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A [[Comic Book]] series written by [[Mark Waid]], with art by Peter Krause and Diego Barretto.
The Plutonian was once Earth's champion, its greatest and most admired and trusted superhero. But something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Seemingly without reason, the Plutonian has begun to wage war on humanity, killing indiscriminately, destroying entire cities and swiftly going from the planet's greatest hero to its worst mass murderer. A group of former friends and fellow superheroes, having narrowly escaped the Plutonian's ruthless and swift butchering of the superhero community, have determined to find a way to stop him; however, the Plutonian guarded his
Another title in the same universe, ''[[Incorruptible]]'', began in December 2009. Its plot is the obverse of ''Irredeemable'': as a result of the Plutonian's rampage, supervillain Max Damage has an epiphany and decides to undergo a [[Heel Face Turn]].
{{tropelist}}
== Tropes present in both series ==
* [[Alternate Company Equivalent]]: The Plutonian is essentially one of these for [[Superman]]. Gone very, very wrong. And with none of Superman's weaknesses.
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** Hilariously, Volt is perfectly aware he's an [[Alternate Company Equivalent]]. As a black man with electrical super-powers, he's all too conscious that he's one of maybe a half dozen other people with that exact description (Static, Black Vulcan, Black Lightning), and frequently bemoans it.
** The superhero Qubit is a rather unusual case of this, being based on a non-comics, non-superhero character. He's clearly based off of the [[Doctor Who|Tenth Doctor]] (admittedly, with some similarities to Mr. Fantastic).
** Modeus is an [[Expy]] of [[Lex Luthor]] with a little bit of [[
** Max Damage seems to be a loose [[Expy]] of Metallo.
** Orian is an Expy of, of all people, Myxztplk, though not played for laughs. A touch of Lobo is thrown into the mix as well, also not played for laughs.
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** Max Damage has this too. He gets stronger and more invulnerable in proportion to how long he's awake. The problem with this is that when he gets up in the morning, he only has one hour before his skin gets too tough to do simple things like feel, smell, or taste things. Most of the time he can only hear and see, with all his other senses being lost under his invulnerability.
* [[Crapsack World]]: While it may not have been so bad before the Plutonian went rogue, the world's governments and economy are crippled as he's constantly murdering anyone who opposes him and smashing buildings, not to mention what he did to Singapore. The rampage never stops so the world can't recover from anything he does. People are defenseless and terrified, and suicide has become commonplace. This is explored more in ''Incorruptible'' than the main series.
* [[Deconstruction]]: Sort of. It really isn't actually deconstructing Superman through an [[Expy]]
* [[I Just Want to Be Normal]]: One of the motives of both The Plutonian and Max Power. The Plutonian because his powers made it impossible for him to have the same kind of stable life most people have, and Max because he loses most of his senses after being awake for a few hours.
* [[It's Personal]]: The Plutonian hates Max Damage because {{spoiler|Max was the first victim of Plutonian's unrestrained rage back when Max was a teen and Tony was still a boy. Max was a constant reminder to Tony that he wasn't a perfect Ace.}}
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* [[Super Dickery]]: Deconstructed; a flashback describes the Plutonian's relationship with a Lois Lane [[Expy]], which occurs in a similar fashion as Superman and Lois Lane's in the [[Silver Age]] of comics. Except when the Plutonian reveals his true identity, confidently expecting her to fall into his arms and agree to marry him, she freaks out about the sudden revelation of all the mind games he's been playing on her all this time. He doesn't take it well.
** A major recurring plot thread in these flashbacks to the Plutonian's "good days" seems to be his frustration over how even though he lives in a classic super-hero universe type setting, no one reacts the way they did in the old comics.
* [[Superhero
* [[Super Strength]]: Several characters have it, but special mention goes to Plutonian; he can resist the equivalent of ''half the pull of a black hole''.
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* [[All of the Other Reindeer]]: One of the motivating factors behind the Plutonian's [[Face Heel Turn]] was the criticism he received from the population after all his acts of heroism. It's played with, however; despite a few critical and ungrateful voices, by and large the Plutonian was greatly loved, and the criticism he otherwise received tended to be for things he more or less deserved criticism for. It's heavily implied that the Plutonian, consumed by a desire to have ''everyone'' love him, simply couldn't tolerate ''any'' criticism whatsoever, no matter how justified.
* [[An Arm and a Leg]]: {{spoiler|Gilgamos. Loses one wing in a fight and tears the other off to use the bones as lock picks.}} '''Hard. Core.'''
** Volt tells the Plutonian that he'd "give his left arm" for all he's done for
* [[And I Must Scream]]: {{spoiler|Plutonian was sent to the end of time by his parents in issue #32, where he'd be alone and completely paralyzed for all eternity, doubling as a [[Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere]].}}
* [[Badass Abnormal]]: Charybdis' powers were, for the majority of his life, not up to par with the Plutonian's. The good thing about that? He has had to actually learn ''how'' to fight, so when his powers increased to Plutonian-levels he suddenly begins to smack the [[Physical God]] around, since the Plutonian [[Unskilled but Strong|never really had to learn how to use his powers against somebody on his own level.]]
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** In one of the issues before Plutonian got captured and dumped on the prison world, it shows Modeus talking to Encana in a supernatural dimension. It turns out that Modeus has moved past super-science and is now experimenting with sorcery.
* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: {{spoiler|Charybdis, after doubling in power and becoming the Survivor, is basically undergoing an accelerated version of the Plutonian's turn to darkness in his efforts to stop the Plutonian and be a true hero.}}
* [[Humans Are
* [[I Am Not Left-Handed]]: [[Up to Eleven]]. The Plutonian lays a beatdown on the depowered Charybdis, but the tables are turned when we find out that {{spoiler|Charybdis actually has at least twice as much power as he did before.}}
* [[I Never Told You My Name]]: A variation, when the Plutonian refers to the Hornet's wife by name during a [[Flash Back]]. The Hornet had never mentioned her name to him, and realizes that he's spying on his teammates and [[Beware the Superman|may not be entirely trustworthy]].
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* [[Teleporters and Transporters]]: Quibit has built several devices that seemingly produce wormholes. {{spoiler|The Vespa, having had access to his technology, weaponize them and defeat Plutonian with them. Seemingly out of action as of Plutonian's escape from the prison-planet}}
* [[Throwaway Country]]: Averted. {{spoiler|The destruction of Singapore}} is shown in full, and is just as horrifying as it should be. {{spoiler|And although not shown, the death of tens or ''hundreds'' of millions in Australia and India is treated with equal horror.}}
* [[Took a Level
* [[Unskilled but Strong]]: While practically a [[Physical God]], the Plutonian turns out to have next to no hand-to-hand combat skill due to never really needing to learn how to fight.
* [[Unwilling Roboticization]]: what Qubit threatens Encanta with to make her reveal what she knows about Modeus.
* [[Villain Protagonist]]
* [[Walking Wasteland]]: Minor, background villain Dekay melts everything he touches.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: The Plutonian, thanks to his pathological need to be loved and admired by everybody, is really bad at handling being called out on his [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|stupid mistakes]] and [[Super Dickery|dick moves]], which finally makes him snap. On the other hand, between {{spoiler|Qubit building a bunch of perfect ([[
** {{spoiler|Hornet would get one if he was alive. In issue #18, it's been revealed that he gave interstellar teleportation and coordinates to inhabited planets to conquering aliens in exchange for them leaving Earth alone, as well as fighting Plutonian on the off-chance that he turned on humanity.}}
*** {{spoiler|Hornet had reason to believe it wasn't an off-chance. Though everyone knew the broadstrokes of each other's lives, and trusted Tony with their secret identities, Hornet never mentioned his wife's name. Tony name-dropped it anyway, tipping Hornet off that the Plutonian was spying on them all.}}
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* [[Who's Laughing Now?]]: This seems to be a major factor in the Plutonian's snap into madness. Flashbacks to his life as a hero show him to be very bad at dealing with critics, to the point that he often seemed to resent the people he felt obligated to save. In particular the villains the Plutonian used to fight are much less comfortable dealing with him once they know he has no trouble killing them.
* [[Wonder Twin Powers]]: Scylla and Charybdis are have something like this going on, where they're only super while close to one another. {{spoiler|Except not really; this is a lie that they used to make Scylla feel better about simply siphoning his brother's power. After Scylla's death, Charybdis only faked being powerless to get to the Plutonian, who he felt he could handle with double his normal power.}}
* [[World of Cardboard Speech]]: HORRIFYING subversion. {{spoiler|Tony mentions why as he was growing up he was ostracized, out of fear he might hurt the other kids, and casually explains that now he's [[The Unfettered]] and doesn't have to worry about such things...chucking a grenade at a terrified mass of huddled schoolchildren in what is one of many [[Moral Event Horizon
* [[Would Hurt a Child]]: {{spoiler|Tony's first human mother and the one whose desire for a child forge him into a human body, to a horrifying extent.}}
* [[You Killed My Father]]: While the Plutonian needs to die for the safety of Earth and has slaughtered countless people already, the thing that seems to really [[It's Personal|make it personal]] for Charybdis/Survivor is that he also killed his brother.
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** He's invoking this trope intentionally, reasoning that he has to be perfect now, but he isn't sure how to do it. {{spoiler|It's implied in places that he's not very good at this, as he may have killed another supervillain and definitely handed over some white supremacists over to the people they previously attacked.}}
** Another reason he might have done this is because he's [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know that nobody would trust him if he still had all his weapons, after seeing that their [[Big Good]] turned on them.
** Also, [[Fridge Logic]] points
*** ''Irredeemable'' makes it pretty clear '''no one''' had weapons capable of really hurting The Plutonian.
** Ultimately, the explanation for this trope is right there in the title. Max has to be [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]] because he knows that if he doesn't do absolutely everything he can to be totally and utterly [[Title Drop|incorruptible]], he'll either backslide or never be good enough to challenge the worst supervillain the world has ever known. Thus all the money and gadgets and vehicles have to go, since in his words it's all "blood money".
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* [[Lolicon]]: Max Damage likes 'em young: he met sidekick/girlfriend [[Jail Bait]] in a brothel when she was fifteen and he was 28-30. She's now sixteen, but his [[Heel Face Turn]] drove him to break up with her for a [[Jail Bait Wait]].
* [[Morality Pet]]: Max adds Lois Lane and Jim Gordon analogues to his posse to invoke this trope. And boy, does he need it - it is horrifyingly subverted by Jailbait and Headcase, both of whom do their cute girl best to drag Max back down (Jailbait is a sixteen-year-old he saved from sex slavery... who became a bloodthirsty adrenaline junkie and daily ''begged'' Max not to keep being heroic, while Headcase is apparently 22 but looks just like Jailbait, and after the murder of her whole family, has become a truly frightening [[Death Seeker]] [[Yandere]] who would ''kill'' anyone that threatens her warped worldview or her relationship to Max).
* [[
* [[Noodle Incident]]: [[Ms. Fanservice|Jailbait's
** And it was hot.
* [[Power Nullifier]]: {{spoiler|Sleep. He is vulnerable for roughly an hour after waking.}}
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[[Category:Better Than It Sounds/Comic Books]]
[[Category:Irredeemable]]
[[Category:Comic Books]]
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