Comics
I Read ‘Invincible’ So You Don’t Have To
Invincible, the comic at least, isn’t a finished product
[SLIGHT SPOILERS]
After 144 issues of Mark getting his butt handed to him, I’ve come to a conclusion about this series. It’s not finished. You might be a little confused by this. It’s finished, isn’t it? Well, that’s what Google says, sure, but it isn’t the truth.
Let me explain.
Invincible, the comic at least, isn’t a finished product. If anything, it’s a first draft. Certainly, from a writer’s point of view, it is. Robert Kirkman (the man who wrote the comic) was around 26 when he wrote the self-proclaimed greatest comic book in the universe. And it shows. The beginning of the comic is… hard. Pretty bad, actually. It started out as a parody of comic books at the time and the realities of actually getting superpowers and what that would mean in the real world. Heck, Kirkman himself said that issue #13 was probably going to be the end of the series, but sales of #12 spiked, and we ended up with 132 more issues.
A lot of the comic is filler if anything, with events just happening… because? The events immediately after Omni-man and Mark’s fight are extremely out of place. Going to Atlantis for a fish wedding? Weird, but okay, I guess. It doesn’t come up again anyway, so that was pretty pointless. Smaller fights just fill up the time. Squabbles between characters that don’t lead anywhere. Some grand old wizard watching over Mark, saying his ‘time is near’ and never appearing again.
But then, after a long haul of grinding through a pretty ‘mid’ comic, it hits its stride, and dear god is it great. The hazard of the Viltrumites becomes a real, stomach-churning threat. Supervillains that aren’t just recurring minor antagonists come in with world-bending plots that actually change the storyline quite drastically.
And my goodness, the gore doesn’t let up. If you thought the beginning was a blood fest, wait until the next few seasons of Invincible.
I mean, look at that cover. There truly is nothing like this comic during the technical war arc of the story. The first 40 or so issues were good, but not great. But as soon as the first compendium comes to an end, it’s a roller coaster, and it left my heart racing after every page.
Frankly, I was never really into comics when I was a kid. I thought they were weird. Who’d get into this stuff? I’d say. You wouldn’t even get excited.
Oh, how I was so, so wrong. I’ve hardly ever gasped at books or comics before, but my parents had to ask me what was wrong whilst I read them because they were just that shocking. The artwork was amazing. Visceral. Real. You find yourself standing up — I did a few times, honestly — cheering on a teenager battling against literal world conquerors. So outmatched, like he commonly is, Mark can’t help but win you over. He’s never been the most complex character, but that doesn’t matter because he’s a good kid trying to do good in a world that’s so against him it’s sickening.
This isn’t your typical YA story. Though it has its teenage gripes and all, it just makes it even more charming. So when a seventeen-year-old has to throw it down with a hundred-year-old near god of chaos and destruction, with his arm broken, bones splitting his skin, and drenched in blood, you have to give him credit for standing back up over and over. And as we all know, the older the Viltrumite, the more powerful they are. Mark is seventeen, a speck in the life of their species.
If you’ve never been afraid of old men before, you will be after this man below gets animated.
However, after this glorious arc ends, everything becomes a little… less. The story, art, and just everything in general isn’t as good. Sure, it has its moments afterwards, but after a certain event prompts Mark off planet, it becomes cartoonish in a way. The artwork wasn’t good, to say the least. It kind of resembled the old Archie comics from the nineties. And no, I’m not joking. For those of you who watch anime, it became slice of life in the blink of an eye. For those of you who don’t, it became a rom-com for a couple dozen issues, around #120 onwards.
I don’t have much of an issue with this, but even the writing took a slight dip. I found myself skimming over entire pages because I was just so damn bored. The same arguments. The same problems. The lack of anything violent. I know it sounds pretentious, but after an entire war arc, what do you expect? It’s good to have some downtime, but after the original artist took a break and someone took over for a while, I lost a little interest. If everything suddenly looks like a Superman comic from the 60s, what do you expect would happen? There’s a gravitas that came with the art, but if you take that away, it all disappears.
However, there are moments (like the picture below) that are high points from the post-chaos that Mark goes through. The King of the Viltrumites Vs Battle Beast. Remember Battle Beast? The man who nearly killed Mark in the series? Who didn’t even kill him because it would be beneath him to kill something so weak? Yeah, this fight is going to be something to behold when animated.
But it does get better for a while. The artwork, that is. The ending war — and I might be in the minority — was an anti-climax. Though drawn spectacularly, with great dialogue, it was just okay, I guess. The final fight was cool in theory, but I didn’t like it. Maybe when animated in a few years' time, it’ll look great. But you had the sense that everything would just work out. There was no real peril.
And here’s my biggest gripe with the comic — The End of All Things Arc was one of the most disappointing arcs I’ve ever read. But it has a reason to be. Ryan Ottley, the artist who drew the majority of Invincible, didn’t want to continue the series. He got bored (per my research) so Kirkman told him to take some time off — resulting in the artwork decline for a few issues — so he could come back and draw the final twelve-ish issues. This left the comic kind of hanging in thin air because there was still so much story to be told. So many plot threads left hanging, new characters introduced with a ton of potential that wasn’t explored, and everything just worked out in the end. I understand why, though. Kirkman wanted Invincible to go on for much longer, but with the artist leaving, he didn’t have a reason to go on. Why push onwards? Maybe that was enough of a sign for things to come to an end.
But it wasn’t. I don’t see why he couldn’t have just hired someone else on par with Ottley’s work to finish off the series. Hell, it may still have been running today if that were the case.
My hope for the animated series is that it does more than justice for this brilliant comic. The first season was far better written than the first 40 issues, and that’s all down to Kirkman getting a bunch more experience. Nearly twenty years' worth. What he can do from here on out is improve from a stable foundation, maybe even expand and do far better than the comic did. Who knows, the ending may be fixed as well. With the show greenlit for seasons 2, 3, and 4, it can only get better. I hope.
Would I recommend the comic? Yes, but also no. There are great parts, there are boring parts. But if you want to, go ahead. You’ll really enjoy it, until a point, that is. Or maybe that’s just me being cynical. Whatever it is, it’s up to you. Reading the comic won’t spoil what’s coming in the show; you’ll just be more excited. And a lot has been changed anyway, so I doubt it’s a spoiler to read what’s probably the greatest comic book in the universe.
