Best Bits: Invincible

Reflecting on “The Best Comic in the Universe!”

By Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley. Published by Image Comics. All images fair use.

My Invincible journey began when my mom told me to stop being a pansy.

… Backtrack time.

Dear Reader, I must admit a hard truth: I’m a scaredy-cat’s scaredy-cat. “It’s fun to be scared!” people have told me. I… will never understand the sentiment. I don’t jump at my own shadow or anything, but it took a girl I was head over heels for in high school to get me to watch a horror film without curling up into a corner and bawling. (It was The Grudge. Afterward, I couldn’t pass by the attic for weeks without having an on-the-spot aneurism.)

As someone raised on spine-chilling classics, my mom had a rough time coming to grips with her son’s lack of a backbone. She didn’t understand why I was so averse to scary movies, or why I hated being dragged onto the dancefloor, or why — y’know what? Let’s wrap back around before I write a deep-dive Mom and Me piece.

Long story short, for every “Ma, I don’t wanna watch this!” she’d turn the other cheek with a “Oh, you’re being ridiculous!” (I’m originally from the Bronx, but because I moved out when I was 10, I don’t have the fully formed accent to prove it. When I call her…