Discovering Invincible

Every time I get money from the holiday season I like to experiment with a comic series I've been interested in checking out but not particularly brave enough to invest in it, this year I was looking for something that wasn't Marvel or DC, I needed a little break from them. So I went to one of the comic shops to find something new, I came across the first Invincible hardcover from Image Comics unwrapped, a rarity for hardcover graphic novels. I've seen the trades displayed on the shelves in the past but I've never really felt like grabbing them from the shelf like I did with the hardcover, and soon found myself flipping through the book half reading it but mostly looking at the pictures and from what I saw it was something that could provide that break from Marvel and DC I desperately needed.

Long story short, I was back less than a week later getting the other three hardcovers.


Debuting in 2003 by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Cory Walker (and later Ryan Ottley) Invincible is about Mark Grayson, a teenager who has inherited his father's alien powers which include flight, super strength, super speed and invulnerability (hence his name) the book shows him developing his powers and encountering other teen heroes (such as Atom Eve, Rex Splode and Dupli-Kate) and even teaming up with his father (Omni-Man) as well as discovering some home truths about the alien race (Viltrumite) he gets his powers from.

Unlike Marvel, DC and the vast majority of Image Comics offerings, Invincible is fairly light hearted, not to say it doesn't have its dark and gory moments, it's funny without being too goofy while at times it can be fairly serious. At times Invincible reads like a homage to the Silver Age of comics i.e. the stories are fairly self contained, done in one but at the same time is part of whatever the ongoing story arc is, which in an age where comics are often written for trade is a bit of fresh air infact you could just read the first 13 issues and get a fairly complete story.


What I liked about Invincible is the fact that it's a teen hero book that sounds like the hero is a teen both in his civilian life and when he's Invincible, the dialogue reads as something very natural and doesn't get too overbearing like Ultimate Spider-Man does at times and unlike Ultimate Spider-Man which has a tendency to overload the reader with too much of the civilian identity plots and subplots, Invincible balances the civilian stuff with the superhero action, there is more action than 'talking heads' which is what I want from a superhero book. Invincible's support cast is nicely featured without becoming too overbearing some of whom have their own sub plots which don't detract from the main plot in the story.

Each issue is well paced and there is never a sense that the story has been decompressed or that it features filler subplots thrown in to make up the page count (Kirkman even performs a bit of a fourth wall moment by illustrating how modern writers and artists reuse the same panels to pad out a page when Mark meets one of his favourite comic book writers)and because Invincible is so well paced I found myself being completely engrossed in it and reading the four hardcovers in less than two weeks compared to most trades or hardcovers where I'll only read an issue a day.. There's also a quick turn around for subplots becoming major plot points and being resolved all of which feels natural.

The great thing about Invincible creation wise is that he's 7 years old so there isn't the issue of being tied down to say 70 years of back story like you are with Superman or almost 50 years like Spider-Man making it completely new reader accessible. While it is an Image Comic character, Invincible is still Robert Kirkman's to 'play with' which means unlike a character from the two big companies, Kirkman has more freedom to alter his characters since he is the creator while other writers on mainstream titles are merely caretakers. This makes Invincible a bit of an unpredictable title, anything can happen to the characters and despite his name, Invincible has already been bashed about quite a bit. Invincible is like other Image titles as it is fairly self-contained in it's own little universe so there isn't a need to know what's happening in other Image titles such as Spawn, Savage Dragon or Youngblood. I'm excited to find out what happens next and judging from the last two images I've posted on this blog it looks like Invincible is in for a costume change, other than that, well I'm just going to have to keep reading.

Image Comics have the first issue online as well, if your interested in seeing what the hell I'm talking about.