Welcome to Comic Theory, where I babble on about some facts to ruin your vision of your favorite comic books. But before I start being a MatPat; I’m going to cover the not as trending and long since passed alternative comic series Irredeemable. For readers of my earlier post; the Eisner nominated series by Mark Waid is an exploration of the superhero comic genre. Specifically what would happen if Superman snapped? The short answer is, tear the entire world apart. Well not literally. The Plutonian just destroys his hometown, sinks Singapore into the ocean depths causing millions of deaths; and sending the world into a panic.
Man with a guy that powerful, count Metropolis lucky that Supes doesn’t end up like him. Even the Injustice Superman isn’t this crazy.
Macguffin of Irredeemable
In any case, with no weakness to radioactive rocks, the governments and heroes are practically screwed. However, they do have a piece magical-technologic-uh… magitek called the Candle of the Nahru Visna. It supposedly makes the Plutonian lose his powers. How did they find out? Well Plutonian actually used it to set the mood and (NSFW bleep!).
In anyway, the heroes thought that using a piece of the candle in a bullet could kill mean old Tony. Naturally however, they make an uneasy alliance with the demonic Orian to get Plutonian in sight. By the time the bullet is fired at the Plutonian; one of the heroes named Qubit redirects the bullet into their demonic ally. Whenever this was brought up to the technopath, it’s usually a form of criticism for missing their chance or to beat the Dr. Who knockoff down. Some people like Max Damage could certainly put up a fight but no one can kill him.
Qubit would later use the wax bullet to blackmail Tony into doing him a favor that eventually ends the Plutonian. The most blood curdling thing is that Qubit could’ve done this whenever he wanted. So what’s the theory? The lanky nerd is actually the villain of the story to put the world under his thumb?
Irredeemable Evidence
Nope, it’s that the candle bullet was useless on its own.
I know what you’re thinking: What? Jake, that candle ended Plutonian when he soaked up all that world racing radiation throughout the world to melt his heart. Seriously just read the series, it was nominated for Eisners for a reason. Well I’m here to tell you that Qubit was right not to let that bullet hit Tony the first time.
Idea Backstory
The candle is obviously based on Kryptonite, Superman’s best known physical weakness. The glowing green rock is the radioactive remains of his home planet Krypton. When near the stuff it causes Superman to get weaker and actually kill him over time. But did you know that Kyrptonite actually came from a radio show? To be honest after a while, the use of Kryptonite in all its different colors was just a poor excuse to hurt Superman in some way. Sure some writers got creative, but come on when was the last time someone other than a rich guy got his hands on this stuff?
Bad writing aside, Irredeemable is about deconstructing the superhero genre and tearing Superman apart by the seams. As Tony’s arch-nemesis (and stalker) Modeus explains, Tony’s powers are about having mind-over-matter; he’s a psionic with the power to change the laws of physics.
This is what allows Plutonian his numerous abilities; flying by telekinetically shifting his mass, speeding up atoms for his heat vision, etc. In other words, the only reason that candle worked for Tony to get his freak on that one time was because Tony thought it did.
Testing the Theory
That’s why the bullet wouldn’t have worked. Since the Plutonian wouldn’t know that the bullet contained the candle; with the way Tony’s powers work the bullet would’ve just bounced off of him. Qubit probably subconsciously knew about this (Modeus was erasing his memories more than a couple of times); which is why he keeps the bullet to use later. By having the bullet near Tony’s heart in the last chapter and telling Tony about it; Qubit had Tony right where he wanted him. Since Tony thought the bullet was fatal, he was vulnerable to the effects he thought it would do to him. At the end of it all; the Plutonian wasn’t done in by a well thought out plan but the biggest bluff in comic book history.
But hey that’s… derivative… I’m gonna need to think of a closer eventually. Check back every so often for my posts.