Invincible, New comics

New comics!

Batman/Catwoman 11

This had better make more sense all at once, because it’s a freaking mess right now.  Tom King’s weakest in quite a while.

Batman: Killing Time 2

This isn’t much better, a bunch of time jumps and set up that make zero sense in a monthly format.

Seven Secrets 16

Aaaand I’m losing interest again.  I don’t know what it is about this series, but Tom Taylor just can’t make it click for me.  Do I need to read it all together again?

Heh.

Captain Carter 2

Superheroes fighting corrupt politicians is rarely fun to read, but Captain Carter is cool enough that this is still enjoyable.

Black Widow 15

Final issue, and that makes me very sad.  I’ll miss the art by Elena Casagrande and Natasha’s lingering trauma regarding her family.  I’ll miss the support system Natasha built around herself, especially the hilarious Yelena.  The stories themselves are surprisingly forgettable, but I don’t even care.

One last gorgeous fight splash.

Invincible 127-144

An extremely satisfying ending as the survivors of the final Viltrumite Civil War get to live out their happily ever after.  Casualties include Oliver, Nolan, Anissa, and Thragg.  To be honest, I’m a little OD’d on massive battles with hundreds of participants in Invincible at this point, there’s definitely diminishing returns as I binge this whole run.  But they all feel like organic extensions of the overall plot from Robert Kirkman, so I’m not really complaining.  They just lack the wow factor of the earlier epic fights.

BTW, I love Terra across all of her ages.  A solo series starring her would have been a great spin off.  

So much personality.

This re-read of Invincible was everything that I hoped it would be.  It was fun, brutal, jaw-dropping, and impressive in all the ways I would want a superhero comic book to be.  My thanks to Kirkman, Cory Walker, Ryan Ottley, and the whole creative team.

Nice ending.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good to Really Good

Invincible

Invincible 97-126

I’m pretty much saying the same things about Invincible every day - It’s a great comic, completely bingeable, and thoroughly entertaining.  And yet it’s averaging at Good.  It would make sense for it to be higher, but it doesn’t get there more often than not.  It’s probably too much to expect; Think about how hard it is to maintain that level of quality for over 120 issues, thirteen years.  It’s really astounding.

So what happens this time around?  Dinosaurus destroys Greenland, flooding the world and killing over a million people.  He comes

Dinosaurus is Ra's Al Ghul

to the realization that he’s a little crazy, and asks an obliging Mark to kill him.  Eve gets pregnant again.  Nolan takes his place as the rightful emperor of the Viltrumite empire.  Mark and Eve get engaged.  Angstrom Levy strikes again and eventually gets killed for his efforts.  Anissa the Viltrumite rapes Mark.  Robot does a heel turn and takes control of the world, killing a slew of heroes (including Cecil) and ripping Eve’s leg off in the process.  Mark, Eve, and their baby Terra leave Earth so that they don’t have to deal with Robot’s reign. 

Hee.

Aww.  Great parenting.

Horrible parenting.

I really can't blame them.

Thragg kills Battle Beast. 

That cape...

Mark’s mind gets zapped back to issue one, and although he now has the opportunity to Groundhog Day everything for the better, he chooses to return to the present.  Only he’s returned to the future, and Eve and Terra have been on their own for five years now…  (Man, the number of times Mark’s disappeared from Eve’s life for extended stretches.  The emotional torment she’s gone through.)

I read 30 issues today, so that pretty much says it all about whether this title still has it.  

It's crazy how a pair of overalls is all you need to think "Clark."

Heh, all the Star Trek doctors.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good to Really Good

Invincible

Invincible 66-96

Invincible Returns 1

32 issues in one night.  Robert Kirkman can write some addictive comics.  There were a number of last page cliffhangers that had me immediately reaching for the next trade: 

Things that happened:

The Sequids return.  Mark murders their host, which makes him reconsider his whole “murder is justifiable” stance.  I like the moral debate he goes through.  I’m not saying that Batman should kill everyone in his rogues gallery, but there are certain people who’ve lost their right to live.  Eve learns she’s pregnant and doesn’t tell Mark.  The Viltrumite War, which is pretty bonkers, but not as insane as the Conquest fight. 

Yeah, they blew through the planet.

Mark returns to Earth.  Eve got an abortion.  Dinosaurus completely destroys Las Vegas. 

Reduced to glass.  So cool.

Mark tries to find an alternative to punching his way to a better world, and starts working with Dinosaurus. 

Insane visual with the snapping teeth.

Allen almost kills off the entire human population with a virus in an attempt to eradicate the remaining Viltrumites.  Mark’s incapacitated for a while, and Bulletproof puts on the Invincible costume. 

Kirkman loooves his callbacks.

53 issues ago.

Fourth reference to the Burger Mart cult!

Rex Robot and Monster Girl spend a very long time on an alien world.  

Plus, you know, a ton of other stuff.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Runs between Pretty Good, Good, and Really Good

Invincible

Invincible 60-65

Holy crap.  Robert Kirkman packs an entire event into one issue with the Invincible War.  Angstrom Levy brings evil Mark Graysons from a bunch of alternate dimensions to wreak havoc on Earth.  A ton of the Image universe cameos to meet the threat.  It’s an amazingly well done issue, superb in execution and hitting all the right emotional beats.

And after giving me only one epilogue issue to catch my breath, Kirkman hits me (and Mark) with Conquest.  

Holy crap x 10.  A three-issue brawl that’s the definition of “no hold barred.”  I thought the first Nolan/Mark fight was brutal.  I knew nothing.  This is insane.

Kirkman said he loves big head splash pages.  He should, he's really good at writing them.

Gorgeous Ryan Ottley art.  (And throughout these issues.)

There’s nothing “usual superheroes” about Invincible here.  This is something totally different.

The conclusion Batman should have come to ages ago.

By the way, I love that I remember almost nothing about what happens in this comic.  I’m almost reading it for the first time, and it’s such a great experience.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pure joy

Atom Eve 1-2

Atom Eve and Rex Splode 1-3

Nate Bellegarde is…not my favorite penciller.

His head proportions are so off-putting.

Despite that, he acquits himself decently in these two series, and even comes up with a truly horrifying image in a good way.  I guess?

That is so wrong.

These two origin stories aren’t bad, but they get downgraded because a lot of it is directly (intentionally) ripped off from scenes Kirkman’s already done in the main comic.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Invincible

Invincible 36-59

Astounding Wolf-Man 11

Much like with Walking Dead, time flies when I read Invincible.  The difference is that I’m not depressed at the end of it with the futility of struggling to survive.  Instead, I’ve just had a rollicking good time.

So what happens over these four trades?

The creator of the Reanimen joins Cecil and the US government.  Invincible deals with the Sequid threat (for now).  Mark breaks up with Amber and finally gets together with Eve.  Allen the Alien rescues Nolan from the Viltrumite prison.  Mark starts training his little brother Oliver.  Mark breaks ties with Cecil after disagreeing with his methods.  

Not to mention a ton of other trials and tribulations, of both the superhero and everyday variety.  Robert Kirkman does his usual splendid job of shifting gears and keeping everything running smoothly.  And Ryan Ottley continues to make it look gorgeous.

Just a great splash page.

Apparently this took Ottley four days to draw.

Super cute.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good (Really good for the Sequid stuff)

Invincible

Invincible 25-35

Mark goes to an alien world and meets his father and half-brother.  He fights a bunch of Viltrumites while he’s there.  Per usual for Robert Kirkman on this title, he mixes brutal action with excellent character work.

After his return to Earth, Mark visits Eve in Africa, then fights Angstrom Levy in one of those “frustrating because he’s getting his ass kicked and can’t do anything about it” duels.  And then he beats Levy to death when he finally gets his hands on him.  (I can’t remember if Angstrom comes back, it seems a little too pat for such a cool character.)

While trapped in an another dimension, Mark meets future Eve, who nails him with a truth bomb:

There’s so much emotion packed into what Eve’s doing here, I love it.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Alternates between Good and Really good

Invincible

Invincible 1-13

Here we go, the other epic Robert Kirkman series in my collection.  I have considerably better memories of this one, and Walking Dead still ended up with really positive ratings.  

Three trades in, and things are going swimmingly.  Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker do a fantastic job setting up Mark Grayson and his world - and then comes the massive heel turn that will drive the series to its conclusion one hundred and forty-odd issues from now.  It’s so well executed, and the graphic beatdown that follows is completely unexpected and heartbreaking.  It’s a true “and things will never be the same” moment.  

Ryan Ottley is a godsend for the series in so many ways.  If not for him, the series may literally not have continued.  (Cory Walker was incapable of drawing a monthly title.)  And while Walker is a capable artist, Ottley is tremendous.  Just getting that out of the way now.

Setup...

Throwaway payoff five issues later.

I've always loved this around the world game of catch.

This has to be Bendis.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good (Really good starting w/ 11)

Invincible 14-24

I’m a little surprised that this hasn’t elevated beyond Good for more than a couple of issues so far; I remember it being just a little bit better.  Still, it’s awfully good superhero comics nonetheless.  Robert Kirkman really has a gift for taking standard superhero tropes and mixing them with standard out-of-costume drama into an intoxicating concoction.  There doesn’t appear to be anything new with what he’s doing, but new it definitely is.  The fun factor is impressively high.

Major milestones: Mark graduates high school.  Mark goes to Mars and brings back an alien infiltrator:

Reminded me of the classic Simpsons ending...

Atom Eve quits the superhero business to do some practical good around the world.  Allen the Alien gets his origin story, and he’s totally Beta Ray Bill.  Mark reveals his secret to his girlfriend Amber.  Angstrom Levy (one of my favorite comic book names) gets his evil origin story.

Plus some other good stuff:

She apologizes later, but this kind of thing will fester.

Is this really how Kirkman ties up this loose end?  Hilarious.  Some seeds bear more fruit than others.

Two pages on fish sex...

Zomg, Kirkman's taking this throwaway gag a step further.  How many more to go?

And one thing that would be funny if it weren’t for a horrible choice of words. I'm not going to dig up the two previous references:

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

Invincible 0

Nothing but a recap.  A waste of time since I’ve read everything it’s reviewing less than 24 hours ago.

Regret buying: No (Yes if it hadn’t been part of the trade)

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Boring