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Incorruptible #1-7

Incorruptible Omnibus

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THE FLIP SIDE OF MODERN SUPER HERO CLASSIC COLLECTED IN ONE VOLUME Super villain Max Damage had an epiphany the day his nemesis, The Plutonian destroyed Sky City. When The Plutonian turned his back on humanity, Max Damage decided to step up. Now, Max Damage has changed his name to Max Daring and turned from his formerly selfish ways – but, Max learns quickly how difficult the path of a hero is when the world still thinks you’re a Supervillain. The companion series to the Eisner-nominated smash hit Irredeemable, is for the first time collected in a single volume, as writer Mark Waid (Daredevil, Kingdom Come) and a team of artists including Jean Diaz and Marcio Takara (Captain Marvel) examine the hard, difficult road to changing your ways and making a difference in the world. Collects Incorruptible #1-30 and Irredeemable #32-33.

720 pages, Paperback

First published July 28, 2012

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About the author

Mark Waid

3,191 books1,286 followers
Mark Waid (born March 21, 1962 in Hueytown, Alabama) is an American comic book writer. He is best known for his eight-year run as writer of the DC Comics' title The Flash, as well as his scripting of the limited series Kingdom Come and Superman: Birthright, and his work on Marvel Comics' Captain America.

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5 stars
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93 (37%)
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78 (31%)
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22 (8%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
Profile Image for Baba.
4,087 reviews1,543 followers
September 10, 2023
The counter-side to Irredeemable tries to look at the dystopia form the view of the urban streets as lifelong super villain Max Damage takes a journey from super villainy to possible superhero-hood? Can he do it? What about Plutonium? On the face of things with a main supporting character called Jailbait and other envelope pushers, it still feels like a sanitised version of the dark adult comic it wants to be, with pretty poor artwork - a 7 out of 12, Three Star read overall.

2023 and 2012 read
Profile Image for Nicolo.
3,500 reviews206 followers
March 28, 2013
I think this was supposed to be read with Mark Waid's other excellent superhero series from Boom Studios but I was only able to find this one digital omnibus. If Irredeemable chronicled the fall to villainy of the world's greatest hero, its greatest villain turned a new leaf in response.

Max Damage, who probably has one of the coolest character names in comics, was once a career criminal who broke every law that he could had a life-changing encounter with fallen hero Plutonian. So much so that he turned from his life of crime. The path to superheroism was the overarching theme of his monthly series and the fact that his former occupation as a big time supervillain did not prepare him for this new path he would take.

It seemed that fate of both Max Damage and the Plutonian were more intertwined than I thought as each figured in each other's origin. Even in the concluding story line of this book, the Plutonian plays a pivotal role.

Waid has figured out how superhero comics ticked and that he was able to reuse familiar tropes from the stories of more familiar characters and forge them into a new take on the genre defined this endeavor.
Profile Image for Richard.
1,062 reviews476 followers
March 25, 2022
"Even I'd believed the Plutonian was always the one man in all creation we could count on to save us from ourselves. Without him, we have nobody. So I decided we needed somebody."
This is the well-conceived sister series to the great Irredeemable , but it's definitely not as popular. This makes me sad because it really deserves more attention. Not only should it be considered required reading for fans of Irredeemable, but it's very well done on its own. Best read in tandem with Irredeemable, it's a story about Max Damage, a bold street criminal that happens to be the Plutonian's second arch-enemy, and focuses on his moral turn and redemption after witnessing his enemy's epic act of genocide. Max has now decided to turn a new leaf but as one can expect, that isn’t going to come without challenges.

Mark Waid doesn’t hide any of Max’s flaws, detailing his past brutality and even showing the fact that he dated his underage sidekick. But due to Max’s determination to do better and in the face of the Plutonians even worse crimes, the reader easily sides with him.



As I’ve mentioned in many reviews, I’m all about rules in superhero stories and their necessity for good storytelling, and this book is a great example of this. Max is essentially invulnerable and strong like Luke Cage, but the catch is that it’s charged by adrenaline so he’s vulnerable for a while after waking from sleep. This provided some tense and exciting moments. Also, showing the fact that Max lacks a strong sense of touch and taste when invulnerable shows the downside to having superpowers like this.

All in all, this is dynamic work here, giving a much-needed look at the street-level events surrounding the Plutonian’s rampage, made all the more exciting when you read both series together, slowly connecting deeply by the end.
Profile Image for Shaun Stanley.
1,316 reviews
June 20, 2021
Incorruptible Omnibus collects issues 1-30 of the series written by Mark Waid with art by Jean Diaz.

A companion book to Mark Waid's Irredeemable, Max Damage is one of Plutonian greatest nemesis, until the day Plutonian snaps and starts his reign of terror. Max decides from that day forward, the world needs a hero to trust in and will attempt to redeem himself as one of the good guys. Will Max be able to convince the public's interest and continue to walk the line on the legal side of the law?

This was a great book to read along with Irredeemable to see both sides of the story. I don't think it would have worked as well if you read each with a time between the reads even though there were portion I actually enjoyed more than Irredeemable. I really enjoyed Max's journey and there are plenty of tie-ins with Irredeemable's characters. The art is also strong throughout the series. I highly recommend reading the two series together for a complete story.
Profile Image for Quentin Wallace.
Author 34 books178 followers
December 8, 2021
This is the "other side" of the comic, Irredeemable. In Irredeemable, the good guy (basically Superman) turns bad. In Incorruptible, the bad guy turns good. The two books are companion titles and crossover at times. I did prefer Irredeemable, but this was good as well.

Mark Waid did a great job of flipping the script, and it was interesting to see different viewpoints of the events. I was a little disappointed with the ending of this one, but I guess the true ending was seen in Irredeemable.

Overall, this was good, as was Irredeemable. If you're a big superhero fan but want to read something a little different, this could be for you.
200 reviews1 follower
February 6, 2024
Not as good as irredeemable but still pretty darn good. A very different story and a really well done complement to irredeemable.
Profile Image for Red&#x1f3f3;️‍⚧️.
315 reviews23 followers
dnf
July 14, 2021
I……………….did not know, going into this, that the main character was a pedophile. That despite his intention to now be a “hero” that he seems completely uninterested in seeking to rehabilitate this behavior, to confront other pedophiles, to make amends to the *literal child* he groomed.

And I also r e a l l y did not know that on top of all of that garbage that this girl is shown constantly thirsting over him and that she is constantly chastised for not instantly getting over this fixation on him that he crafted, AND FURTHERMORE that she’s based on Harley Quinn. A character who was invented to be abused but at least her character was a fucking adult, a bar so low and so easy to clear it’s embedded in the fucking GROUND.

I’ve just been too hesitant to effing to burn this book because I felt like a complete goddamn rube for ever buying it, and further it’s making me question whether I should just throw Irredeemable in the fire pit too. (I know that book is problematic AF but even it had limits, or so I thought since Incorruptible is literally written by the same guy.)

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. And btw if any of this changes after the first idk seven issues I literally don’t care, it already took saintly patience to make it that far into this completely in-self-aware, hella toxic, hashtag 3edgy5me men’s rights activist incel nightmare book that should never have been written.

Comic books have been a disappointing industry my whole life, but this might be enough to make me finally give up trying to find the few good-hearted books actually worth a damn out there.

God fucking dammit.
Profile Image for Tyson Adams.
Author 5 books19 followers
April 18, 2019
Lifetime villains just don't know the recipe for being good.

Max Damage was at ground zero the day the Plutonian went berserk. But Max knew it was coming, he's known the Plutonian's secret since the day he was sent down the path of criminality. Now with his own superpowers, he realises that if the world's greatest hero has switched sides, he has to become a hero. It was never going to be that simple though.

Incorruptible is the companion series to Mark Waid's fantastic Irredeemable. When I originally read both series in 2011-12, I thought they were both very comparable, but that I enjoyed Max's story more. Now upon re-reading, I've switched sides.

The story for Incorruptible deals with more of the consequences to the world after Superman/Plutonian turns villain. The redemption of such a despicable and immoral character is much more interesting than good guy turns bad. But where Irredeemable looks at the repercussions on multiple characters, Incorruptible mostly focuses on Max. This would be fine if Max was actually the protagonist. Unfortunately, Max is merely along for the ride, with major plot points and decisions taken away from him by the events in Irredeemable.

So if you are going to read Incorruptible, do so at the same time as Irredeemable.
22 reviews2 followers
Read
March 15, 2025
While the evil Superman story has been done to death (off the top of my head I can name The Boys, Invincible, Injustice, Dark Knight Returns, Superman Red Son), Irredemable was a comic that breathed new life into the trope. Most use it as an excuse for edginess and horror, but Irredemable took it as a chance to explore the psychology of these characters, and delve into how everyday people would respond as well as how other superheroes would act in face of impending doom. Along with that, Waid manages to constantly subvert expectations nearly every issues with simple twists on comic book characters made expectations that are often times jaw dropping in their cleverness. All of that is to say, the bar was high for Incorruptible, the sister series. And to me, it delivered! It took the psychological approach and boiled it down to a much smaller cast of characters and posed a simple question, “is redemption from the worst acts imaginable possible?” Max Damage provides such an interesting foil to the Plutonian, and spending 30 issues delving into his internal and external struggles as he reconciles a life of crime with an existential unstoppable threat was always a page turner. Mark Waid never misses!
Profile Image for Glenn Burnside.
194 reviews9 followers
September 20, 2017
I wish I could give this 3.5 stars, but I'm going to round up.

This is a great supplement to Irredeemable. I don't think it stands on its own without having read the other series. But as an add-on, it's great. You get to see the same story unfold from a different perspective. And you get to see the parallel storyline - the greatest hero on earth has a psychotic break and goes completely mad, so one of the biggest super-villians around....decides someone has to step up and do the right thing. So now he's trying to do good, even though he has no idea how.

There's a lot going on in this book, and it gets a little busy sometimes. I don't know if the series really lived up to the promise and potential of the first issue, and the end felt even more rushed than Irredeemable's. All in, though, if you enjoyed Irreedemable, you owe it to yourself to read this series immediately afterward, and get the REST of the story filled in.
1,714 reviews7 followers
July 28, 2021
Working as a companion series to Waid's Irredeemable, Incorruptible shows a supervillain who, after seeing his main adversary go evil, decides to become a good guy. The thing is he doesn't really know how to do it. He sets himself as the protector of his city and does everything he can think of to keep it running. The problem there is Max Damage tends to think in absolutes, and if he did nothing but wrong before, all he really needs to do is the opposite of his old habits.

Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, and Max has an at-best incomplete idea on how to be a good guy, in part because many of his way of doing things still shows he's trying to be a hero using a criminal's methods. The series, as a result, is mostly about Max learning what it really means to be good. It's not on the same level as Irredeemable, but it was a fun ride all the same.
Profile Image for Wyatt.
72 reviews
February 2, 2025
(3.5)

As a sister work to Irredeemable, I think it's interesting. It doesn't falter where I thought it would've. It does in plenty of others. The heart of it is very interested in this complicated idea of what it means to do good. I truly thought I would start disliking Max for how they use him in this approach, a singular force that's challenged constantly. But he's cool the entire time. I think we're convinced really well of Max's evilness, particularly with the use of Jailbait. I think the very conception and use of the character isn't in good taste, but it's aimed towards effective means. I enjoyed it plenty, but not as much as Irredeemable, especially in how that felt more impactful overall. This is extra credit. I would've loved more from both series, as there's lots of unresolved ideas.
Profile Image for Ricardo Nuno Silva.
250 reviews1 follower
January 30, 2023
Well, I was a bit disappointed this time around.
After braving more than 700 pages, the last few chapters felt unfocused, with random events popping up in the narrative and uncharacteristically behavior by some characters.
You may say that's creativity at work, but I beg to differ: it just shows a struggle to end Max Damage's saga in the best possible way.
The result is not stellar, I'm afraid...
(disclaimer: I'm a big fan of Mark Waid).

The first half of this volume is an interesting read, with a well woven narrative, but the 2nd half is indecisive, random, looking for a good closure, but "dying on the beach".

I'm not sure if I'll proceed to the last volume of the trilogy...
Profile Image for Mario Mikon.
80 reviews3 followers
May 1, 2018
It has the WORST start ever. The art really sucks and the story looks miles away from any Waid work.

Things start to get a lot better at about #6 or 7. It helps that the artist changes to Marcio Takara. That's probably when Waid starts his engine and, well... does a tremendous job.

Don't expect a brain challenging story: no, you'll get here lots of fun.

It's pretty much the perfect counter balance to the almost terror comics of Irredemable.
Profile Image for Matthew Dimick.
55 reviews2 followers
June 14, 2022
It’s okay. Not great. Maybe better if I were reading week to week and not in a single day.

Outdated transphobia, inconsistent plot made of throwaway characters from IRREDEEMABLE (which has the advantage of being a more interesting premise), loose ends, and lack of focus. I wonder if there were grander ambitions that never came into focus.

If someone were to read the series I’d have them just read IRREDEEMABLE.
Profile Image for M Sholihin.
91 reviews
November 21, 2023
This series is not as good as The main series Irredeemable but I still love the stories. It does have some good story arcs. While I find the villain-turned-good perspective is interesting, I notice the creator failed to realize Max Damage's weakness when he is sleep deprived. Anyway, this is still an enjoyable read for me. Arts are inconsistent due multiple different artists contributed for the whole series. A solid 3 stars from me.
Profile Image for Nate Deprey.
1,275 reviews8 followers
August 25, 2021
3.5 really. The early going of this series is far stronger and clearer than the last 150 pages or so. The story meanders A LOT towards the end even though the final issue seemed rushed almost as if rather than being unable to stick the landing, Waid wasn't sure what airport he should land the airplane at.
Profile Image for Jacob.
393 reviews8 followers
September 4, 2024
I actually probably liked this more then Irredeemable as I love a good redemption story. The first half was excellent and fun character exploration of Max Damage, but the wheels really fell off towards the end where it just felt really unfocused. After reading both this and Irredeemable I can see how people really enjoy these, but they just didn't really wow me.
Profile Image for Becky.
9 reviews3 followers
January 3, 2020
Incorruptible tells the same story as irredeemable, but from the point of view of a former super-villain turner good. The two stories explore the question of whether good is something you do or something you are.
Profile Image for Robert Jr..
Author 12 books2 followers
August 26, 2023
The comic was okay, but the ending was definitely anticlimactic. The binding fell apart after the first read, so I'm not ever buying a book from Boom! again. Besides that, I can't really recommend this one, it's an average comic of its type.
Profile Image for AJ.
77 reviews7 followers
March 21, 2022
Better and more interesting than Irredeemable.
20 reviews
July 11, 2013
Incorruptible by Mark Waid is the story of a supervillain who witnesses his nemesis of a lifetime, the Plutonian, going from champion of the people into genocidal god-like menace. In that instant, Max Damage has the epiphany that he must counterbalance the scales of destiny and become a superhero, however he's never done it before but has rather lived a life of ruthless crime, had a partner who's a minor (and wears her status as her codename, Jailbait), amassed vast amounts of money and killed, tortured and destroyed anyone in his path if he so saw fit. So the only thing he can devise from his past is that to be a superhero he must do the opposite of all that, and so he becomes incorruptible like the title, accepting no compromise, having no tolerance for any wrong. But a world that has faced the Apocalypse at the hands of its former protector (whose story is detailed in the Irredeemable series, in turn) will not be the best proving ground for Max's black and white vision of integrity...

Mark Waid is well known as the foremost expert on Superman, and in a sense this book is an exploration of possible deviations on that paradigm: the god-like defender turned into this distant, ever-hanging fear personified, and the former evil turned benefactor, but lacking the moral high ground that growing in a Kansas farm granted to the Last Son of Krypton, having to make it up as he goes, sometimes misstepping with consequences as large as his power is greater than those around him.

All around Max, an assortment of other characters who represent variations of corollary personas in the mythos themselves, the cop, Armadale, an alcoholic, far less capable of living up to his resolve to be better, the sidekick, living for the thrill and perhaps caught in a deathwish, whose problems Max is ill equipped to solve or even see, Alana, the Lois Lane of the situation, who cannot be the moral compass she should be, and the population of Coalville, the city Max calls home and which he decides to protect at all costs, even from itself, which is more of a Gotham than a Metropolis, and really less than that, it's the No Man's Land, the ruins of civilization at one time struggling to survive and trying to off itself.

Waid's skill as a narrator is well exercised here, and aptly served by the graphic department, if not memorably. Despite not exactly empathizing with Max because of his ruthless, merciless past, one feels like his endeavor is noble and wishes for his success, even as it seems evermore distant with each step, each punch and each death he paves the way with. Clocking over 700 pages, it took me a few hours to devour it. While telling a dark story, it was written so that it did not feel bleak and discouraging, and I'm glad I did. A definite recommend.
Profile Image for Samuel.
37 reviews6 followers
September 20, 2014
In Irredeemable , a hero more powerful than Superman goes crazy and destroys much of the world. In Incorruptible, one of that hero’s longtime enemies reacts by becoming a superhero, which to him means indeterminately beating the crap out of lawbreakers. This is the story of that dummy, of people taking advantage of the fact that he’s a dummy, and of friends trying to convince him to stop being a dummy.

Overall, I liked Incorruptible (hence the three-star “liked it” rating), but like Irredeemable , it seemed like its story was too simple to be dragged on for as long as it did. They each have a pretty appealing premise, but that’s not enough to fill a couple dozen issues, so there’s filler and slow character development. I think I would have been happier with both of them as a miniseries.

This series had a few instances of things like, “Remember that guy that’s never been mentioned, ever? He’s back, and we all know what that means.” There’s never any explanation of what makes St. Lucifer such bad news, for instance, when he just seems to be a normal megalomaniac.

It also takes for granted throughout that the reader is also reading Irredeemable. This story is greatly affected by (here unexplained) events that occur in that one, but aside from a crossover (shown only in Irredeemable) that lasted about ten seconds, this book’s events had no impact on that book.

If you have read or are reading Irredeemable and thoroughly enjoyed it, I recommend reading Incorruptible as well. If you have not read it or thought it had too much filler, don’t bother.
Profile Image for Blake.
72 reviews3 followers
September 9, 2014
As a parallel to Irredemable, I felt it was somewhat weaker, though the idea was equally compelling. The difference, I think, is that Irredemable was about the human butting up against the absolute, while Incorruptable tried to do the same when it didn't really apply. As a result, the plotting came off as reactionary, rather than dynamic. Otherwise, the writing was good, the art was good, and it was interesting to see this universe again from a different perspective.
Profile Image for Mhorg.
Author 12 books11 followers
June 28, 2016
The flip side of irredeemable isn't a keeper

While the idea of a super powered villain going straight isn't new, one who goes straight when his world's most powerful hero goes bad isn't. Still, this isn't Waids best work. The art is at times so-so and the story repeats itself too much. max never takes much of a direction. Ok to read once, not a keeper.
Profile Image for Jim Sangwine.
19 reviews1 follower
January 28, 2015
This is good. It would have seemed even better if I hadn't read irredeemable first.
Not to say that you should read them in the other order - you shouldn't.
It's just that irredeemable was SO good it was an almost impossible act to follow.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews

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