Good evening, folks. I find myself delightfully devoid of a headache, but woefully devoid of motivation. That said, I’m behind one day on Heroes Week and feel like a proper cad about it, so I shall soldier on as I should have last night.

This type of Hero is embodied by one example that I still need to read, so the details will be a bit fuzzy. That thankfully means there won’t be any major spoilers, thankfully.

Incorruptible and Irredeemable are two comics that ran around the same time, featuring a parallel story that is really fantastic. Honestly, I’m ashamed to admit I’m barely into Irredeemable and I’ve only read so much of Incorruptible. 

The story that joins these two comics is essentially this question: what would happen if the world’s greatest superhero went evil? What would happen if his greatest enemy became a paragon of justice in response to this? When I say “went evil”, I fear I may be making a gross understatement as what I really mean is that The Plutonian snaps one day and starts murdering EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. Former allies? Dead. Former enemies? Dead. That kind, old man crossing the street on the way to see his grandkids in a school play? All of the people mentioned in that previous sentence should be assumed extra-crispy, dismembered, disemboweled, and very dead. Frankly, the whole scenario is quite terrifying to read because The Plutonian makes such a powerful, twisted villain.

It’s only appropriate that Max Damage, his former archenemy step up and become the hero the world needs, right? Which is weird, because Max Damage, as far as I’ve read, was a gigantic, self-serving asshole up until the proverbial world-wrecking shit hit the fan. Max Damage basically throws all of his villainy ways away, turns all of his former allies over to the cops, destroys all of his loot, and sets on his mission to stop The Plutonian. This creates a really interesting shift in things, especially considering The Plutonian is a few churches in his name away from being a God.

This is, of course, not the only example of such role reversal, with a villain becoming a hero in Wreck-It Ralph and really undermining the whole system of defining heroes and villains in set states of good and bad.