In a later volume Waid cops to taking the idea from a Twilight Zone episode, but its use here is frightening. The foster parents the Plutonian visits haven’t communicated verbally for years in case his super hearing picks them up.

Mark Waid and Peter Krause deliver another page-turning instalment with plenty of twists and horrific little touches displaying the overall thought packed into Irredeemable. He warms up by delivering some seemingly irreparable damage to one team member before confronting the remainder. Meanwhile the US military finally respond to the threat of the Plutonian by unleashing something equally appalling, a demon named Orian, barely defeated by the Paradigm during their previous encounter.

Qubit’s been searching for the long-lost enemy the Plutonian fears, and after two books he turns up, and while it’s revealed Qubit never kills, he compensates with other unpleasant habits. The opening sequence details how they originally came together, and from there the narrative hops to the present where a beefed up Cary appears to have let the power go to his head. Oh he’s there, and he’s ghastly, there are glimpses into his past, and even the resurrection of his one-time sidekick Sam has little tempering effect on him, but the bulk of this volume deals with superhero team among whom he once fought for justice: the Paradigm. In many ways the title is the culmination of Waid's other notable works such as Kingdom Come and The Kingdom, in that usual assumptions on the nature of good and evil are removed and replaced by an ambiguity in which powerful metahumans are reactive to the world around them, as opposed to being locked into an inflexible set of morals (or lack thereof).The Plutonian takes a back seat in this volume. In this way the book inverts typical superhero roles and situations, which is backed up by the sister title Incorruptible, in which one of the Plutonian's former enemies - Max Damage - becomes a hero in response to Plutonian's heel-turn. Irredeemable focuses on a Supermanesque character named the Plutonian, and the events that lead him to use his powers for destructive rather than heroic purposes. It was an ongoing monthly title first published in April 2009. Irredeemable is a creator-owned superhero title written by Mark Waid, drawn by Peter Krause and published by Boom! Studios.

Irredeemable vol 3