always insanely good value, but I've no idea if one is planned anytime soon.


Learn more

Obligatory Wikipedia page is pretty damned comprehensive, but be warned if you are tempted it has a great plot breakdown with massive spoilers!

Boom! Studio page is pretty good two with links to digital versions of all this.

Omnidog's Vault has a very positive take on this video. Don't agree with some of that he says, but that's kinda the point. Does have some spoilers mind.

Quite like this short article from There will be games nice little comparison to event superheroics.

Frankly there's a lot out there, just do a search for Irredeemable (not sh*t Sherlock!) but add comics or whatever to the end and there's loads of reviews of the collections and what not. This one isn't too difficult to read up on despite being a little off the beaten track.

[Trooper McFad]

No festive break Colin?

Or did you have these banked prior to the holidays?

really enjoying these reviews.

Keep them coming 😁