It always bugs me how characters mentioned above, like Phoenix, Scarlet Witch or Wolverine see-saw back from heroes to mass murderers without real consequence.

This story looks like it may have room to actually explore the concept. Art’s pretty, too, so I’ll at least be giving first issue a go.

Should be interesting, though.

Your movie trailer analogy is very apt; I’ve decided not to spend my money going to films based entirely on what the producers chose to highlight in the trailer. Same situation here.

I’m supposed to read more into it? I’m supposed to go beyond what they showed me and expect MORE?”

Well I should hope you can expect at least 20 or so pages more… Your response to this is like watching a movie trailer and saying “That movie sucked, it didn’t even make sense! No character development, no build-up, nothing!” Yes, a trailer or a preview can help you decide whether a movie or book is something you would be interested in watching or reading, but dang man… you’ve spent a lot of time criticizing a book you haven’t even read yet. If you don’t want to read it don’t, but I think you could have read it in less time than it took you to type up your comments.

As for me, reading the article only gave me a passing interest in this, but the preview pages put me over the top. I’m excited about this book and look forward to it, and there are only maybe one or two other books I’ve been able to say that about lately. Great concept, and I know Waid will knock it out of the park! I think the only cynicism I’m picking up is in some of these comments… sheez guys, really!

It’s been done so many times before… Dark Phoenix, Miracleman, Watchmen, Scarlet Witch, Black Adam, Ultimates, Superboy-Prime, Bishop, Invincible, an on and on and on…

When *Teen Titans* of all things uses the evil-former-teammate as a plot staple for decades then you know you haven’t exactly mined innovative new territory with this series.

Maybe the nihilists out there feel they need an antidote to all the happy-happy joy-joy surrounding Obama’s inauguration but personally I’d rather be reading something more hopeful, heroic and far less gruesome.

Because it’s not different? Empire. Wanted. It’s not even that different than most of what DC is putting out these days, darkness for darkness sake. Hopeless heroes. Good guys get the shaft. Yay. It’s tiresome. The only brightspot at DC these days is JSofA. Most of those books are so unrelentingly ‘dark’ one wonders how anyone can read them all and not want o blow their heads off.

And I’m criticizing WHAT THEY OFFERED AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE BOOK. I didn’t pick those pages. Boom did. Maybe even Waid did. They picked pages depicting the lead up to the apparent murder of an innocent family.

I’m supposed to read more into it? I’m supposed to go beyond what they showed me and expect MORE?

No. Either tell me I should expect something interest and trust I can wait, or show me.

DO NOT show me one thing and then say “it’s not that!”, that’s just craziness.

You show me a crappy trailer that looks like something I’ve seen before, I’m gonna be less than interested in the film.

I expect something good from Waid. This, based upon the preview, DOES NOT LOOK GOOD. It looks like another tired exercise in deconstruction.

I’m not against it, I’m just wary.

And Waid knows superheroes like the back of his hand. When he and the late Mike Wieringo did FF, it was the best since Lee & Kirby, IMHO.

btw, I have no affiliation with Boom! Studios, for any of you cynical lads out there.

Comics seems to be the only industry where the consumers root for failure. Pull back the hate a bit. It’s like smashing someone’s toe before he gets in the room.

Every time I go into the comic shop I am surrounded by books about super HEROES, some of whom are 70 years O-L-D. Why on earth anyone would criticize a writer for trying something different in today’s troubled marketplace is beyond me. Especially since the book hasn’t even come out yet.

And I loved Peter Krause (obviously not ME!) on “Six Feet Under” and “Sportsnight”.

So the twist is here this used to be a good guy.

But like someone else said, that page with the guy trying to rangle his wife and kids didn’t seem to promising, it seemed like that could’ve been in Wanted.

The tone of these pages doesn’t do anything for me.

Sometimes, I think it would be best not to partially preview a book, I know publishers thing a taste is in order, but a sample doesn’t always do the whole justice. Give me sketches and non specific covers, don’t give me pages that don’t represent the whole work because they’re dramatic, you give me a taste of something I don’t like I’m going to expect the whole thing will taste like that.

It is nice to see Peter Krause doing comics again, it’s been, what, almost ten years since Power Of Shazam bit the dust? I’m one of the few who really enjoyed that book.

) (I kid, I kid)

Thanks for your comments. I am looking forward to putting this on my order this week. )

First things first. I’m not an unbiased observer. Mark is editing my next book, which will be coming out from BOOM! in May. With no offense to other editors I’ve worked with – Mark’s the flat out best editor I’ve ever worked with. He’s also a friend and mentor, as he has been to many comic pros. And – meet him in person at a con and I think you’ll agree – an all around nice guy.

I’m not going to yell at people for jumping the gun. I think when creators/publishers tease work like this, we invite it to an extent. But I do think this book is worth a shot. Here’s why:

When I heard his pitch, it was one of those brilliant “why has no one ever done those before/why didn’t I think of that” stories. I stopped slapping myself when I realized even if I’d thought of it, I wouldn’t have executed it as well as he will.

It’s easy to say, “I read this the first time when it was called Empire. That’s not a shot. I say the same thing myself, out loud, in movie theaters all the time when the trailers come on. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong.

This isn’t an in depth article where Mark has waxed poetically about the project. We’ve got a brief premise, some pretty great cover art, and a scene that…well, I heard the pitch and I’m not sure where it falls. It could be he’s trying to slaughter innocent women and children, but that’s not what I took out of it. Nor is it consistent with, well, anything Mark’s ever written.

And from a brief preview could say Irredeemable has something in common with Empire. Just like you could say Kingdom Come does, or Wanted does, or Watchmen does. Or hell, Squadron Supreme, even the “Emperor Doom” graphic novel from the 80s where Dr. Doom took over the world with the help of Purple Man, and Wonderman got up from a nap and Doom let him save the world because he was bored of ruling it so easily.

My point? Those books may have similar premises, but they’re all very different works. Different in tone, style, them…etc.

This is definitely NOT a re-tread of Empire. I can’t say why without spoiling what I know of the plot, and I don’t ask you to take my word for it. But as someone who DOES want to see more Empire, I’ve asked him about it, and he definitely has more Empire to tell. It would be a slap in the face of Barry Kitson if he were to tell an Empire story under a different name, and Mark doesn’t roll like that. I feel pretty confident we’ll see an Empire story some day – but this won’t be it.

For those of you that are worried that there won’t be a heroic element in this or his other work – think about who we are talking about. Mark, along with Kurt Busiek, was one of the few people to help drag comics out of the darkness they were in for such a long time. If not for him, we might still be reading bad knock-offs of Dark Knight and Watchmen.

Just look Mark’s his body of work. The Flash, Captain America, Superman Birthright. Mark has consistently written characters and stories that embody heroism. He may have range, Kingdom Come, Potter’s Field and yes, Empire might be edgier than people expected. But I don’t think you’ll find a drop of cynicism even in his darkest tales.

As a writer of (among other thigns) super-hero comics, I often daunted by the fact that are a field in which it’s hard to be TRULY original. It’s especially hard to break the mold when you are working for a corporation that’s protective of its trademarks. Sometimes I think, why bother?

Then I think back to Mark’s JLA story, when Batman got caught profiling his fellow heroes like they were enemies, Ra’s Al Ghul took the remains of Bruce Wain’s parents to the Lazarus pits. How many years of Justice League stories, let alone Batman tales, had their been before, and no one ever thought of this? Mark yet again pulled something new out of his hat.

Now he’s working without the constraints of having to service someone else’s trademarks (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

I’m not asking anyone to take my word for it. What I do ask – is for you to think about Mark’s long track record of original, heroic fiction – and think about whether it’s fair to presume, based on that body of work, that Mark’s going to write a dark rip off of a book he wrote 10 years ago.

Like I said, I’m not without bias. But I also have nothing to gain from saying this – he’s already publishing my book. But I feel strongly about supporting a creator who dare to work outside the big two, and even more strongly when that creator has given as much comics as Mark Waid has.

Mark (Sable)