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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Do I have everyone's attention? If you're using a television, a computer, a radio or a phone anywhere on the planet, I suppose I do. So if the translator module is working correctly...let's answer some viewer mail. Lei Hujun of Harbin, China wondered aloud last week how I "could possibly be the same Plutonian everyone once loved." Trick question, Lei. How could I really have been with you that eager to turn on me? Also, Lei, you shouldn't have called me a "monster." I've never done anything to you. Or to your children, Yan and Zhang. Ages five and...what, about eight? Eight. Ricky Mitchell of Tupelo, Mississippi asked the college girl he's been sleeping with if she knows how many bodies I've left in my wake. Well, let's see. Figure three and a half million in Sky City...four-point-six in Singapore...sporadic global damage elsewhere...wow, population is really down. On the upside, however, this is a boom time for mapmakers. And finally, Caleb Albright of Vancouver, BC--and, by the way Caleb, yes, it is cancer--wrote in his journal, "who does he think he is?" Funny you should ask. You know what they used to say about the gods of myth. That they would disguise themselves and walk among you as ordinary men. I confess. I do that. It's enlightening. But...who am I? That guy down at the end of the bar? The new recruit? The foreigner who just moved in upstairs? I know what you're thinking. That at least in this moment, I can't be standing next to you. There is that. But I should add one thing. This has been a pre-recorded message. Sleep tight. | „ |
| ~ The Plutonian on a live broadcast to the world. |
| “ | Let me tell you about the kind of world I live in. It is a world of miserable, bitter, ungrateful paramecium who lash out at you in a state of perpetual rage for not solving their problems fast enough. You do astonishing things for them a hundred times a day. You bring wonder to the lives of ordinary people. And in the end, you realize it's like doing magic tricks for a dog. | „ |
| ~ The Plutonian expressing some of his grief on being a superhero. |
Daniel Hartigan, better known as The Plutonian, is the main protagonist of the comic book series Irredeemable and the overarching antagonist of its spin-off, Incorruptible.
A mysterious man with incredible powers, he was once the Earth's greatest and most beloved hero. Then one day something snapped inside him, and he went on a murderous rampage with no apparent aim other than spreading maximum pain and suffering across the globe. He's now the greatest threat the world has ever faced, and nobody knows how or if he can be stopped.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- Though the Plutonian did genuinely heroic acts and formed the Paradigm to protect the world, he chose to forsake all of his redeeming qualities when he embraced evil.
- Even before he went rogue, his whole superhero shtick was, by his own admission, a mere façade in order to feed his insatiable hunger for unconditional universal love, always throwing tantrums and sometimes even outright refusing to help whenever someone said anything even remotely critical about him, justified or otherwise.
- He would also stalk and go behind his teammates' backs on occasion—case in point: giving away an alien bioweapon in the vain hopes of wooing a scientist who badmouthed him, despite the Paradigm agreeing to keep that technology to themselves for public safety. As a most unfortunate result of Tony's fragile ego in this scenario, countless children in Star City died and were then reanimated into zombie skeletons.
- While Tony's lust for attention mainly stems from his awful childhood, where he was bounced around numerous foster homes due to his fearsome powers (one of his mothers even killed herself because of it) after his birth parents inadvertently imprinted his consciousness to match that of an insane woman who killed her first baby (he was originally a probe, and was transformed into The Plutonian after unexpectedly encountering such extreme emotion), both Qubit and his own birth parents tell him to his face that it's his own fault he went rogue, so it doesn't excuse his numerous atrocities and that he still deserves punishment for them. Not to mention he'd caught several lucky breaks like a girlfriend, other super-powered friends, and the respect of 90% of the human race before throwing it all away by lashing out at even his loved ones just to get back at the ungrateful 10%, thus making him the ungrateful one.
- According to Bette Noir, it's also implied that Tony subconsciously brings his own failures onto himself to feel justified in his actions, having harbored murderous urges inside of him from the very beginning. She might honestly have a point there; it definitely explains more about why he waited to tell his last father Bill Hartigan about his mother Irene's brain tumor until it grew to the point of being inoperable, resulting in Bill committing suicide with Irene after Daniel justified his silence with "you always said we should put our concerns last." After all, Bill was rather harsh (as a form of tough love) in his parenting of Daniel, even making him give away his own Christmas presents one time.
- Despite wishing to undo all his past crimes, given everything stated above, it's clearly just so he can alleviate his ego again and gain back the love and admiration he had before rather than seeking redemption or feeling genuine remorse for any of his actions. Plus, as mentioned below in "Actions," him dying to save the world from radiation poisoning only happens when Qubit threatens to kill him otherwise.
- His actions manage to be so horrific that they inadvertently inspire his then-archinemesis, Max Damage, to become a superhero to protect the world from the Plutonian's tyranny and terrorism.
- Despite his past romances with Alana Patel and Bette Noir, he's fairly abusive towards them in the present. During Incorruptible, he starts searching for Alana with implicitly malicious intentions due to her previous partnership with Max Damage, whom Tony hates with a passion. Then, soon after returning to Earth from Gehnom, he holds Bette hostage while keeping her on suicide watch as a cruel taunt, knowing she hates herself for practically sacrificing millions of innocent lives just to keep her secret of being an adulterer.
- While dying of radiation poisoning and then having his body and soul disintegrated and then spread across the multiverse is an awful way to die, The Plutonian nonetheless deserved this fate given all the atrocities he committed across the story.
- After his death, The Qubit spread his essence across the multiverse in hopes someone else would do "something good" with it for the Plutonian to be redeemed posthumously. The Qubit wish is seemingly granted when the last page heavily implies that teenage Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were somehow influenced by the Plutonian essence to create Superman, making him "reborn" as the Man of Steel. However, that still isn't a redeeming quality because:
- Irredeemable and Superman belong to very different publishing companies (Boom Studios and DC Comics, respectively), making the canonicity of Plutonian being reborn as Superman highly questionable.
- It is heavily implied that Plutonian was "reborn" as Superman in an indirect, symbolic way, simply unwittingly inspiring his creation and not literally being reborn as Superman.
Actions[]
- For starters, he used his heat vision to lobotomize his immortal teenage sidekick Samsara, burying him alive in a vegetative state with very few memories left afterwards, which is by all means a fate worse than death.
- Later on in the comic, upon discovering Modeus possessing Samsara's body to manipulate him, Tony desecrates Sam's reanimated corpse by burning his face off out of sadistic spite towards Modeus, even casually eating a Snickers bar as Modeus/Samsara runs away crying in pain. This proves that Tony has no remorse for what he did to Sam at all.
- He destroyed all of Star City, killing 3.5 million people (including a group of schoolchildren onscreen) with only a handful of survivors who were simply too scared to leave afterwards.
- He kills Hornet's wife Donna and their infant son with his heat vision right in front of him and his young daughter Sarah, reducing them to lifeless skeletons in the process. He then kills Hornet himself the same way in front of Sarah, taunting her before likely killing her offscreen as well. Even worse, Tony and Hornet used to be best friends within the Paradigm before the latter went rogue.
- Around the same time as this, Tony also killed his fellow Paradigm members Metalman, Citadel, and the Inferno (by putting his fist through his head) and amputated Volt's left arm.
- He's a serial proxy rapist. In his spare time, he kidnaps random men and women that look like himself and Bette Noir, forcing them to have sex with each other. He even makes the women say "please save me" during the act as they orgasm.
- He kills one of the speakers at the Headquarters of the United Nations during a conference meeting by freezing him with his ice breath before shattering him to pieces.
- When an ambassador of Singapore lies to him about being grateful to him out of completely justified fear for his own life, Tony floods the ambassador's whole country out of petty spite, killing 4.6 million people while forcing Qubit to choose only ten survivors to show him "what it feels like" to literally not have everyone appreciate his heroism.
- He kills Anita and Loren Daniels, two of his many former foster parents who turned him away as a child, reducing them to lifeless skeletons with his heat vision. In the process, he also leaves their son Joey (who became mentally handicapped because Tony hugged him too hard when he was a baby) to starve to death all alone.
- When imprisoned on Gehnom, he leads a breakout of dangerous alien super-criminals, resulting in the deaths of countless guards. He even impales and kills Auroran for trying to appeal to his inner good.
- Upon returning home to Earth from Gehnom, he uses his heat vision to carve his logo into North America, destroying several cities (the military names only St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Montreal) and killing countless million more people.
- He flings several Paradigm members into the night sky, killing them and turning them into shooting stars to "make a wish".
- He nearly lets the Earth's remaining population of four billion people die from radiation poisoning just to spite Qubit, only saving it when Qubit threatens to kill Tony by teleporting a candle wax bullet into his heart.
- Although he did spare Coalville at Max Damage's request, he was going to let it die too, subverting his sole redeeming quality. Even then, it's unknown if he did it out of legitimate respect or because Max was playing off his ego.
External Links[]
- The Plutonian on the Villains Wiki
- The Plutonian on the VS Battles Wiki