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* RealityEnsues: Max Damage makes an example of the second Jailbait, who sets out to kill the murderer of her parents. When she's successful and as soon as he understands that she has a death wish, he surrenders her to the authorities for the crime.
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** Tony's foster parent who forged him into The Plutonian teaches him to be [[LiteralMinded completely selfless]]; Tony takes it a tad too far when on his selflessness he withholds the fact that [[spoiler:his foster mother has terminal cancer and he has known all along. When she dies, his foster father kills himself in desperation.]]
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** This is a shout-out to DoctorWho, whose actions sometimes cause [[spoiler:the deaths of millions of living beings.]]
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** This is a shout-out to DoctorWho, whose actions sometimes cause [[spoiler:the deaths of millions of living beings.]]which is actually a series with a considerable body count.
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** This is a shout-out to DoctorWho, whose actions sometimes cause [[spoiler:the deaths of millions of living beings.]]
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** A more specific example comes in Irredeemable; Dan (the Plutonian) perceives that his adoptive mother just shot herself. Though he rushes to save her, the fact that he heard the shot and considering the properties of the propagation of sound, by the time he heard the shot it was already too late and it was impossible for him to get there in time; this in particular is a deconstruction of Superman's power of super-hearing.
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Not a Mac Guffin. Mac Guffin\'s don\'t do anything, the bullet is magical, plot important, and used more than once.
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* FallenHero: ''And how!!!!!!!!!''
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* FallenHero: ''And how!!!!!!!!!''The Plutonian went from being Earth's greatest hero to its worst villain.
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* HumansAreBastards: The Plutonian's {{Sadistic Choice}}s and mind games seems to be ultimately aimed at proving that. It also seems that he didn't kill most of his old teammates yet because he's striving to break them psychologically, for the same reason. And, as it turns out, he's a psychotic nutbag because his first human mother was. Had she not been so deeply disturbed, everything would have been fine....
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* HumansAreBastards: The Plutonian's {{Sadistic Choice}}s and mind games seems to be ultimately aimed at proving that. It also seems that he didn't kill most of his old teammates yet because he's striving to break them psychologically, for the same reason. And, as it turns out, he's a psychotic nutbag because his first human mother was. Had she not been so deeply disturbed, everything would have been fine....fine.
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* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: From the point of view of his former friends, the Plutonian's done just this; however, the flashbacks in each issue subtly indicate that it has been stewing for quite a while...
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* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: From the point of view of his former friends, the Plutonian's done just this; however, the flashbacks in each issue subtly indicate that it has been stewing for quite a while...while.
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* KryptoniteFactor: [[spoiler:The Candle of the Nahru Visna is the only thing that can make the Plutonian vulnerable. Bette Noir made a little bit of its wax into a bullet in case Tony ever went rogue, and, well...]]
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* KryptoniteFactor: [[spoiler:The Candle of the Nahru Visna is the only thing that can make the Plutonian vulnerable. Bette Noir made a little bit of its wax into a bullet in case Tony ever went rogue, and, well...rogue.]]
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* MacGuffin: Bette Noir made a bullet of a piece of wax from a candle that, once burned, negates Tony's powers. She shot it at Tony, but Qubit redirected it to kill Orian. While Orian was planning to conquer earth the moment Tony was dead, people call Qubit out on this anyway. [[spoiler:Except Qubit kept the bullet.]]
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* OmnicidalManiac: The Plutonian, and how!
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* OmnicidalManiac: The Plutonian, and how!Plutonian
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* TheRevealPromptsRomance: The Plutonian was going for this, except that his girlfriend became so upset that he had lied to her all this time that she immediately broke up with him. One of the main differences between him and Superman. Superman isn't the kind of PsychopathicManchild who would naturally assume that Lois Lane would be thrilled about being lied to all those years. Empathy and maturity would have gone a long way in that delicate situation. Then again, Plutonian pursued his girlfriend by actually entering the radio station because of her; on Superman's case, Lois happened to work at The Daily Planet before any romance sprang, making Plutonian's case all the creepier.
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* TheRevealPromptsRomance: The Plutonian was going for this, except that his girlfriend became so upset that he had lied to her all this time that she immediately broke up with him.him (and revealed his secret to their coworkers). One of the main differences between him and Superman. Superman isn't the kind of PsychopathicManchild who would naturally assume that Lois Lane would be thrilled about being lied to all those years. Empathy and maturity would have gone a long way in that delicate situation. Then again, Plutonian pursued his girlfriend by actually entering the radio station because of her; on Superman's case, Lois happened to work at The Daily Planet before any romance sprang, making Plutonian's case all the creepier.
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** Ironically enough, Max's origin is revealed to be IJustWantToBeSpecial. He started out as a common criminal, when actual ''super'' heroes (like the Plutonian) become part of the world, he realizes its pretty pointless being a criminal if you can't match their powers. One huge cash payment to a mad scientist later, he's the only surviving guinea pig of a SuperSoldierSerum and BlessedWithSuck.
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** Max Damage combines elements of Metallo ([[SenseLossSadness especially the frustration at losing his senses when he powers up]]) and {{WonderWoman Giganta}}. Silver Age Giganta got stronger and tougher, but less intelligent, when she grew - Max loses brainpower more indirectly, through the severe sleep deprivation necessary to bring him up to full strength.
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** Max Damage combines elements of Metallo ([[SenseLossSadness especially the frustration at losing his senses when he powers up]]) and {{WonderWoman Giganta}}.[[WonderWoman Giganta]]. Silver Age Giganta got stronger and tougher, but less intelligent, when she grew - Max loses brainpower more indirectly, through the severe sleep deprivation necessary to bring him up to full strength.
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** Max Damage seems to be a loose Expy of Metallo.
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** Max Damage seems combines elements of Metallo ([[SenseLossSadness especially the frustration at losing his senses when he powers up]]) and {{WonderWoman Giganta}}. Silver Age Giganta got stronger and tougher, but less intelligent, when she grew - Max loses brainpower more indirectly, through the severe sleep deprivation necessary to be a loose Expy of Metallo.bring him up to full strength.
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removing Walking Wasteland example: the text says the parents were no threat, but breaking them out of radioactive containment would let the radiation loose
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* WalkingWasteland
** Minor background villain Dekay melts everything he touches.
** Also, [[spoiler: Tony's parents.]]
** Minor background villain Dekay melts everything he touches.
** Also, [[spoiler: Tony's parents.]]
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* WalkingWasteland
**WalkingWasteland: Minor background villain Dekay melts everything he touches.
** Also, [[spoiler: Tony's parents.]]touches.
**
** Also, [[spoiler: Tony's parents.]]
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Fixed typos, updated for the end of the series.
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** Plutonian invokes this on the supervillains he meets in Inferno's lair. He says the Inferno had a plan to destroy him, and handed each handeheld device with a single button that he implied was the product of said plan. He doesn't even get to finish explaining before each villain presses said button, triggering [[spoiler:the lair's self-destruct.]]
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** Plutonian invokes this on the supervillains he meets in Inferno's lair. He says the Inferno had a plan to destroy him, and handed each handeheld a handheld device with a single button that he implied was the product of said plan. He doesn't even get to finish explaining before each villain presses said button, triggering [[spoiler:the lair's self-destruct.]]
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* BrainUploading: Modeus [[spoiler:uploaded his brain into Samsara and then later into a robot copy of himself built by Qubit. He later considered putting himself into Scylla, but decided he'd prefer remaining in his robot-body for now. Most recently, he's transferred into Bette Noire.]]
* BreakTheCutie: Kaidan's one of two members of the Paradigm that can fight Tony off and have a chance of survival. She's the only surviving member of the team who's not shown signs of a pending FaceHeelTurn, and her origin story strongly implies that she'd see such an opportunity coming and choose death without hesitation. Her powers require her to speak. If she survives, it'll be one hell of a subversion.
* BreakTheCutie: Kaidan's one of two members of the Paradigm that can fight Tony off and have a chance of survival. She's the only surviving member of the team who's not shown signs of a pending FaceHeelTurn, and her origin story strongly implies that she'd see such an opportunity coming and choose death without hesitation. Her powers require her to speak. If she survives, it'll be one hell of a subversion.
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* BrainUploading: Modeus [[spoiler:uploaded his brain into Samsara and then later into a robot copy of himself built by Qubit. He later considered putting himself into Scylla, but decided he'd prefer remaining in In the final issues, he goes through a range of hosts to achieve his robot-body for now. Most recently, he's transferred into Bette Noire.goals and prevent his own death.]]
* BreakTheCutie: Kaidan's one of two members of the Paradigm that can fight Tony off and have a chance of survival. She's the only surviving member of the team who's not shown signs of a pending FaceHeelTurn, and her origin story strongly implies that she'd see such an opportunity coming and choose death without hesitation. Her powers require her to speak. If she survives, it'll be one hell of a subversion.
* BreakTheCutie: Kaidan's one of two members of the Paradigm that can fight Tony off and have a chance of survival. She's the only surviving member of the team who's not shown signs of a pending FaceHeelTurn, and her origin story strongly implies that she'd see such an opportunity coming and choose death without hesitation.
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* TheChessmaster: Modeus. The Plutonian's arch-nemesis, and reportedly the only one he was scared of. Possibly the only one capable of finding a way to kill him. Disappeared a few years prior to the main story. [[spoiler:Is now possessing/controlling the lobotomized sidekick, egging on the Plutonian on his rampage. Oh, and a Robot Double with his exact mental patterns has started making trouble on his own. And now in the body of one of the few people that Tony has non-homicidal emotions towards. OhCrap.]]
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* TheChessmaster: Modeus. The Plutonian's arch-nemesis, and reportedly the only one he was scared of. Possibly the only one capable of finding a way to kill him. Disappeared a few years prior to the main story. [[spoiler:Is now possessing/controlling the lobotomized sidekick, egging on the Plutonian on his rampage. Oh, and a Robot Double with his exact mental patterns has started making trouble on his own. And now then in the body of one of the few people that Tony has non-homicidal emotions towards. OhCrap.]]
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* GrandTheftMe: Modeus has done this thrice; [[spoiler:first to Samsara, later to his own robot duplicate, and now Bette Noir.]] It's not clear if it's an innate power of his or something he needs assistance for. 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. [[spoiler:This backfires when he tries it on Qubit.]]
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* GrandTheftMe: Modeus has done does this thrice; repeatedly via BrainUploading; [[spoiler:first to Samsara, later to his own robot duplicate, duplicate and now intermediary hosts, and then to Bette Noir.]] It's not clear if it's an innate power of his or something he needs assistance for. In one of the issues before Plutonian got captured and dumped on the prison world, it shows Modeus talking to Encana Encanta in a supernatural dimension. It turns out that Modeus has moved past super-science and is now experimenting with sorcery. [[spoiler:This backfires when he tries it on Qubit.]]
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* SealedEvilInACan: As of the end of issue #19, [[spoiler:the Plutonian after he is defeated by the combined forces of the Vespans, Paradigm, and Kaidan's superhero ghosts. He is currently trapped in a LotusEaterMachine onboard a Vespan ship. As of issue #27, [[OhCrap he's back on Earth]].]]
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* SealedEvilInACan: As of Keeps happening to the end of issue #19, [[spoiler:the Plutonian after he is defeated by the combined forces of the Vespans, Paradigm, Plutonian, including a interplanetary travel, a black hole, a sun, a LotusEaterMachine, and Kaidan's superhero ghosts. He is currently trapped in a LotusEaterMachine onboard a Vespan ship. As of issue #27, [[OhCrap he's back on Earth]].]]time travel.
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** As of issue 31, Gilgamos gets this [[spoiler:by Scylla's ghost after killing Cary. It turns out Cary was the source of the power he and his two brothers (they were actually triplets), and with Cary's death, the third brother Elliott, who Gilgamos thought he'd get all the power, loses his own.]]
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** As of issue 31, Gilgamos gets this [[spoiler:by Scylla's ghost after killing Cary. It turns out Cary was the source of the power he and his two brothers (they were actually triplets), and with Cary's death, the third brother Elliott, who Gilgamos thought he'd would get all the power, loses his own.]]
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Trivia
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** Class 0; Plutonian has caused massive damage to the world, but humanity hasn't died out. Yet.
** [[spoiler:As of issue #31, Australia and India have been hit with a massive wave of radiation; the total death count is roughly a third of humanity.]] Yikes.
** [[spoiler:And now, as of issue #34 Qubit has confirmed that life will be extinct in three generations, and his plans are not going well since the radiation is not behaving like he expected.]]
** [[spoiler:As of issue #31, Australia and India have been hit with a massive wave of radiation; the total death count is roughly a third of humanity.]] Yikes.
** [[spoiler:And now, as of issue #34 Qubit has confirmed that life will be extinct in three generations, and his plans are not going well since the radiation is not behaving like he expected.]]
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** Class 0; Starting out somewhere between Societal Disruption or Collapse on a Regional or Continental scale and Planetary-scale Civilization Disruption; Plutonian has caused massive damage to the world, but humanity hasn't hadn't died out. Yet.
**[[spoiler:As of Starting in issue #31, Engineered Extinction becomes probable. [[spoiler: Australia and India have been hit with a massive wave of radiation; the total death count is roughly a third of humanity.]] Yikes.
** [[spoiler:And now, as ofhumanity]] culminating in issue #34 #34, where Qubit has confirmed that life will be extinct in three generations, and his plans are were not going well since the radiation is was not behaving like he expected.]]
**
** [[spoiler:And now, as of
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* PlayingAgainstType: While Mark Waid has done DarkerAndEdgier stories before (like ''Empire''), ''Irredeemable'' is doing a lot to subvert Waid's reputation as Silver Age style writer.
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Dying Like Animals was supposed to be cut months ago per TRS, so these examples need to go
Deleted line(s) 104,105 (click to see context) :
* DyingLikeAnimals
** The Plutonian [[GenreSavvy uses this to his advantage at one point, specifically by making them Lemmings.]] Using a piece of confiscated super-villain technology, he [[DoNotAdjustYourSet appears on televisions throughout the world]], and informs the citizens he has a secret identity. This puts people into such a paranoid frenzy they begin lynching anyone who even resembles the Plutonian, their panic killing thousands.
** The Plutonian [[GenreSavvy uses this to his advantage at one point, specifically by making them Lemmings.]] Using a piece of confiscated super-villain technology, he [[DoNotAdjustYourSet appears on televisions throughout the world]], and informs the citizens he has a secret identity. This puts people into such a paranoid frenzy they begin lynching anyone who even resembles the Plutonian, their panic killing thousands.
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* SomebodyDoesntLoveRaymond: Played for Drama. The Plutonian has an intense, driving need to be loved by everyone around him and receives endless praise from being the world's greatest super-hero. But he's unable to get over the few people who don't shower him with praise, leading him to bitterly think that the entire population of Earth are nothing but selfish, ungrateful animals.
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* SomebodyDoesntLoveRaymond: Played for Drama.PlayedForDrama. The Plutonian has an intense, driving need to be loved by everyone around him and receives endless praise from being the world's greatest super-hero. But he's unable to get over the few people who don't shower him with praise, leading him to bitterly think that the entire population of Earth are nothing but selfish, ungrateful animals.
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Why can\'t I add this example?
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* SomebodyDoesntLoveRaymond: Played for Drama. The Plutonian has an intense, driving need to be loved by everyone around him and receives endless praise from being the world's greatest super-hero. But he's unable to get over the few people who don't shower him with praise, leading him to bitterly think that the entire population of Earth are nothing but selfish, ungrateful animals.
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Bittersweet Ending
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*BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: In the end, the villains are all defeated and Plutonian gains his "redemption," but billions have died including nearly all of Earth's heroes, civilization has been destroyed, every survivor including the remaining heroes have lost someone they cared about deeply, and a warrior alien race is pissed off at Earth and liable to invade in the future is one of several threats on the horizon that Earth is vulnerable to especially with the Plutonian no longer around to protect them.]]
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** Volt also sees the Plutonian as one. Plutonian helped him control his powers which allowed him to have a normal life. In a flashback we see him trying to reason with Plutonian, only for Plutonian to rip his arm off.
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* KickTheSonOfABitch: Plutonian frying Moedus's face off is done for the sake of being evil, but considering that Moedus is just as bad as the Plutonian is it's kind of hard to feel sympathy.
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* ForTheEvulz: But of course.
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* ForTheEvulz: But of course. This is the very reason [[spoiler: the Eleos chose to punish the Plutonian, even though they show him that his meltdown was all but inevitable due to the circumstances of his creation; he is still completely responsible for his evil actions... they just showed him why he is evil.]]
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** Alana Patel is an expy of Lois Lane.
** Samsara curiously seems to be a loose expy of Jimmy Olsen.
** Samsara curiously seems to be a loose expy of Jimmy Olsen.
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** [[spoiler: Gilgamos (and everyone around him) gets one after killing Cary]]
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* TheRevealPromptsRomance: The Plutonian was going for this, except that his girlfriend became so upset that he had lied to her all this time that she immediately broke up with him. One of the main differences between him and Superman. Superman isn't the kind of PsychopathicManchild who would naturally assume that Lois Lane would be thrilled about being lied to all those years. Empathy and maturity would have gone a long way in that delicate situation.
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* TheRevealPromptsRomance: The Plutonian was going for this, except that his girlfriend became so upset that he had lied to her all this time that she immediately broke up with him. One of the main differences between him and Superman. Superman isn't the kind of PsychopathicManchild who would naturally assume that Lois Lane would be thrilled about being lied to all those years. Empathy and maturity would have gone a long way in that delicate situation. Then again, Plutonian pursued his girlfriend by actually entering the radio station because of her; on Superman's case, Lois happened to work at The Daily Planet before any romance sprang, making Plutonian's case all the creepier.
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** 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 [[Series/DoctorWho Tenth Doctor]] (admittedly, with some similarities to Mr. Fantastic).
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** 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 [[Series/DoctorWho Tenth Doctor]] (admittedly, with some similarities to Mr. Fantastic).Fantastic and Forge from the X-Men).
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oops
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* HollywoodDensity/SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: "Half the pull of a black hole" is meaningless when we don't know how massive or how distant the black hole is. An average human could withstand ''all'' the pull of a small black hole even if it were close to them, and we all withstand the pull of mind-bogglingly massive black holes every day simply because they're very far away.
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* HollywoodDensity/SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: HollywoodDensity / SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: "Half the pull of a black hole" is meaningless when we don't know how massive or how distant the black hole is. An average human could withstand ''all'' the pull of a small black hole even if it were close to them, and we all withstand the pull of mind-bogglingly massive black holes every day simply because they're very far away.
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\"Half the pull of a black hole\"
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* HollywoodDensity/SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: "Half the pull of a black hole" is meaningless when we don't know how massive or how distant the black hole is. An average human could withstand ''all'' the pull of a small black hole even if it were close to them, and we all withstand the pull of mind-bogglingly massive black holes every day simply because they're very far away.
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namespace
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'''''Irredeemable''''' is a ComicBook series written by MarkWaid, with art by Peter Krause and Diego Barretto.
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'''''Irredeemable''''' is a ComicBook series written by MarkWaid, Creator/MarkWaid, with art by Peter Krause and Diego Barretto.
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Changed line(s) 108 (click to see context) from:
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In ''Irredeemable'' #18, [[spoiler:Hornet's reference to [[Series/TheTwilightZone It's a good life]]]].
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* {{Foreshadowing}}: In ''Irredeemable'' #18, [[spoiler:Hornet's reference to [[Series/TheTwilightZone It's a good life]]]].''It's A Good Life'']].
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* ShoutOut: Tony's tragic childhood is a one to ''Literature/ItsAGoodLife''. {{Lampshaded}} by Hornet.
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* ShoutOut: Tony's tragic childhood is a one shout-out to ''Literature/ItsAGoodLife''. {{Lampshaded}} by Hornet.
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* MakeThemRot: DK, a minor villain, has this as his power.
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Moving to Namespace.
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[[quoteright:326:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/irredeemable.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:326:No More Mr. NiceGuy.]]
'''''Irredeemable''''' is a ComicBook series written by MarkWaid, 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 identity -- and most importantly, his weaknesses -- zealously, leaving them only with a few scraps of information to follow in order to find out why the Plutonian has turned his back on his former ideals -- and how to defeat him...
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 HeelFaceTurn. Both titles ended in 2012 at issue 37 and 30 respectively.
----
!!''Irredeemable'' and ''Incorruptible'' provide examples of the following tropes:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Tropes present in both series]]
* ApocalypseHow
** Class 0; Plutonian has caused massive damage to the world, but humanity hasn't died out. Yet.
** [[spoiler:As of issue #31, Australia and India have been hit with a massive wave of radiation; the total death count is roughly a third of humanity.]] Yikes.
** [[spoiler:And now, as of issue #34 Qubit has confirmed that life will be extinct in three generations, and his plans are not going well since the radiation is not behaving like he expected.]]
* ArchEnemy: Plutonian was this to Max Damage before Max's HeelFaceTurn. Plutonian's ArchEnemy was always Modeus, the only one Plutonian was ever afraid of [[spoiler:and, suprisingly, Max Damage, who always reminded Plutonian of his less-than-perfect childhood]].
* BatFamilyCrossover / RedSkiesCrossover: Hard to tell, but long-awaited crossover between two series that promised us fight between Plutonian and Max Damage doesn't even have them meet before the fourth part. However, it gives a good insight on their history, including their old confrontations.
* BewareTheSuperman: The series is essentially examining what would happen if ComicBook/{{Superman}} went bad for real.
* BigGood
** What the Plutonian was before his FaceHeelTurn.
** Also, this is what Survivor and Max Damage seem to be going for.
* BlessedWithSuck
** The Plutonian himself. Yes, he has roughly the powerset of Superman without any weaknesses, with some extras. The only problem is, he cannot turn most of his powers off, only control them by constant effort of will. He is MadeOfDiamond, and even touching his hair can cut the hand of a normal person. He has tremendous SuperStrength, and because of not-unfounded fear of accidentally splattering someone if he fails to measure exerted force just for a moment, he was never able to protect himself from bullying as a child. And of course, super-hearing forced him to know every ungrateful asshole's opinion about him. This gets especially interesting with the eventual reveal that [[spoiler:The Plutonian is a RealityWarper, who subconsciously uses his powers to appear to be a FlyingBrick. Nobody has remarked upon it yet, but we may thereby conclude all the BlessedWithSuck attributes of his powers are his own martyr complex manifesting itself.]]
** Volt had problem controlling his powers before joining Paradigm, destroying any electronic device he had contact with, preventing him from keeping jobs. He had to live with his mother because of it.
** 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. PlayedForLaughs when Jailbait tries to have sex with Max at the eve of his first hour awake (the moment when his powers kick in) leaving him with only half of his face shaved.
* CrapsackWorld: 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}}: Your standard deconstruction of Superman through an {{Expy}}, challenging the idea that someone given superpowers would automatically [[ComesGreatResponsibility do the right thing]] without being emotionally prepared, and the concept of happily being a SlaveToPR without actual regard for what people think. The finale puts a meta twist one this: [[spoiler:when Qubit scatters Tony's essence throughout the multiverse in an attempt to give him his second chance, part of it helps inspire a pair of artists to create the first Superman comics. Superman is the reconstruction of the Plutonian.]]
* {{Expy}}
** The Plutonian is essentially one of these for ComicBook/{{Superman}}. Gone very, very wrong. And with none of Superman's weaknesses. He's also very evocative of ''ComicBook/{{Supreme}}'' and ''ComicBook/{{Miracleman}}'' in appearance. In fact, his costume is nearly identical to Apollo's from ''Grounded''.
** Some of the other heroes are also slightly familiar. Gilgamos = ComicBook/{{Hawkman}} - Egyptian + Babylonian.
** The Inferno was pretty much an Expy of Batman. He got nonchalantly killed by the Plutonian off-stage, probably as a TakeThat aimed at those who place Batman high in UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny contests.
** Hornet, meanwhile, was ''another'' BadassNormal on the team (what little we see of him makes him seem more like Green Arrow), and was also effortlessly killed by The Plutonian.
** It could be argued that ''both'' characters are a mix and match of Batman and Green Arrow. Hornet exhibited more of Batman's attributes, however, due to having a "cave" located under his house, reliance on skills and gadgets, demonstrating CrazyPrepared in his deal with the Vespan, his infamous friendship with Tony à la Superman/Batman and detective skills in noticing subtle clues weeks before that The Plutonian was going to breakdown sooner or later (Tony asked about his wife ''by name'', Hornet never told Tony his wife's name).
** Bette Noir is a ColourCharacter who uses trick ammunition and has ImprobableAimingSkills, a lot like ComicBook/GreenArrow. Except that [[spoiler:whereas it's occasionally suggested that Green Arrow's skills are a result of a latent superpower, Bette's are unambiguously revealed to be just that in the final act.]]
** Hilariously, Volt is perfectly aware he's an Expy. 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 [[Series/DoctorWho Tenth Doctor]] (admittedly, with some similarities to Mr. Fantastic).
** Modeus is an Expy of SelfDemonstrating/LexLuthor with a little bit of [[AiIsACrapshoot Brainiac]] thrown in.
** 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.
** Jailbait has a lot of thematic elements with Harley Quinn.
** Scylla and Charybdis are a really deconstructive take on the original Hawk and Dove... notably, when Hawk dies, Dove goes insane and violent in mourning.
*** Alternatively, they're how the [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Marvel Family]] would work if they weren't [[IncorruptiblePurePureness near-impossibly nice.]]
*** Alternatively, they're the ComicBook/WonderTwins.
* GoingPostal: The whole plot is about what happens when a ''SuperHero'' goes postal.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: One of the motives of both The Plutonian and Max Damage. 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.
* ItsPersonal: 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.]]
* MindOverMatter: There are a few psychics mentioned and seen. [[spoiler:Plutonian has this power to a god-like degree, but doesn't realize it (his psychic powers manifest in specific forms, enabling his more conventional-seeming superpowers); his birth parents have his powers to a [[UpToEleven greater degree.]]]]
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The Plutonian gets this a couple of times throughout the series, [[IgnoredEpiphany but it never takes him long to go back to massacring people]]. Max Damage has this after the Plutonian made him realize just what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a supervillain's rampage.
* SceneryGorn
* SuperDickery: 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 SilverAge 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}}es: But of course.
* SuperStrength: Several characters have it, but special mention goes to Plutonian; he can resist the equivalent of ''half the pull of a black hole''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tropes specific to ''Irredeemable'']]
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Modeus is this to The Plutonian. At first, the Plutonian finds it amusing, but eventually turns ugly as Modeus is more than willing to [[spoiler:beat the crap out of him and super-rape him]].
* TheAlcatraz
** One of the Vespans' prison planets [[spoiler:where Plutonian was performing hard labor]] uses a graviton well capable of generating half the pull of a ''black hole'' to keep its superpowered prisoners in line. The prison overseers make a tidy profit by housing such dangerous prisoners for people willing to pay for that security.
--->''They've not much incentive to rebel with the weight of an entire '''star system''' bearing down on them.''
** The other prison planet is a planet housed inside of a star, with a forcefield keeping the inmates in and the sun out. It's also in the middle of nowhere. The caretakers/guards only enter and exit through a heavily guarded teleport facility at the center of the planet.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: One of the motivating factors behind the Plutonian's FaceHeelTurn 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.
* AnArmAndALeg
** [[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 him -- and is taken up on the "offer".
* AndIMustScream: [[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 SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere.]]
* BatmanGambit
** Plutonian invokes this on the supervillains he meets in Inferno's lair. He says the Inferno had a plan to destroy him, and handed each handeheld device with a single button that he implied was the product of said plan. He doesn't even get to finish explaining before each villain presses said button, triggering [[spoiler:the lair's self-destruct.]]
** [[spoiler:The ending for the series has Qubit pull an ultimate one on Plutonian, due to the radioactive cloud that will destroy all life on the planet with the release of his parents. Qubit strikes a deal to give Plutonian "redemption" if he helps save the planet. When the Plutonian starts to go back on the deal believing Qubit can't live to his end, Qubit pulls out the bullet made from the candle of the Nahru Visna that he saved Plutonian from before and teleports it into his heart for added motivation. Knowing that once he followed through with their plan, the radiation would most likely kill Plutonian as well and that his "redemption" that Qubit had in mind would be be his essence being spread across the multiverse.]]
* BedlamHouse: [[spoiler:In issue #23, Plutonian ends up in one. [[UpToEleven In the middle of a sun]].]]
* BerserkButton
** We only see it once, but Qubit does '''not''' like to be called "stupid".
** Technically, the whole premise of the series is that the Plutonian's button (the inability to tolerate criticism) was slowly pushed through the years until he snapped.
* BodyHorror: To summon Orian, one has to read the magic word, upon which he ''crawls out through your mouth,'' killing you in the process.
* BrainUploading: Modeus [[spoiler:uploaded his brain into Samsara and then later into a robot copy of himself built by Qubit. He later considered putting himself into Scylla, but decided he'd prefer remaining in his robot-body for now. Most recently, he's transferred into Bette Noire.]]
* BreakTheCutie: Kaidan's one of two members of the Paradigm that can fight Tony off and have a chance of survival. She's the only surviving member of the team who's not shown signs of a pending FaceHeelTurn, and her origin story strongly implies that she'd see such an opportunity coming and choose death without hesitation. Her powers require her to speak. If she survives, it'll be one hell of a subversion.
* BrokenAce: The Plutonian had the facade of IncorruptiblePurePureness but underneath it all, seems more like he was one of these.
* BrokenPedestal: Oddly, the Plutonian's pedestal broke ''before'' he went crazy. After he made a crucial mistake in the field that left thousands of children dead, [[spoiler:and he initially lied about his role in this tragedy]] his sidekick stopped trusting him. Knowing his closest friend couldn't look up to him the way he used to was one of the last straws. What made it worse was that people from the lab (where he had [[spoiler:turned over the device that led to the tragedy]]) went behind his back and [[spoiler:told Samsara about it, claiming to be too afraid of him to do it themselves.]]
* BrownNote: The child-killing sonic plague and the sigil that summons Orian.
* TheCape: The Plutonian, prior to his FaceHeelTurn. He notably only wears the cape in flashbacks when he's still good.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: [[spoiler:The Candle of the Nahru Visna.]]
* TheChessmaster: Modeus. The Plutonian's arch-nemesis, and reportedly the only one he was scared of. Possibly the only one capable of finding a way to kill him. Disappeared a few years prior to the main story. [[spoiler:Is now possessing/controlling the lobotomized sidekick, egging on the Plutonian on his rampage. Oh, and a Robot Double with his exact mental patterns has started making trouble on his own. And now in the body of one of the few people that Tony has non-homicidal emotions towards. OhCrap.]]
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: "Wow. I didn't even get to the end of the ''sentence''." Leads to a wonderful moment of [[HoistByHisOwnPetard self-Darwining]] thanks to The Plutonian's {{magnificent bastard}}ry.
* ComfortingTheWidow: The Survivor attempts this with Kaidan. Made particularly disgusting by the fact that the recently-deceased lover in this scenario is his brother.
* ComicBookFantasyCasting: Qubit bears a striking resemblance to Creator/DavidTennant's [[Series/DoctorWho Doctor]].
* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: This trope is extremely common in Superhero comics, keeping the heroes from having to explain things to their folks (Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, most X-Men, all the Flashes, most of the Green Lanterns). In the series' common style of course, there's a deconstructive twist- this means Plutonian spent most of his boyhood bounced around between unloving and heartless foster homes, instilling him with a compulsive need to be loved by everyone as an adult.
* DeadSidekick: Samsara's not ''quite'' dead- but he's been lobotomized. The reason for this is that Samsara's power protects him from mortal harm and he thus can't be killed, so he had to be neutralized another way. And of course, the Plutonian did it himself to keep him from spilling the beans on his secrets.
* DepravedHomosexual: [[spoiler:Modeus. He recognizes that he is in love with the Plutonian by issue #22.]]
* DisproportionateRetribution
** A representative of Singapore told the Plutonian his country was grateful to him. The Plutonian however, recognized this to be a lie, and responded by sinking the country into the sea.
** Before his FaceHeelTurn, the Plutonian warns his secret identity's coworkers of this when they discover him. They initially think it's a bit of a funny joke, but he points out to him that any one of his enemies would gladly "rape their children with hot knives" to find it out. Several commit suicide afterward.
* DrivenToSuicide
** The above-mentioned former associates of Plutonian.
** [[spoiler:After reading a Modeus-possessed Cutter's mind, a telepath almost immediately commits suicide.]]
** [[spoiler:It is implied that Tony's only set of decent but controlling foster parents, after revealing to them the mother had cancer and due to the father's teachings of not using his powers for personal gain, Tony withheld that information until it was far too late. ]]
* DyingLikeAnimals
** The Plutonian [[GenreSavvy uses this to his advantage at one point, specifically by making them Lemmings.]] Using a piece of confiscated super-villain technology, he [[DoNotAdjustYourSet appears on televisions throughout the world]], and informs the citizens he has a secret identity. This puts people into such a paranoid frenzy they begin lynching anyone who even resembles the Plutonian, their panic killing thousands.
* EverythingIsRacist: Volt. There are some scenes where his hair-trigger accusations of racism genuinely find their mark, but there are others that don't, like accusing Bette of preferring Gil because he's not black.
* EvilCostumeSwitch: As evidenced in the page image.
* EvilIsPetty: The Plutonian enjoys puppy-kicking on a personal level as much as his mass atrocities, largely to demonstrate the points that used to frustrate him so much.
* FaceHeelTurn: The Plutonian's occurred prior to the series beginning.
* FallenHero: ''And how!!!!!!!!!''
* FateWorseThanDeath: This is what motivated Encanta to spill the beans to Qubit. He threatened to robotize her, this apparently having the effect of depowering her while being horribly painful. Of course, it's permanent.
* FlyingBrick: Deconstructed. The Plutonian's [[ComboPlatterPowers eclectic power set]] is the result of [[spoiler:his being a RealityWarper [[AngelUnaware Unaware]]]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In ''Irredeemable'' #18, [[spoiler:Hornet's reference to [[Series/TheTwilightZone It's a good life]]]].
* ForTheEvulz: But of course.
* FunWithAcronyms: Plutonian's name is one, though no-one else knows it. Chosen by [[spoiler:the foster father he gained his alter-ego's name, Dan Hartigan, from]], it stands for '''P'''iety, '''L'''oyalty, '''U'''tility, '''T'''ruthfulness, and '''O'''rder.
* GlowingEyesOfDoom: Plutonian has been showing this during his tantrums even before he became a villain.
* GoodHairEvilHair: The Plutonian apparently gave himself a buzzcut after turning.
* GrandTheftMe: Modeus has done this thrice; [[spoiler:first to Samsara, later to his own robot duplicate, and now Bette Noir.]] It's not clear if it's an innate power of his or something he needs assistance for. 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. [[spoiler:This backfires when he tries it on Qubit.]]
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[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.]]
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The Eleos, the Plutonian's real race, are a race of RubberForeheadAliens... with RealityWarper powers as a matter of subconscious thought. They do feel empathy and compassion, however -- Tony's own psychopathy is entirely his own personality/upbringing.]]
* HumansAreBastards: The Plutonian's {{Sadistic Choice}}s and mind games seems to be ultimately aimed at proving that. It also seems that he didn't kill most of his old teammates yet because he's striving to break them psychologically, for the same reason. And, as it turns out, he's a psychotic nutbag because his first human mother was. Had she not been so deeply disturbed, everything would have been fine....
* IAmNotLeftHanded: UpToEleven. 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.]]
* INeverToldYouMyName: A variation, when the Plutonian refers to the Hornet's wife by name during a {{flashback}}. The Hornet had never mentioned her name to him, and realizes that he's spying on his teammates and [[BewareTheSuperman may not be entirely trustworthy]].
* InsufferableGenius: Qubit. This doesn't go unnoticed by this teammates, some of whom find it less and less tolerable as the situation worsens.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: From the point of view of his former friends, the Plutonian's done just this; however, the flashbacks in each issue subtly indicate that it has been stewing for quite a while...
* KidsAreCruel: The Plutonian was forced to put up with bullying, as a child, because any retaliation could have killed the kids bullying him. After his FaceHeelTurn, he uses that history of bullying to justify his willingness to murder children.
* KryptoniteFactor: [[spoiler:The Candle of the Nahru Visna is the only thing that can make the Plutonian vulnerable. Bette Noir made a little bit of its wax into a bullet in case Tony ever went rogue, and, well...]]
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Taken rather literally with Samsara.
* LotusEaterMachine: The Vespans have [[spoiler:stuck the Plutonian in one at the end of Chapter 19. When disengaged from it, he's ''still'' stuck inside, having chosen not to awaken.]]
* MacGuffin: Bette Noir made a bullet of a piece of wax from a candle that, once burned, negates Tony's powers. She shot it at Tony, but Qubit redirected it to kill Orian. While Orian was planning to conquer earth the moment Tony was dead, people call Qubit out on this anyway. [[spoiler:Except Qubit kept the bullet.]]
* MeaningfulName
** Scylla and Charybdis, the legendary rock and a hard place; Scylla appears to be every inch the hero (this being the very reason Kaidan loves him instead of Cary), while Cary's descent since Scylla's death shows that he's lost any sense of propriety, not mentioning that ''Scylla'' is the name of a hideous monster in Roman and Greek literature.
** Plutonian's name is very meaningful. It means derived or associated with Pluto, Roman god that is Expy to the more well-known greek called Hades. God of Death and underworld. He's also as distant as can be from humanity in general (like the dwarf planet Pluto). Additionally, it's almost a homonym for plutonium, an element which can offer humanity great power but is incredibly dangerous if mishandled.
** Bette Noire sounds like a fun pulp-style name for an adventuress. In French, it's a colloquialism about a dangerous thing to be avoided at all costs. Bette contributes heavily to Tony's moral decay, but doesn't fully realize it until they visit his Fortress of Solitude. She also has little problem bedding him [[spoiler:after he returns]].
** [[spoiler:"Eleos" sounds a lot like [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Elohim]]. This, of course, makes the Plutonian [[FallenAngel another]] [[{{Satan}} trope]].]]
* MeasuringTheMarigolds: Done mockingly by The Plutonian in the first issue.
-->'''The Hornet:''' Puh-please... Not my daughter too... She's only a little girl...\\
'''The Plutonian:''' I know exactly what she is. She's a carbon bag of atoms and bioelectricity.
* AMillionIsAStatistic: Invoked by the Chinese and Japanese leaders when they convinced the acting US President to release [[spoiler:Plutonian's parents]] in an effort to stop him. The procedure would lead to the slow, agonizing death of ''one third'' of what remained of the world's population, but would stop the Plutonian from killing the rest. Naturally, as soon as he finds out, he drops all diplomacy and goes medieval on their joint asses.
* MoodSwinger: The Plutonian's swings from placid to psychotic are a major element of why he's terrifying.
* MundaneUtility: We see the Plutonian using heat vision to warm a cup of coffee in the third issue.
* [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone My God, What Have We Done?]]: [[spoiler:We don't see much of them, but this is implied to be the reaction of Tony's "parents" upon seeing the devastation which he and they (unintentionally) unleashed.]]
* MyGreatestFailure: Before he went insane, the Plutonian gave a piece of alien technology to a mudslinging scientist to be adapted for the benefit of mankind, also giving him a signal device to call him in the case that anything could go wrong. [[spoiler: The device turned out to contain a sound-based virus that only killed children. The Plutonian might have been able to stop it early on, but he was on the moon, enjoying ten minutes of silence from the constant cries for help that his super-hearing picks up.]] This not only rocketed him toward his FaceHeelTurn, but seemed to affect him even after he became a villain- He still keeps a (rather unsettling) memorial to the victims he failed to help in his Citadel.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero
** See MyGreatestFailure for the most obvious of these on the Plutonian's part, though his former teammates have their share too.
** As of issue 31, Gilgamos gets this [[spoiler:by Scylla's ghost after killing Cary. It turns out Cary was the source of the power he and his two brothers (they were actually triplets), and with Cary's death, the third brother Elliott, who Gilgamos thought he'd get all the power, loses his own.]]
* OhCrap
** [[spoiler:Modeus gets this when he discovers that Plutonian knew he was inhabiting the body of Samasara the entire time.]]
** [[spoiler:Modeus gets a teary one when Plutonian rejects him once again after a tender session of rape. Figures.]]
** [[spoiler:And yet another when Qubit finally imprisons him in a mental prison after he tries to escape following Bette Noir's body's destruction by the Plutonian.]]
** [[spoiler: Qubit gets one after learning Twin's/Survivor's dark secret.]]
** The Plutonian gets one when he realizes [[spoiler:Modeus possessed Cutter.]]
* OmnicidalManiac: The Plutonian, and how!
* PersonOfMassDestruction
* PetTheDog: Even after becoming a crazed, homicidal maniac who kills the world for not appreciating him, when the Plutonian finds out [[spoiler:Samsara has survived his lobotomy with his brain functions intact, he at once becomes friendly and protective of his former sidekick again (even getting food for him by murdering owners of gas stations). Naturally, the series still manages to make this terrible as Samsara isn't really back, only being possessed by Modeus. The Plutonian knew it was Modeus all along. He was just playing along because he was amused by Modeus' FoeYay crush on the Plutonian. The PetTheDog sentiment's still there, as seen in the LotusEaterMachine example. Plutonian wants to reverse everything, but doesn't know how.]]
* PhysicalGod: Plutonian is the strongest being on the planet, and nothing in the (comic) universe so far (with the exception of Max Damage, Survivor and the Eleos) has a chance against him. [[spoiler:He's a reality warper, making him ''more'' god-like, although he's unaware of his true abilities. His parents have his powers to a greater degree and can ''also'' TimeTravel]]
* PlayingAgainstType: While Mark Waid has done DarkerAndEdgier stories before (like ''Empire''), ''Irredeemable'' is doing a lot to subvert Waid's reputation as Silver Age style writer.
* PowerNullifier: A special candle.
* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: The entire point. [[spoiler:(And, apparently, not just for the Plutonian...)]]
* ProudWarriorRace: The Vespans. [[spoiler:After they capture The Plutonian, they agree to leave Earth and never invade again, simply because of an agreement they'd made with a (now dead) Earth human.]]
* PsychopathicManchild: One possible interpretation for the Plutonian's need to be loved.
* RealityEnsues: In a flashback from his early teens, the Plutonian hears his foster mother is about to commit suicide. He gets there in a fraction of a second. But sound takes almost ten seconds to travel two miles. She was already dead before he left his school desk.
* RealityWarper: [[spoiler:Tony, albeit unknowingly.]]
* ReplacementGoldfish: Played with. Both Cary and his brother Scylla had crushes on Kaidan and she wound up dating Scylla. When Scylla was killed by the Plutonian and Cary left alive, Cary expected this to come into play so he and Kaidan would start dating, especially when he becomes The Survivor. [[spoiler: It doesn't. Particularly not when Kaidan discovers Scylla is still alive and begins searching for him. This might be one of the many reasons why Cary is deliberately avoiding finding out where his brother is.]]
* TheRevealPromptsRomance: The Plutonian was going for this, except that his girlfriend became so upset that he had lied to her all this time that she immediately broke up with him. One of the main differences between him and Superman. Superman isn't the kind of PsychopathicManchild who would naturally assume that Lois Lane would be thrilled about being lied to all those years. Empathy and maturity would have gone a long way in that delicate situation.
* RuleOfCool: Kaidan's superpower is the art of telling ghost stories. The characters in said stories are souls of samurai and Feudal warriors. It's awesome. [[spoiler:She can now summon the spirits of superheroes and open a path through the underworld.]] ''Double'' awesome. Even Qubit is surprised by this (not mentioning he's the one that figures it out for Kaidan), and this is a dude than can create technological wonders out of thin air!
* SadisticChoice: During his [[spoiler:destruction of Singapore,]] the Plutonian caught his former teammate Qubit, who tried to evacuate citizens. The Plutonian allowed him to pick ten whom he'd let escape... [[spoiler:to painfully illustrate the answer to Qubit's question: "All that power, all that responsibility... what does that feel like?"]] only to [[spoiler:incinerate their flesh with his eye beams]].
* SamaritanSyndrome: Nothing quite whittles away at your love of mankind than having to serve them 24/7. The Plutonian suffered a huge case of this before he went nuts, constantly hearing, and feeling he had to answer, calls for help every minute of every day. After one particularly ungrateful victim was rescued, he got fed-up and took a ten minute break by flying to the moon, where there was no sound. [[spoiler:During those ten minutes, a child-killing virus broke out, partly because he'd given a piece of alien technology to a human scientist.]] Even after his FaceHeelTurn, there are traces of this. He promised to listen to everyone, but nobody believed he meant that literally.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Max Damage immediately abandons Qubit when he learns that Qubit's master plan for saving the world from the fallout of [[spoiler:Plutonian's parents' release]] involves [[spoiler:making the Plutonian ''even more powerful''.]]
* SealedEvilInACan: As of the end of issue #19, [[spoiler:the Plutonian after he is defeated by the combined forces of the Vespans, Paradigm, and Kaidan's superhero ghosts. He is currently trapped in a LotusEaterMachine onboard a Vespan ship. As of issue #27, [[OhCrap he's back on Earth]].]]
* SealedGoodInACan: [[spoiler:Plutonian's parents.]]
* SecretIdentity: The Plutonian had one, and upon revealing it to the woman he loved [[spoiler:she promptly told their four coworkers and rejected his affection.]] It was one of the bigger contributing factors to his FaceHeelTurn.
* {{Sexbot}}: Modeus builds a half-dozen sexbots resembling Tony.
* ShoutOut: Tony's tragic childhood is a one to ''Literature/ItsAGoodLife''. {{Lampshaded}} by Hornet.
* SmugSuper
** In addition to the rapid walk down a very dark path he seems to be taking, The Survivor is becoming one of these [[spoiler:as he's more than a little bit too pleased with himself in recent issues after the pwning he helped give the Plutonian.]]
** The Plutonian after his FaceHeelTurn. When he became evil, it turned out Tony's false modesty was exactly that.
* StepfordSmiler: The Plutonian's defining personality trait prior to his breakdown.
* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Deconstructed. [[spoiler:The Plutonian's only real super-power is warping reality and violating the laws of physics. He's as strong as he needs to be because he re-writes the universe to make himself that way.]]
* SuperpowerLottery: The Plutonian was the clear winner, which led to certain members of the Paradigm resenting him even before his FaceHeelTurn. While he acted humble during his time as a hero, he didn't mind gloating once he went evil. At one point, while killing Gazer, Tony remarks how he made him totally redundant, being able to do everything he could do but better. [[spoiler:Turns out he "only" has RealityWarper powers -- since he thinks he could win, he does.]]
* SuperSenses: The Plutonian, to a truly insane degree. He can perceive the movement of ''electrons'' inside people's brains.
* TakeThat: Just to make sure that no-one misses the subtext, the first issue comes with a long essay about how comic fans saying mean things on the internet suck and will destroy comic heroes. The essay was written by Creator/GrantMorrison, not Mark Waid, and is not quite as simplistic as that. If anything, the subsequent issues since number one have indicated Morrison's reading of the point is a bit off from Waid's true intent. To elaborate, said essay wasn't saying anything about people talking on the Internet destroying heroes. Morrison was talking about people's opinions, the difficulties in changing them, and what a hero must have to do to become completely [[TitleDrop Irredeemable]]. And how Waid showed him the script for the first two issues, after their discussion if the internauts will ever stop seeing him as a SilverAge {{Fanboy}}, a reputation Waid earned after ''ComicBook/KingdomCome''.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Kaidan must tell a story to activate her powers. It is more of a snippet than a full story, but those couple of sentences are racing against drawn guns.
* TechnicalPacifist: "Everyone knows Qubit doesn't kill"... Humans, that is. He's fine with killing an entire spaceship full of Vespans and Orian, the space demon.
* {{Technopath}}: Qubit's actual power.
* TeleportersAndTransporters: Quibit has built several devices that seemingly produce wormholes. [[spoiler: The Vespans, 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]]
* ThrowAwayCountry: 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.]]
* TookALevelInBadass: Charybdis (later the Survivor), a second-tier superhero, gains a considerable boost of power when his brother dies, putting him on the same level as The Plutonian.
* UnskilledButStrong: While practically a PhysicalGod, the Plutonian turns out to have next to no hand-to-hand combat skill due to never really needing to learn how to fight. Weirdly, this is subverted in a story about him told by Max Damage, who says that he ''expected'' this when he caught the Plutonian in a field that nullified their powers... and got knocked onto his ass for his troubles. He could be exaggerating the story for effect, though, and might simply have been caught unawares by the fact that a depowered Plutonian was not totally incompetent. That, or Tony's [[spoiler:RealityWarper powers were still in effect.]]
* UnwillingRoboticization: What Qubit threatens Encanta with to make her reveal what she knows about Modeus.
* VillainProtagonist
* WalkingWasteland
** Minor background villain Dekay melts everything he touches.
** Also, [[spoiler: Tony's parents.]]
* WhatTheHellHero
** [[spoiler:Bette Noire gets it particularly hard. After escaping alone a trap set up by the US army and a demonic bounty hunter, who revealed her secrets to her teammates, she meets up with her father and, desperate for some kind of support, comes clean with him. He then tells her that her inaction not only cost him everything he had, but also caused the deaths of the rest of their family at the Plutonian's hand. When she asks for forgiveness, he simply says "Not now".]]
** Qubit calls Cary out on [[spoiler:giving murderous supervillains full pardons in exchange for help]] when [[spoiler:Cary should be looking for his brother instead.]]
** Survivor [[spoiler:gives one to his third brother for not trying to stop Plutonian, or even use his powers to help others.]]
* WhosLaughingNow: 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.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [[spoiler:Invoked near the end of the series as a last resort, Kaidan and Gigalmos are prepared to enact a spell that grants every living thing on the planet immortality but due to the circumstances, no longer being able to have children, go to the afterlife and worst possibly stuck forever at the mercy of the Plutonian they hesitate until the last minute, where Qubit stops them saving it as a 'Plan B' in case his plan doesn't work. ]]
* WonderTwinPowers: 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.]]
* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: 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 TheUnfettered 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}}s.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:Tony's first human mother and the one whose desire for a child forge him into a human body, to a horrifying extent.]]
* YouKilledMyFather: While the Plutonian needs to die for the safety of Earth and has slaughtered countless people already, the thing that seems to really [[ItsPersonal make it personal]] for Charybdis/Survivor is that he also killed his brother. Of course, this being Cary (and even when his intentions are noble), he manages to mess up basically everything he touches because of his pride, even reaching the end of undermining his brothers Scylla and Elliott, and rapidly eroding everyone's respect for him.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tropes specific to ''Incorruptible'']]
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Recap pages all share Max's WantedPoster which informs us that he is wanted for manslaughter, terrorism, armed robbery, conspiracy and interstate flight.
* TheAtoner: Max Damage after his HeelFaceTurn.
* BadassNormal: Sidekicks Jailbait and Headcase have no superpowers, but they can handle themselves.
* BlessedWithSuck: Max's super-strength and invulnerability increase proportionally to how long he stays awake. However, he is just as susceptible to the mental effects of sleep deprivation and stimulant drugs as the rest of us, and will [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity exhibit poor judgment as a result]]. [[spoiler:He's also vulnerable for up to a full hour after waking up.]]
* BreakHerHeartToSaveHer: What Max tries to keep his PerkyFemaleMinion Jailbait out of harm's way.
* BrokenBird: Jailbait; Headcase after [[BreakTheCutie plot hits her]].
* BruceWayneHeldHostage: When former villain Max Damage learns about Dan Hartigan being Plutonian's SecretIdentity, he gets mad because he had that "weakling" as a hostage many times and now realizes Tony has been making fun of him all this time.
* BulletSeed: Max Damage catches a bullet in his teeth and spits it out, shooting the gun out of a cop's hand thusly.
* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive: Headcase learns this the hard way.
* TheCommissionerGordon: Lieutenant Louis Armadale is roped into being Max's reluctant ally.
* CoversAlwaysLie: Incorruptible has become extremely guilty of this since Christian Nauck became the main cover artist. See that epic fight scene between Alana and Headcase on the cover of issue 13? Yeah, that's exactly what happens in the comic, just without Alana and Headcase fighting each other, being angry at each other, or having much interaction at all.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Not in the sense that it's more pessimistic than Irredeemable (let's face it, how could it be?) but it has a much more "[[TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks gritty]]" tone, with villains modelled on Neo-Nazis and magicians who power their spells with VillainousIncest. Plus, the [[DarkAgeOfSupernames unfortunate codenames]] of Max Damage's sidekicks -- Jailbait, [[BrokenBird Headcase]], [[BondageIsBad Safeword]], [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Hatecrime]] -- are practically a RunningGag.
* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler:After a brief dust up caught on film where Plutonian and Max are buried in mine, Max makes a secret deal the Plutonian to leave Coalsville alone under his protection. The details of which haven't been revealed on panel.]]
* DeathSeeker: [[spoiler:Headcase]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Commissioner Armadale]]
* EnemyMine: [[spoiler:After Max runs of the Plutonian out of town and everyone thinks he is the ultimate hero, he enters into one with forces of St. Lucifer and the military forces that intended to take over the only place Plutonian was ever repelled from.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Besides the standard enlightened self-interest angle he usually cites, Max seems to have hit this when he saw the Plutonian wipe out an entire city. Keep in mind, Max was on the verge of wiping the city out ''himself'' in a fit of depression [[BlessedWithSuck about the drawbacks of his powers]]... but seeing the Plutonian actually do it shook him to his core. In short, Max was on the receiving end of the treatment of a supervillian -- the sort of thing he did before. It made him feel helpless and like a victim but also made him realize he could be better. Perhaps as a side "benefit", one of the reasons he was a super villain in the first place was because his powers prevented him from being normal. Thus Plutonian's rampage let him experience that in a very real way.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: As called on by his friends early in the series, Max starts out his hero career by simply doing the complete opposite of whatever his villain instincts tell him to do, which may not always be the smart thing.
* GenreSavvy: Max Damage decides to switch sides because he was smart enough to know that the Plutonian turning evil meant there was nobody around to protect the general populace from aliens, demons, and one another. This, coupled with the Plutonian killing millions with no end in sight, meant the human race could die out in a matter of months if someone didn't try to pick up the slack. But also WrongGenreSavvy, as he intentionally wastes resources due to having acquired them through villainy while keeping his name and appearance from his life of crime. For a while, he even keeps Jailbait on as a sidekick -- and all the while, expressing frustration at people not trusting him. This behavior flew in SilverAge comics (Hawkeye and Black Widow most famously), but not so much after RealityEnsues.
* HeroWithBadPublicity: For painfully obvious reasons. [[spoiler:This changes, for a while, after he beats the Plutonian.]]
* HeroWithAnFInGood: {{Subverted|Trope}} in that Max is actually doing a pretty good job at doing good, but he has no actual idea how to be good, other than to do the opposite of whatever he did as a villain. This is exactly why he asked Alana to join him. This is also why his friends are wondering how they will tell Max[[spoiler:, who heard the whole thing, that the Plutonian has been captured, meaning that Max has little reason now to continue on as a hero.]]
* HighAltitudeInterrogation: Max Damage, needing information from Origin, does so by dangling him over a vat of chemicals containing a tentacled monster.
* HonorBeforeReason: Max Damage destroying most of his villain gear and ill-gotten loot as part of his HeelFaceTurn. Resources that would've been invaluable in fighting The Plutonian (the reason for the turn in the first place). 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 GenreSavvy enough to know that nobody would trust him if he still had all his weapons, after seeing that their BigGood turned on them. ''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 ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin because he knows that if he doesn't do absolutely everything he can to be totally and utterly [[TitleDrop 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".
* [[IHaveYourWife I Have Your Sidekick]]
* TheInsomniac: Max Damage's strength and invulnerabilty increase in direct proportion to how long he's been awake. He's a type C as well, as seen when he stays up for days at a time to get strong enough for his next challenge, but is still affected by the mental instability from the lack of sleep. After issue 29, [[spoiler:this applies to Alana, too]].
* ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies: Why Max breaks up with Jailbait. With the Plutonian on the rampage, Max is no longer so intimidating that his enemies would leave his girlfriend alone. Also part of his new honorable turn as mentioned above: he refuses to be with her until she turns eighteen, even after she makes it clear she won't leave him despite the danger.
* {{Lolicon}}: Max Damage likes 'em young: he met sidekick/girlfriend {{Jailbait}} in a brothel when she was fifteen and he was 28-30. She's now sixteen, but his HeelFaceTurn drove him to break up with her for a JailbaitWait.
* MoralityPet: 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 DeathSeeker {{Yandere}} who would ''kill'' anyone that threatens her warped worldview or her relationship to Max). [[spoiler:He ultimately realizes that a Morality Pet isn't enough, and he resolves to be a better hero by being more open to other people in general.]]
* NoSell: Safeword tries her power on the Plutonian. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work (to her credit, she didn't really expect it to, but she figured it was worth a shot).
* NoodleIncident: [[MsFanservice Jailbait's]] [[FetishFuel cage match]] against the {{Hentai}} [[{{Fanservice}} Brothers]]. [[spoiler:Jailbait won.]] And it was hot.
* PowerNullifier: [[spoiler:Sleep. He is vulnerable for roughly an hour after waking.]]
* RedemptionQuest: The premise of the series.
* RoomFullOfCrazy: Max scribbles equations in marker all over the walls of Alana's house in issue #13 as he tries to construct a plan to defeat the Plutonian.
-->'''Alana:''' This is what you feel you can do to other people's homes?
* ShootingSuperman: Max Damage gets this a lot. Lampshaded when he shouts "That's for wasting ammo!" while punching down a mook who was shooting at him.
* SociopathicHero: Played straight. While Max has a couple moments where he shows genuine concern for others, for the most part, he has no moral compass of his own. [[spoiler:By the end, he's trying to get rid of the "Sociopathic" part.]]
* ThouShaltNotKill: Max is trying to stick to this as part of his HeroicVow.
[[/folder]]
----
[[caption-width-right:326:No More Mr. NiceGuy.]]
'''''Irredeemable''''' is a ComicBook series written by MarkWaid, 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 identity -- and most importantly, his weaknesses -- zealously, leaving them only with a few scraps of information to follow in order to find out why the Plutonian has turned his back on his former ideals -- and how to defeat him...
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 HeelFaceTurn. Both titles ended in 2012 at issue 37 and 30 respectively.
----
!!''Irredeemable'' and ''Incorruptible'' provide examples of the following tropes:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Tropes present in both series]]
* ApocalypseHow
** Class 0; Plutonian has caused massive damage to the world, but humanity hasn't died out. Yet.
** [[spoiler:As of issue #31, Australia and India have been hit with a massive wave of radiation; the total death count is roughly a third of humanity.]] Yikes.
** [[spoiler:And now, as of issue #34 Qubit has confirmed that life will be extinct in three generations, and his plans are not going well since the radiation is not behaving like he expected.]]
* ArchEnemy: Plutonian was this to Max Damage before Max's HeelFaceTurn. Plutonian's ArchEnemy was always Modeus, the only one Plutonian was ever afraid of [[spoiler:and, suprisingly, Max Damage, who always reminded Plutonian of his less-than-perfect childhood]].
* BatFamilyCrossover / RedSkiesCrossover: Hard to tell, but long-awaited crossover between two series that promised us fight between Plutonian and Max Damage doesn't even have them meet before the fourth part. However, it gives a good insight on their history, including their old confrontations.
* BewareTheSuperman: The series is essentially examining what would happen if ComicBook/{{Superman}} went bad for real.
* BigGood
** What the Plutonian was before his FaceHeelTurn.
** Also, this is what Survivor and Max Damage seem to be going for.
* BlessedWithSuck
** The Plutonian himself. Yes, he has roughly the powerset of Superman without any weaknesses, with some extras. The only problem is, he cannot turn most of his powers off, only control them by constant effort of will. He is MadeOfDiamond, and even touching his hair can cut the hand of a normal person. He has tremendous SuperStrength, and because of not-unfounded fear of accidentally splattering someone if he fails to measure exerted force just for a moment, he was never able to protect himself from bullying as a child. And of course, super-hearing forced him to know every ungrateful asshole's opinion about him. This gets especially interesting with the eventual reveal that [[spoiler:The Plutonian is a RealityWarper, who subconsciously uses his powers to appear to be a FlyingBrick. Nobody has remarked upon it yet, but we may thereby conclude all the BlessedWithSuck attributes of his powers are his own martyr complex manifesting itself.]]
** Volt had problem controlling his powers before joining Paradigm, destroying any electronic device he had contact with, preventing him from keeping jobs. He had to live with his mother because of it.
** 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. PlayedForLaughs when Jailbait tries to have sex with Max at the eve of his first hour awake (the moment when his powers kick in) leaving him with only half of his face shaved.
* CrapsackWorld: 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}}: Your standard deconstruction of Superman through an {{Expy}}, challenging the idea that someone given superpowers would automatically [[ComesGreatResponsibility do the right thing]] without being emotionally prepared, and the concept of happily being a SlaveToPR without actual regard for what people think. The finale puts a meta twist one this: [[spoiler:when Qubit scatters Tony's essence throughout the multiverse in an attempt to give him his second chance, part of it helps inspire a pair of artists to create the first Superman comics. Superman is the reconstruction of the Plutonian.]]
* {{Expy}}
** The Plutonian is essentially one of these for ComicBook/{{Superman}}. Gone very, very wrong. And with none of Superman's weaknesses. He's also very evocative of ''ComicBook/{{Supreme}}'' and ''ComicBook/{{Miracleman}}'' in appearance. In fact, his costume is nearly identical to Apollo's from ''Grounded''.
** Some of the other heroes are also slightly familiar. Gilgamos = ComicBook/{{Hawkman}} - Egyptian + Babylonian.
** The Inferno was pretty much an Expy of Batman. He got nonchalantly killed by the Plutonian off-stage, probably as a TakeThat aimed at those who place Batman high in UltimateShowdownOfUltimateDestiny contests.
** Hornet, meanwhile, was ''another'' BadassNormal on the team (what little we see of him makes him seem more like Green Arrow), and was also effortlessly killed by The Plutonian.
** It could be argued that ''both'' characters are a mix and match of Batman and Green Arrow. Hornet exhibited more of Batman's attributes, however, due to having a "cave" located under his house, reliance on skills and gadgets, demonstrating CrazyPrepared in his deal with the Vespan, his infamous friendship with Tony à la Superman/Batman and detective skills in noticing subtle clues weeks before that The Plutonian was going to breakdown sooner or later (Tony asked about his wife ''by name'', Hornet never told Tony his wife's name).
** Bette Noir is a ColourCharacter who uses trick ammunition and has ImprobableAimingSkills, a lot like ComicBook/GreenArrow. Except that [[spoiler:whereas it's occasionally suggested that Green Arrow's skills are a result of a latent superpower, Bette's are unambiguously revealed to be just that in the final act.]]
** Hilariously, Volt is perfectly aware he's an Expy. 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 [[Series/DoctorWho Tenth Doctor]] (admittedly, with some similarities to Mr. Fantastic).
** Modeus is an Expy of SelfDemonstrating/LexLuthor with a little bit of [[AiIsACrapshoot Brainiac]] thrown in.
** 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.
** Jailbait has a lot of thematic elements with Harley Quinn.
** Scylla and Charybdis are a really deconstructive take on the original Hawk and Dove... notably, when Hawk dies, Dove goes insane and violent in mourning.
*** Alternatively, they're how the [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Marvel Family]] would work if they weren't [[IncorruptiblePurePureness near-impossibly nice.]]
*** Alternatively, they're the ComicBook/WonderTwins.
* GoingPostal: The whole plot is about what happens when a ''SuperHero'' goes postal.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: One of the motives of both The Plutonian and Max Damage. 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.
* ItsPersonal: 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.]]
* MindOverMatter: There are a few psychics mentioned and seen. [[spoiler:Plutonian has this power to a god-like degree, but doesn't realize it (his psychic powers manifest in specific forms, enabling his more conventional-seeming superpowers); his birth parents have his powers to a [[UpToEleven greater degree.]]]]
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The Plutonian gets this a couple of times throughout the series, [[IgnoredEpiphany but it never takes him long to go back to massacring people]]. Max Damage has this after the Plutonian made him realize just what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a supervillain's rampage.
* SceneryGorn
* SuperDickery: 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 SilverAge 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}}es: But of course.
* SuperStrength: Several characters have it, but special mention goes to Plutonian; he can resist the equivalent of ''half the pull of a black hole''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tropes specific to ''Irredeemable'']]
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Modeus is this to The Plutonian. At first, the Plutonian finds it amusing, but eventually turns ugly as Modeus is more than willing to [[spoiler:beat the crap out of him and super-rape him]].
* TheAlcatraz
** One of the Vespans' prison planets [[spoiler:where Plutonian was performing hard labor]] uses a graviton well capable of generating half the pull of a ''black hole'' to keep its superpowered prisoners in line. The prison overseers make a tidy profit by housing such dangerous prisoners for people willing to pay for that security.
--->''They've not much incentive to rebel with the weight of an entire '''star system''' bearing down on them.''
** The other prison planet is a planet housed inside of a star, with a forcefield keeping the inmates in and the sun out. It's also in the middle of nowhere. The caretakers/guards only enter and exit through a heavily guarded teleport facility at the center of the planet.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: One of the motivating factors behind the Plutonian's FaceHeelTurn 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.
* AnArmAndALeg
** [[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 him -- and is taken up on the "offer".
* AndIMustScream: [[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 SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere.]]
* BatmanGambit
** Plutonian invokes this on the supervillains he meets in Inferno's lair. He says the Inferno had a plan to destroy him, and handed each handeheld device with a single button that he implied was the product of said plan. He doesn't even get to finish explaining before each villain presses said button, triggering [[spoiler:the lair's self-destruct.]]
** [[spoiler:The ending for the series has Qubit pull an ultimate one on Plutonian, due to the radioactive cloud that will destroy all life on the planet with the release of his parents. Qubit strikes a deal to give Plutonian "redemption" if he helps save the planet. When the Plutonian starts to go back on the deal believing Qubit can't live to his end, Qubit pulls out the bullet made from the candle of the Nahru Visna that he saved Plutonian from before and teleports it into his heart for added motivation. Knowing that once he followed through with their plan, the radiation would most likely kill Plutonian as well and that his "redemption" that Qubit had in mind would be be his essence being spread across the multiverse.]]
* BedlamHouse: [[spoiler:In issue #23, Plutonian ends up in one. [[UpToEleven In the middle of a sun]].]]
* BerserkButton
** We only see it once, but Qubit does '''not''' like to be called "stupid".
** Technically, the whole premise of the series is that the Plutonian's button (the inability to tolerate criticism) was slowly pushed through the years until he snapped.
* BodyHorror: To summon Orian, one has to read the magic word, upon which he ''crawls out through your mouth,'' killing you in the process.
* BrainUploading: Modeus [[spoiler:uploaded his brain into Samsara and then later into a robot copy of himself built by Qubit. He later considered putting himself into Scylla, but decided he'd prefer remaining in his robot-body for now. Most recently, he's transferred into Bette Noire.]]
* BreakTheCutie: Kaidan's one of two members of the Paradigm that can fight Tony off and have a chance of survival. She's the only surviving member of the team who's not shown signs of a pending FaceHeelTurn, and her origin story strongly implies that she'd see such an opportunity coming and choose death without hesitation. Her powers require her to speak. If she survives, it'll be one hell of a subversion.
* BrokenAce: The Plutonian had the facade of IncorruptiblePurePureness but underneath it all, seems more like he was one of these.
* BrokenPedestal: Oddly, the Plutonian's pedestal broke ''before'' he went crazy. After he made a crucial mistake in the field that left thousands of children dead, [[spoiler:and he initially lied about his role in this tragedy]] his sidekick stopped trusting him. Knowing his closest friend couldn't look up to him the way he used to was one of the last straws. What made it worse was that people from the lab (where he had [[spoiler:turned over the device that led to the tragedy]]) went behind his back and [[spoiler:told Samsara about it, claiming to be too afraid of him to do it themselves.]]
* BrownNote: The child-killing sonic plague and the sigil that summons Orian.
* TheCape: The Plutonian, prior to his FaceHeelTurn. He notably only wears the cape in flashbacks when he's still good.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: [[spoiler:The Candle of the Nahru Visna.]]
* TheChessmaster: Modeus. The Plutonian's arch-nemesis, and reportedly the only one he was scared of. Possibly the only one capable of finding a way to kill him. Disappeared a few years prior to the main story. [[spoiler:Is now possessing/controlling the lobotomized sidekick, egging on the Plutonian on his rampage. Oh, and a Robot Double with his exact mental patterns has started making trouble on his own. And now in the body of one of the few people that Tony has non-homicidal emotions towards. OhCrap.]]
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: "Wow. I didn't even get to the end of the ''sentence''." Leads to a wonderful moment of [[HoistByHisOwnPetard self-Darwining]] thanks to The Plutonian's {{magnificent bastard}}ry.
* ComfortingTheWidow: The Survivor attempts this with Kaidan. Made particularly disgusting by the fact that the recently-deceased lover in this scenario is his brother.
* ComicBookFantasyCasting: Qubit bears a striking resemblance to Creator/DavidTennant's [[Series/DoctorWho Doctor]].
* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: This trope is extremely common in Superhero comics, keeping the heroes from having to explain things to their folks (Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, most X-Men, all the Flashes, most of the Green Lanterns). In the series' common style of course, there's a deconstructive twist- this means Plutonian spent most of his boyhood bounced around between unloving and heartless foster homes, instilling him with a compulsive need to be loved by everyone as an adult.
* DeadSidekick: Samsara's not ''quite'' dead- but he's been lobotomized. The reason for this is that Samsara's power protects him from mortal harm and he thus can't be killed, so he had to be neutralized another way. And of course, the Plutonian did it himself to keep him from spilling the beans on his secrets.
* DepravedHomosexual: [[spoiler:Modeus. He recognizes that he is in love with the Plutonian by issue #22.]]
* DisproportionateRetribution
** A representative of Singapore told the Plutonian his country was grateful to him. The Plutonian however, recognized this to be a lie, and responded by sinking the country into the sea.
** Before his FaceHeelTurn, the Plutonian warns his secret identity's coworkers of this when they discover him. They initially think it's a bit of a funny joke, but he points out to him that any one of his enemies would gladly "rape their children with hot knives" to find it out. Several commit suicide afterward.
* DrivenToSuicide
** The above-mentioned former associates of Plutonian.
** [[spoiler:After reading a Modeus-possessed Cutter's mind, a telepath almost immediately commits suicide.]]
** [[spoiler:It is implied that Tony's only set of decent but controlling foster parents, after revealing to them the mother had cancer and due to the father's teachings of not using his powers for personal gain, Tony withheld that information until it was far too late. ]]
* DyingLikeAnimals
** The Plutonian [[GenreSavvy uses this to his advantage at one point, specifically by making them Lemmings.]] Using a piece of confiscated super-villain technology, he [[DoNotAdjustYourSet appears on televisions throughout the world]], and informs the citizens he has a secret identity. This puts people into such a paranoid frenzy they begin lynching anyone who even resembles the Plutonian, their panic killing thousands.
* EverythingIsRacist: Volt. There are some scenes where his hair-trigger accusations of racism genuinely find their mark, but there are others that don't, like accusing Bette of preferring Gil because he's not black.
* EvilCostumeSwitch: As evidenced in the page image.
* EvilIsPetty: The Plutonian enjoys puppy-kicking on a personal level as much as his mass atrocities, largely to demonstrate the points that used to frustrate him so much.
* FaceHeelTurn: The Plutonian's occurred prior to the series beginning.
* FallenHero: ''And how!!!!!!!!!''
* FateWorseThanDeath: This is what motivated Encanta to spill the beans to Qubit. He threatened to robotize her, this apparently having the effect of depowering her while being horribly painful. Of course, it's permanent.
* FlyingBrick: Deconstructed. The Plutonian's [[ComboPlatterPowers eclectic power set]] is the result of [[spoiler:his being a RealityWarper [[AngelUnaware Unaware]]]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In ''Irredeemable'' #18, [[spoiler:Hornet's reference to [[Series/TheTwilightZone It's a good life]]]].
* ForTheEvulz: But of course.
* FunWithAcronyms: Plutonian's name is one, though no-one else knows it. Chosen by [[spoiler:the foster father he gained his alter-ego's name, Dan Hartigan, from]], it stands for '''P'''iety, '''L'''oyalty, '''U'''tility, '''T'''ruthfulness, and '''O'''rder.
* GlowingEyesOfDoom: Plutonian has been showing this during his tantrums even before he became a villain.
* GoodHairEvilHair: The Plutonian apparently gave himself a buzzcut after turning.
* GrandTheftMe: Modeus has done this thrice; [[spoiler:first to Samsara, later to his own robot duplicate, and now Bette Noir.]] It's not clear if it's an innate power of his or something he needs assistance for. 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. [[spoiler:This backfires when he tries it on Qubit.]]
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[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.]]
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The Eleos, the Plutonian's real race, are a race of RubberForeheadAliens... with RealityWarper powers as a matter of subconscious thought. They do feel empathy and compassion, however -- Tony's own psychopathy is entirely his own personality/upbringing.]]
* HumansAreBastards: The Plutonian's {{Sadistic Choice}}s and mind games seems to be ultimately aimed at proving that. It also seems that he didn't kill most of his old teammates yet because he's striving to break them psychologically, for the same reason. And, as it turns out, he's a psychotic nutbag because his first human mother was. Had she not been so deeply disturbed, everything would have been fine....
* IAmNotLeftHanded: UpToEleven. 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.]]
* INeverToldYouMyName: A variation, when the Plutonian refers to the Hornet's wife by name during a {{flashback}}. The Hornet had never mentioned her name to him, and realizes that he's spying on his teammates and [[BewareTheSuperman may not be entirely trustworthy]].
* InsufferableGenius: Qubit. This doesn't go unnoticed by this teammates, some of whom find it less and less tolerable as the situation worsens.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: From the point of view of his former friends, the Plutonian's done just this; however, the flashbacks in each issue subtly indicate that it has been stewing for quite a while...
* KidsAreCruel: The Plutonian was forced to put up with bullying, as a child, because any retaliation could have killed the kids bullying him. After his FaceHeelTurn, he uses that history of bullying to justify his willingness to murder children.
* KryptoniteFactor: [[spoiler:The Candle of the Nahru Visna is the only thing that can make the Plutonian vulnerable. Bette Noir made a little bit of its wax into a bullet in case Tony ever went rogue, and, well...]]
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Taken rather literally with Samsara.
* LotusEaterMachine: The Vespans have [[spoiler:stuck the Plutonian in one at the end of Chapter 19. When disengaged from it, he's ''still'' stuck inside, having chosen not to awaken.]]
* MacGuffin: Bette Noir made a bullet of a piece of wax from a candle that, once burned, negates Tony's powers. She shot it at Tony, but Qubit redirected it to kill Orian. While Orian was planning to conquer earth the moment Tony was dead, people call Qubit out on this anyway. [[spoiler:Except Qubit kept the bullet.]]
* MeaningfulName
** Scylla and Charybdis, the legendary rock and a hard place; Scylla appears to be every inch the hero (this being the very reason Kaidan loves him instead of Cary), while Cary's descent since Scylla's death shows that he's lost any sense of propriety, not mentioning that ''Scylla'' is the name of a hideous monster in Roman and Greek literature.
** Plutonian's name is very meaningful. It means derived or associated with Pluto, Roman god that is Expy to the more well-known greek called Hades. God of Death and underworld. He's also as distant as can be from humanity in general (like the dwarf planet Pluto). Additionally, it's almost a homonym for plutonium, an element which can offer humanity great power but is incredibly dangerous if mishandled.
** Bette Noire sounds like a fun pulp-style name for an adventuress. In French, it's a colloquialism about a dangerous thing to be avoided at all costs. Bette contributes heavily to Tony's moral decay, but doesn't fully realize it until they visit his Fortress of Solitude. She also has little problem bedding him [[spoiler:after he returns]].
** [[spoiler:"Eleos" sounds a lot like [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Elohim]]. This, of course, makes the Plutonian [[FallenAngel another]] [[{{Satan}} trope]].]]
* MeasuringTheMarigolds: Done mockingly by The Plutonian in the first issue.
-->'''The Hornet:''' Puh-please... Not my daughter too... She's only a little girl...\\
'''The Plutonian:''' I know exactly what she is. She's a carbon bag of atoms and bioelectricity.
* AMillionIsAStatistic: Invoked by the Chinese and Japanese leaders when they convinced the acting US President to release [[spoiler:Plutonian's parents]] in an effort to stop him. The procedure would lead to the slow, agonizing death of ''one third'' of what remained of the world's population, but would stop the Plutonian from killing the rest. Naturally, as soon as he finds out, he drops all diplomacy and goes medieval on their joint asses.
* MoodSwinger: The Plutonian's swings from placid to psychotic are a major element of why he's terrifying.
* MundaneUtility: We see the Plutonian using heat vision to warm a cup of coffee in the third issue.
* [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone My God, What Have We Done?]]: [[spoiler:We don't see much of them, but this is implied to be the reaction of Tony's "parents" upon seeing the devastation which he and they (unintentionally) unleashed.]]
* MyGreatestFailure: Before he went insane, the Plutonian gave a piece of alien technology to a mudslinging scientist to be adapted for the benefit of mankind, also giving him a signal device to call him in the case that anything could go wrong. [[spoiler: The device turned out to contain a sound-based virus that only killed children. The Plutonian might have been able to stop it early on, but he was on the moon, enjoying ten minutes of silence from the constant cries for help that his super-hearing picks up.]] This not only rocketed him toward his FaceHeelTurn, but seemed to affect him even after he became a villain- He still keeps a (rather unsettling) memorial to the victims he failed to help in his Citadel.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero
** See MyGreatestFailure for the most obvious of these on the Plutonian's part, though his former teammates have their share too.
** As of issue 31, Gilgamos gets this [[spoiler:by Scylla's ghost after killing Cary. It turns out Cary was the source of the power he and his two brothers (they were actually triplets), and with Cary's death, the third brother Elliott, who Gilgamos thought he'd get all the power, loses his own.]]
* OhCrap
** [[spoiler:Modeus gets this when he discovers that Plutonian knew he was inhabiting the body of Samasara the entire time.]]
** [[spoiler:Modeus gets a teary one when Plutonian rejects him once again after a tender session of rape. Figures.]]
** [[spoiler:And yet another when Qubit finally imprisons him in a mental prison after he tries to escape following Bette Noir's body's destruction by the Plutonian.]]
** [[spoiler: Qubit gets one after learning Twin's/Survivor's dark secret.]]
** The Plutonian gets one when he realizes [[spoiler:Modeus possessed Cutter.]]
* OmnicidalManiac: The Plutonian, and how!
* PersonOfMassDestruction
* PetTheDog: Even after becoming a crazed, homicidal maniac who kills the world for not appreciating him, when the Plutonian finds out [[spoiler:Samsara has survived his lobotomy with his brain functions intact, he at once becomes friendly and protective of his former sidekick again (even getting food for him by murdering owners of gas stations). Naturally, the series still manages to make this terrible as Samsara isn't really back, only being possessed by Modeus. The Plutonian knew it was Modeus all along. He was just playing along because he was amused by Modeus' FoeYay crush on the Plutonian. The PetTheDog sentiment's still there, as seen in the LotusEaterMachine example. Plutonian wants to reverse everything, but doesn't know how.]]
* PhysicalGod: Plutonian is the strongest being on the planet, and nothing in the (comic) universe so far (with the exception of Max Damage, Survivor and the Eleos) has a chance against him. [[spoiler:He's a reality warper, making him ''more'' god-like, although he's unaware of his true abilities. His parents have his powers to a greater degree and can ''also'' TimeTravel]]
* PlayingAgainstType: While Mark Waid has done DarkerAndEdgier stories before (like ''Empire''), ''Irredeemable'' is doing a lot to subvert Waid's reputation as Silver Age style writer.
* PowerNullifier: A special candle.
* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: The entire point. [[spoiler:(And, apparently, not just for the Plutonian...)]]
* ProudWarriorRace: The Vespans. [[spoiler:After they capture The Plutonian, they agree to leave Earth and never invade again, simply because of an agreement they'd made with a (now dead) Earth human.]]
* PsychopathicManchild: One possible interpretation for the Plutonian's need to be loved.
* RealityEnsues: In a flashback from his early teens, the Plutonian hears his foster mother is about to commit suicide. He gets there in a fraction of a second. But sound takes almost ten seconds to travel two miles. She was already dead before he left his school desk.
* RealityWarper: [[spoiler:Tony, albeit unknowingly.]]
* ReplacementGoldfish: Played with. Both Cary and his brother Scylla had crushes on Kaidan and she wound up dating Scylla. When Scylla was killed by the Plutonian and Cary left alive, Cary expected this to come into play so he and Kaidan would start dating, especially when he becomes The Survivor. [[spoiler: It doesn't. Particularly not when Kaidan discovers Scylla is still alive and begins searching for him. This might be one of the many reasons why Cary is deliberately avoiding finding out where his brother is.]]
* TheRevealPromptsRomance: The Plutonian was going for this, except that his girlfriend became so upset that he had lied to her all this time that she immediately broke up with him. One of the main differences between him and Superman. Superman isn't the kind of PsychopathicManchild who would naturally assume that Lois Lane would be thrilled about being lied to all those years. Empathy and maturity would have gone a long way in that delicate situation.
* RuleOfCool: Kaidan's superpower is the art of telling ghost stories. The characters in said stories are souls of samurai and Feudal warriors. It's awesome. [[spoiler:She can now summon the spirits of superheroes and open a path through the underworld.]] ''Double'' awesome. Even Qubit is surprised by this (not mentioning he's the one that figures it out for Kaidan), and this is a dude than can create technological wonders out of thin air!
* SadisticChoice: During his [[spoiler:destruction of Singapore,]] the Plutonian caught his former teammate Qubit, who tried to evacuate citizens. The Plutonian allowed him to pick ten whom he'd let escape... [[spoiler:to painfully illustrate the answer to Qubit's question: "All that power, all that responsibility... what does that feel like?"]] only to [[spoiler:incinerate their flesh with his eye beams]].
* SamaritanSyndrome: Nothing quite whittles away at your love of mankind than having to serve them 24/7. The Plutonian suffered a huge case of this before he went nuts, constantly hearing, and feeling he had to answer, calls for help every minute of every day. After one particularly ungrateful victim was rescued, he got fed-up and took a ten minute break by flying to the moon, where there was no sound. [[spoiler:During those ten minutes, a child-killing virus broke out, partly because he'd given a piece of alien technology to a human scientist.]] Even after his FaceHeelTurn, there are traces of this. He promised to listen to everyone, but nobody believed he meant that literally.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Max Damage immediately abandons Qubit when he learns that Qubit's master plan for saving the world from the fallout of [[spoiler:Plutonian's parents' release]] involves [[spoiler:making the Plutonian ''even more powerful''.]]
* SealedEvilInACan: As of the end of issue #19, [[spoiler:the Plutonian after he is defeated by the combined forces of the Vespans, Paradigm, and Kaidan's superhero ghosts. He is currently trapped in a LotusEaterMachine onboard a Vespan ship. As of issue #27, [[OhCrap he's back on Earth]].]]
* SealedGoodInACan: [[spoiler:Plutonian's parents.]]
* SecretIdentity: The Plutonian had one, and upon revealing it to the woman he loved [[spoiler:she promptly told their four coworkers and rejected his affection.]] It was one of the bigger contributing factors to his FaceHeelTurn.
* {{Sexbot}}: Modeus builds a half-dozen sexbots resembling Tony.
* ShoutOut: Tony's tragic childhood is a one to ''Literature/ItsAGoodLife''. {{Lampshaded}} by Hornet.
* SmugSuper
** In addition to the rapid walk down a very dark path he seems to be taking, The Survivor is becoming one of these [[spoiler:as he's more than a little bit too pleased with himself in recent issues after the pwning he helped give the Plutonian.]]
** The Plutonian after his FaceHeelTurn. When he became evil, it turned out Tony's false modesty was exactly that.
* StepfordSmiler: The Plutonian's defining personality trait prior to his breakdown.
* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Deconstructed. [[spoiler:The Plutonian's only real super-power is warping reality and violating the laws of physics. He's as strong as he needs to be because he re-writes the universe to make himself that way.]]
* SuperpowerLottery: The Plutonian was the clear winner, which led to certain members of the Paradigm resenting him even before his FaceHeelTurn. While he acted humble during his time as a hero, he didn't mind gloating once he went evil. At one point, while killing Gazer, Tony remarks how he made him totally redundant, being able to do everything he could do but better. [[spoiler:Turns out he "only" has RealityWarper powers -- since he thinks he could win, he does.]]
* SuperSenses: The Plutonian, to a truly insane degree. He can perceive the movement of ''electrons'' inside people's brains.
* TakeThat: Just to make sure that no-one misses the subtext, the first issue comes with a long essay about how comic fans saying mean things on the internet suck and will destroy comic heroes. The essay was written by Creator/GrantMorrison, not Mark Waid, and is not quite as simplistic as that. If anything, the subsequent issues since number one have indicated Morrison's reading of the point is a bit off from Waid's true intent. To elaborate, said essay wasn't saying anything about people talking on the Internet destroying heroes. Morrison was talking about people's opinions, the difficulties in changing them, and what a hero must have to do to become completely [[TitleDrop Irredeemable]]. And how Waid showed him the script for the first two issues, after their discussion if the internauts will ever stop seeing him as a SilverAge {{Fanboy}}, a reputation Waid earned after ''ComicBook/KingdomCome''.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Kaidan must tell a story to activate her powers. It is more of a snippet than a full story, but those couple of sentences are racing against drawn guns.
* TechnicalPacifist: "Everyone knows Qubit doesn't kill"... Humans, that is. He's fine with killing an entire spaceship full of Vespans and Orian, the space demon.
* {{Technopath}}: Qubit's actual power.
* TeleportersAndTransporters: Quibit has built several devices that seemingly produce wormholes. [[spoiler: The Vespans, 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]]
* ThrowAwayCountry: 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.]]
* TookALevelInBadass: Charybdis (later the Survivor), a second-tier superhero, gains a considerable boost of power when his brother dies, putting him on the same level as The Plutonian.
* UnskilledButStrong: While practically a PhysicalGod, the Plutonian turns out to have next to no hand-to-hand combat skill due to never really needing to learn how to fight. Weirdly, this is subverted in a story about him told by Max Damage, who says that he ''expected'' this when he caught the Plutonian in a field that nullified their powers... and got knocked onto his ass for his troubles. He could be exaggerating the story for effect, though, and might simply have been caught unawares by the fact that a depowered Plutonian was not totally incompetent. That, or Tony's [[spoiler:RealityWarper powers were still in effect.]]
* UnwillingRoboticization: What Qubit threatens Encanta with to make her reveal what she knows about Modeus.
* VillainProtagonist
* WalkingWasteland
** Minor background villain Dekay melts everything he touches.
** Also, [[spoiler: Tony's parents.]]
* WhatTheHellHero
** [[spoiler:Bette Noire gets it particularly hard. After escaping alone a trap set up by the US army and a demonic bounty hunter, who revealed her secrets to her teammates, she meets up with her father and, desperate for some kind of support, comes clean with him. He then tells her that her inaction not only cost him everything he had, but also caused the deaths of the rest of their family at the Plutonian's hand. When she asks for forgiveness, he simply says "Not now".]]
** Qubit calls Cary out on [[spoiler:giving murderous supervillains full pardons in exchange for help]] when [[spoiler:Cary should be looking for his brother instead.]]
** Survivor [[spoiler:gives one to his third brother for not trying to stop Plutonian, or even use his powers to help others.]]
* WhosLaughingNow: 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.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [[spoiler:Invoked near the end of the series as a last resort, Kaidan and Gigalmos are prepared to enact a spell that grants every living thing on the planet immortality but due to the circumstances, no longer being able to have children, go to the afterlife and worst possibly stuck forever at the mercy of the Plutonian they hesitate until the last minute, where Qubit stops them saving it as a 'Plan B' in case his plan doesn't work. ]]
* WonderTwinPowers: 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.]]
* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: 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 TheUnfettered 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}}s.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:Tony's first human mother and the one whose desire for a child forge him into a human body, to a horrifying extent.]]
* YouKilledMyFather: While the Plutonian needs to die for the safety of Earth and has slaughtered countless people already, the thing that seems to really [[ItsPersonal make it personal]] for Charybdis/Survivor is that he also killed his brother. Of course, this being Cary (and even when his intentions are noble), he manages to mess up basically everything he touches because of his pride, even reaching the end of undermining his brothers Scylla and Elliott, and rapidly eroding everyone's respect for him.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tropes specific to ''Incorruptible'']]
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Recap pages all share Max's WantedPoster which informs us that he is wanted for manslaughter, terrorism, armed robbery, conspiracy and interstate flight.
* TheAtoner: Max Damage after his HeelFaceTurn.
* BadassNormal: Sidekicks Jailbait and Headcase have no superpowers, but they can handle themselves.
* BlessedWithSuck: Max's super-strength and invulnerability increase proportionally to how long he stays awake. However, he is just as susceptible to the mental effects of sleep deprivation and stimulant drugs as the rest of us, and will [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity exhibit poor judgment as a result]]. [[spoiler:He's also vulnerable for up to a full hour after waking up.]]
* BreakHerHeartToSaveHer: What Max tries to keep his PerkyFemaleMinion Jailbait out of harm's way.
* BrokenBird: Jailbait; Headcase after [[BreakTheCutie plot hits her]].
* BruceWayneHeldHostage: When former villain Max Damage learns about Dan Hartigan being Plutonian's SecretIdentity, he gets mad because he had that "weakling" as a hostage many times and now realizes Tony has been making fun of him all this time.
* BulletSeed: Max Damage catches a bullet in his teeth and spits it out, shooting the gun out of a cop's hand thusly.
* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive: Headcase learns this the hard way.
* TheCommissionerGordon: Lieutenant Louis Armadale is roped into being Max's reluctant ally.
* CoversAlwaysLie: Incorruptible has become extremely guilty of this since Christian Nauck became the main cover artist. See that epic fight scene between Alana and Headcase on the cover of issue 13? Yeah, that's exactly what happens in the comic, just without Alana and Headcase fighting each other, being angry at each other, or having much interaction at all.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Not in the sense that it's more pessimistic than Irredeemable (let's face it, how could it be?) but it has a much more "[[TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks gritty]]" tone, with villains modelled on Neo-Nazis and magicians who power their spells with VillainousIncest. Plus, the [[DarkAgeOfSupernames unfortunate codenames]] of Max Damage's sidekicks -- Jailbait, [[BrokenBird Headcase]], [[BondageIsBad Safeword]], [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Hatecrime]] -- are practically a RunningGag.
* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler:After a brief dust up caught on film where Plutonian and Max are buried in mine, Max makes a secret deal the Plutonian to leave Coalsville alone under his protection. The details of which haven't been revealed on panel.]]
* DeathSeeker: [[spoiler:Headcase]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Commissioner Armadale]]
* EnemyMine: [[spoiler:After Max runs of the Plutonian out of town and everyone thinks he is the ultimate hero, he enters into one with forces of St. Lucifer and the military forces that intended to take over the only place Plutonian was ever repelled from.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Besides the standard enlightened self-interest angle he usually cites, Max seems to have hit this when he saw the Plutonian wipe out an entire city. Keep in mind, Max was on the verge of wiping the city out ''himself'' in a fit of depression [[BlessedWithSuck about the drawbacks of his powers]]... but seeing the Plutonian actually do it shook him to his core. In short, Max was on the receiving end of the treatment of a supervillian -- the sort of thing he did before. It made him feel helpless and like a victim but also made him realize he could be better. Perhaps as a side "benefit", one of the reasons he was a super villain in the first place was because his powers prevented him from being normal. Thus Plutonian's rampage let him experience that in a very real way.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: As called on by his friends early in the series, Max starts out his hero career by simply doing the complete opposite of whatever his villain instincts tell him to do, which may not always be the smart thing.
* GenreSavvy: Max Damage decides to switch sides because he was smart enough to know that the Plutonian turning evil meant there was nobody around to protect the general populace from aliens, demons, and one another. This, coupled with the Plutonian killing millions with no end in sight, meant the human race could die out in a matter of months if someone didn't try to pick up the slack. But also WrongGenreSavvy, as he intentionally wastes resources due to having acquired them through villainy while keeping his name and appearance from his life of crime. For a while, he even keeps Jailbait on as a sidekick -- and all the while, expressing frustration at people not trusting him. This behavior flew in SilverAge comics (Hawkeye and Black Widow most famously), but not so much after RealityEnsues.
* HeroWithBadPublicity: For painfully obvious reasons. [[spoiler:This changes, for a while, after he beats the Plutonian.]]
* HeroWithAnFInGood: {{Subverted|Trope}} in that Max is actually doing a pretty good job at doing good, but he has no actual idea how to be good, other than to do the opposite of whatever he did as a villain. This is exactly why he asked Alana to join him. This is also why his friends are wondering how they will tell Max[[spoiler:, who heard the whole thing, that the Plutonian has been captured, meaning that Max has little reason now to continue on as a hero.]]
* HighAltitudeInterrogation: Max Damage, needing information from Origin, does so by dangling him over a vat of chemicals containing a tentacled monster.
* HonorBeforeReason: Max Damage destroying most of his villain gear and ill-gotten loot as part of his HeelFaceTurn. Resources that would've been invaluable in fighting The Plutonian (the reason for the turn in the first place). 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 GenreSavvy enough to know that nobody would trust him if he still had all his weapons, after seeing that their BigGood turned on them. ''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 ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin because he knows that if he doesn't do absolutely everything he can to be totally and utterly [[TitleDrop 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".
* [[IHaveYourWife I Have Your Sidekick]]
* TheInsomniac: Max Damage's strength and invulnerabilty increase in direct proportion to how long he's been awake. He's a type C as well, as seen when he stays up for days at a time to get strong enough for his next challenge, but is still affected by the mental instability from the lack of sleep. After issue 29, [[spoiler:this applies to Alana, too]].
* ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies: Why Max breaks up with Jailbait. With the Plutonian on the rampage, Max is no longer so intimidating that his enemies would leave his girlfriend alone. Also part of his new honorable turn as mentioned above: he refuses to be with her until she turns eighteen, even after she makes it clear she won't leave him despite the danger.
* {{Lolicon}}: Max Damage likes 'em young: he met sidekick/girlfriend {{Jailbait}} in a brothel when she was fifteen and he was 28-30. She's now sixteen, but his HeelFaceTurn drove him to break up with her for a JailbaitWait.
* MoralityPet: 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 DeathSeeker {{Yandere}} who would ''kill'' anyone that threatens her warped worldview or her relationship to Max). [[spoiler:He ultimately realizes that a Morality Pet isn't enough, and he resolves to be a better hero by being more open to other people in general.]]
* NoSell: Safeword tries her power on the Plutonian. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work (to her credit, she didn't really expect it to, but she figured it was worth a shot).
* NoodleIncident: [[MsFanservice Jailbait's]] [[FetishFuel cage match]] against the {{Hentai}} [[{{Fanservice}} Brothers]]. [[spoiler:Jailbait won.]] And it was hot.
* PowerNullifier: [[spoiler:Sleep. He is vulnerable for roughly an hour after waking.]]
* RedemptionQuest: The premise of the series.
* RoomFullOfCrazy: Max scribbles equations in marker all over the walls of Alana's house in issue #13 as he tries to construct a plan to defeat the Plutonian.
-->'''Alana:''' This is what you feel you can do to other people's homes?
* ShootingSuperman: Max Damage gets this a lot. Lampshaded when he shouts "That's for wasting ammo!" while punching down a mook who was shooting at him.
* SociopathicHero: Played straight. While Max has a couple moments where he shows genuine concern for others, for the most part, he has no moral compass of his own. [[spoiler:By the end, he's trying to get rid of the "Sociopathic" part.]]
* ThouShaltNotKill: Max is trying to stick to this as part of his HeroicVow.
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