Invincible has been one of the best comics each month and with Invincible #68 I remained excited for more. Kirkman usually does a great job with this series and with the return of Ryan Ottley on art I couldn’t wait to check this out. But we’re starting back up with a time skip and some things have changed, does that weaken Invincible’s status of being one of the best books out there? Let’s find out.
Creative Team
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Art: Ryan Ottley
Inks: Cliff Rathburn
Colorist: FCO Plascencia
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Invincible is lifting a massive block, though straining he says he’s almost there. He is attacked from behind by Dinosaurus, shouting at him to stop this and the block just barely doesn’t c rush the construction workers. Dinosaurus starts ranting about how Invincible and the other heroes disrupt the natural order and if not for them world peace could have been found from this disaster (Not sure if he’s aware that if Invincible didn’t exist, the evil Invincibles wouldn’t exist, so then there wouldn’t have been any disaster. Nice try, smart guy.)
Eve’s mother notes that Invincible is fighting someone and that he may be late for dinner. Invincible is just happy that Dinosaurus shut up. Invincible breaks the 2 robot arms while fighting him. He soon punches Dinosaurus hard and he changes into a human. The human tells Invincible to help him before he hurts someone and Invincible then jumps at him and grabs for his throat.
The Guardians of the Globe show up before Invincible can kill him. Robot asks if Invincible was really going to do that but Invincible is silent. We then cut to him talking to Eve about it on her roof and she tells him it’s a good thing that he didn’t know if he was going to kill that man or not. She then says they should go down for dinner and Mark mentions “how bad could it be?” to which Eve is silent about.
At dinner everything is silent. Eve’s mother asks Mark what does his father do (first try to take over the world then try to save it. He’s kind of weird like that.) Eve yells at her mother for this and then her father shouts about how stupid his mother was to ask that and Eve tells him to stop. After her mother apologizes Eve mumbles about her mother letting her father do this to her, her father shouts more but he soon calms down as Mark asks if he likes sports. (right now this is more fun to watch then any Football game)
Mark and Eve’s father are outside as Eve and her mother do dishes. As they talk Eve’s father goes on about Eve not being a virgin and how that could be difficult for a man to get past. He goes on about this and it ends with Mark back inside on the couch just staring out in horror from her father’s rant, when Eve asks how bad it was and what they talked about Mark just mumbles it was nothing important. After this Mark says he’s ready for tomorrow.
At the prison we see Eve and Invincible negotiating with the warden. They haggle about if they should still do business or not. The warden wants to have 6 free months and just when Invincible is about to agree Eve cuts it down to 3 and gets him to agree.
Later when they are flying Invincible mentions how amazing she was. Eve jokes about what a pushover he is. Invincible mentions if she’s okay to be flying, with her powers acting up recently, but she says the only reason she’s flying this high is because he’s there. When she mentions that some power plants want their assistance as well and that they should get some more people to help, possibly Oliver, Oliver shows up.
Oliver is in a new uniform, his other one having gotten ruined in a super villain fight. He now calls himself Young Omni-man. He soon flies off, mentioning the house is empty for them and Eve says it’s rude but Invincible mentions he’s not wrong.
In the Block we see Conquest awake. He mentions it was stupid of Invincible to let him live. He moves around, the whole place blows up and collapses around him but he just flies out of it fine. He sees earth then flies into space after smirking as Cecil notices he escaped.
We see the Sequids all around in the sewers and their leader announces the invasion begins now.
Mark knocks at the bathroom door and says how his mom will be home soon and she’s not wearing pants. She shouts at him to go away. He apologizes then leaves and we see Eve crying in the Bathroom as she holds a pregnancy test that reads positive. (someone forgot their Invinci-condom)
Commentary:
The Good: Invincible #68 is an amazing read but is also accompanied and elevated even more by amazing art. Kirkman takes the use of a time skip but doesn’t make it feel jarring or annoying like other writers would. Making this an awesome new start in the Invincible series.
Now I do feel I should first address the villain of this issue, Dinosaurus who only actually shows up for a couple of pages. Despite this Kirkman does show that we have an interesting new villain since he seems to believe in stopping things like over population and world peace.
Though really I think the villain was just here for all of a few pages to satisfy our love of action and it served it’s purpose for that point.
The majority of this issue is really just updating us with things like Mark and Eve settling in with trying to get their own place and Mark going to Eve’s house for dinner and etc. For the most part it’s really just set up like Invincible #51 was but it works much better as this issue really excited me with what we saw.
One thing I really liked is Oliver is older, and now going by Young Omni-man. Possibly a little nudge to Young Miracleman, Mr. Kirkman? Anyway it is just nice to see Oliver having grown up a bit and becoming more of his own hero. I also like this costume much more.
Something we all saw coming is that Conquest escapes and Cecil, being the moron that he is, wasn’t able to contain him. Gee, what a huge surprise. Truth be told I love the villain of Conquest so seeing him back in action has me jumping with joy to see him kick some ass as soon as possible.
Now the scene with Mark at Eve’s house for dinner was just…awkward. In a good way though! Kirkman perfectly captures the awkwardness anyone feels when meeting the possible future in-laws. But Kirkman kicks it up a notch by having Eve’s dad give this long winded speech about virginity and manhood and awkward as it may have seemed to use readers, it perfectly put us in Mark’s position and we felt the same he did.
I do like the dynamic Kirkman has between Eve and her family. It’s certainly fractured to say the least and Kirkman shows that without shoving it into our faces and basically saying “their dysfunctional! This is a character point!” like most writers no doubt would.
While I said that I liked the little bit of action we did get I should be fair and mention how I was kind of hoping for more of our new villain then just showing up then being jailed just like that.
Though what worked with how short the action was is how we see Invincible was actually going to kill Dinosaurus but the Guardians of the Globe showed up before he could.
Kirkman has added this new layer to Invincible where he’s no longer taking shit and if he feels people are in danger he’ll kill the one responsible. Really this is a strange twist even though it’s grown over time and makes sense for the character. After the event with Conquest I can understand that Invincible is more comfortable with killing.
Though this will probably turn off a lot of fans as people have enjoyed Invincible when it’s not so dark and violent and when it’s more happy and fun. Still Kirkman never dials up the notch to where it gets brooding and annoying at least so I have no problem with it yet.
A time skip doesn’t always work with some comics. With Ultimate Spider-man it was more jarring then anything but Kirkman handles the time skip of when we last saw Invincible very well and it all fits together nicely.
I am also really glad that Kirkman returned to the plot point of Invincible using his powers as a bit of a body guard type thing for prisons or factories and such. A really cool twist with the character and to show how he’s going to be using his powers to an advantage. I was worried Kirkman would have dropped this idea all together after Invincible War but he kept it and I’m glad as it’s a great twist for the character and his future.
Then there’s that final page…oh…that jaw dropping final page.
Eve being pregnant was an absolutely awe “holy shit my eyes just popped out of my head” moment. Kirkman is taking a major risk with this series by adding this possible new character and drama to the Invincible comic and I like that. Though I do have on problem with this twist.
It’s good to have Ottley back, as Invincible looks gorgeous. With his work on Haunt I was a little worried there may be a slight dip in quality, but no. Invincible is still one of the best looking comics out there.
Overall this issue was damn near flawless, absolutely brilliantly written with lots of great moments that will satisfy just about any Invincible fan.
The Bad: Now the Sequid plot that’s been building, hasn’t really interested me much. Kirkman is setting this up to be a pretty big point but it only takes places over 2 issues and, let’s be honest, is being totally overshadowed by the upcoming Viltrumite War in March of 2010. Kirkman has tired to make this interesting but I just can’t really seem to care about the Sequids.
Whenever a child is brought into the equation of a super hero comic, it’s so painfully obvious to kill it off or something stupid like that. While every once in a while a hero may get lucky and get to raise their child, often the cliché goes that if you’re a super hero you don’t get to be a parent.
If Kirkman can avoid the obvious cliché of killing off Eve while she’s pregnant, for drama of course, and actually let this kid live, it could be an awesome new step in the Invincible series. Though if he falls into the same boring traps that so many other writers do with this kind of plot twist, I’ll be frustrated.
Overall: Longtime fans of Invincible have to read this issue, it will blow you away and make your mind melt with awesome. While the future of the series is still a little uncertain, it’s definitely certain that Invincible is a comic everyone should be reading.
1 thought on “Comic Book Review: Invincible #68”
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As usual, Invincible was an excellent read. If "fans" get turned off by Mark showing that he is not opposed to killing then they are not truly fans. It is a natural and logical progression of the character. I'm sick of reading other comic characters being put through the same wringer over and over again by the same villain and them never truly getting to the logical next step. It's become such a cliched plot point. Even their reasoning is always the same. Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, etc. They are all the same. Oh well, guess it's what happens when a character is owned by a corporation and not truly a labor of love.