Netflix Superhero Makes The Boys Homelander Look Like A Boy Scout
Thanks to Amazon’s The Boys, Antony Starr’s Homelander has earned a reputation as the bloodiest, most brutal, most insane answer to Superman to ever invade pop culture. But as long as the adaptation does justice to the source material, the upcoming Netflix original film Irredeemable will introduce fans to a Superman analog who makes Homelander look like a lazy boy scout with a heart of gold.
Irredeemable
Beginning in 2009, Irredeemable is a comic whose story unfolds during an apocalypse caused not by zombies, pandemics, or nuclear wars—but by one man, The Plutonian.
Ever wonder what The Boys would look like if Homelander forgot Vought, forgot how the public perceived him, and just cut loose? It would probably look a lot like Irredeemable.
The comic book begins after The Plutonian’s sanity cracks and he begins an absolutely genocidal rampage, murdering millions in the fictional Sky City. He wipes out most of the world’s superheroes and supervillains who could possibly challenge him, and at the end of Irredeemable #4, he has a tantrum and sinks Singapore into the ocean, killing all 4 million people on the island.
The Movie
In 2022 it was announced that Irredeemable was on its way to becoming a movie. The news came from The Hollywood Reporter, who said that Jeymes Samuel (The Harder They Fall) was on board to direct the film while Kemp Powers (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) was writing the script.
THR also reported the filmmakers were taking an interesting approach.
At the same time Mark Waid wrote Irredeemable about a superhero who went bad, he wrote Incorruptible about Max Damage—a supervillain trying to redeem himself and at the top of his to-do list is the downfall of the Plutonian.
According to the THR report, the Irredeemable movie is going to pull from both comics to create one story.
Homelander Was Always A Maniac
The biggest difference between Homelander of The Boys and The Plutonian of Irredeemable is that the latter is driven insane, while the former was always there.
The Boys starts off depicting Homelander as an ambitious, conscience-less media hog whose darker appetites are just barely reined in by Vought executives like Elisabeth Shue’s Madlyn Stillwell and Giancarlo Esposito’s Stan Edgar.
As Homelander rids himself of these tempering influences, he comes closer to becoming the kind of guy who would really do what we see him fantasize about in Season 2—cutting entire crowds of people in half with his laser vision without worrying about the consequences.
The Plutonian Is A Good Guy Driven Insane
Unlike Homelander, the villain of Irredeemable doesn’t start off as a bad guy. The series gives us plenty of flashbacks showing The Plutonian as a strong, well-meaning hero who slowly but surely becomes disillusioned with humanity and traumatized by betrayals—both real and perceived.
Regardless, by the very few first issues of Irredeemable it’s clear that The Plutonian has caused the kind of damage on a global scale that Homelander could only dream of (and probably does).
You know how heroes like The Deep and A-Train feel utterly terrified around Homelander? That’s how every last living being on Earth feels about The Plutonian in Irredeemable. He holds the entire world hostage, waiting for an excuse to wipe out millions.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
