Double Entendre: Invincible #88 Review

In the latest issue of Invincible, our all-American boy hero is attacked by a raging one-eyed monster and gets a load sprayed in his face causing him to be infected with a deadly virus. I am not kidding. Superhero comics, everybody!

Invincible is a strange book for me to review because unlike any miniseries or most standard superhero comics, there is no jumping-on point. It’s an excellent comic book that does really interesting and unexpected things with standard superhero tropes – and has since the very first issue – but while this book has arcs, it is very much a long-form superhero novel, and it assumes that you’ve been reading from the first chapter. So even if I recommend this issue – and I will – it’s pointless, because if you haven’t read it from the beginning, it’ll be three years and about twelve trade paperbacks before you get here.

And, in fact, this book is an even worse place than usual for new readers to get started because it’s a mid arc story. The one-eyed monster in question is named Allen, and he is threatening to release a virus into Earth’s atmosphere to kill a race of superpowered aliens living secretly among us, all of whom can be identified by their universal big, Johnny Wadd Holmes 70s gay porno moustaches. I recognize that this sounds ridiculous, but it’s better than it sounds… frankly, it pretty much has to be.

As I said before, one of the things that Invincible has done best is play around with the standard norms of superhero comics. In most comics like this, an alien with a doomsday virus facing off against a Superman analogue in orbit around Earth means we’re gonna pretty much see two dude smacking each other around first and never asking questions. Which, admittedly, is usually awesome. However, writer Robert Kirkman uses the opportunity to let both the villain and the hero – who he has already reversed from their normal roles in a confrontation like this – play even further against type to turn the scene into a legitimate psychological drama. And then a preteen douchenozzle fucks things up for everybody just like you’d expect, because there has never been a preteen who’s ever played against type (Yes, I know I’m not your dad. Thankfully, Dr. Taser here doesn’t ask for a DNA test before he goes to work. Now get away from my car).

I could spend a lot of time talking about the relationship between Invincible and his younger brother, or how this story at least touches on that Invincible has been working with a former super villain to do some Authority-style preemptive world engineering, or the reason the Viltrumites (Bringing Earth moustache rides since 2003!) are in hiding… but it brings us back to the most difficult part of this book: there is simply no entry point. If you haven’t been reading it for a long while, it is inscrutable. Kirkman does his level best to provide as much background as he can in the dialogue, but there is simultaneously too much backstory to ever drop into a normal-sized comic book, and by trying to give background on the extermination of the Viltrumites, the nature of the scourge virus, how it’s a threat to Earth, who Allen is and who the Viltrumites even are, you wind up with a few pages that are wordy enough to approach tl;dr territory.

Ryan Ottley’s art is what I’ve come to expect from Invincible. He has a generally simple-lined and realistic, yet slightly cartoony look which works for a book where he has to draw normal people, weird-ass aliens, monsters, robots, and preteen douchenozzles. By simple-lined I don’t mean it’s not detailed, just that he avoids heavy 90s style crosshatching… he does, however, embrace 90s style muscle builds. Thragg the Viltrumite looks like he lives on a diet of protein powder, deca durabolin, and Barry Bonds’s testicles.

However, Ottley’s storytelling is clear – the poor man has to draw and keep interesting a five page “guys talking around a table” sequence… except the sequence is in space, meaning he can’t even rely on the scenery to keep your eye engaged. Instead, he does it with camera changes, lighting effects, and strong facial expressions. It’s not something that can be easy to do, but he carries it off.

Invincible is a good comic book, and it ends on a cliffhanger – as it often does – that leaves me immediately wanting the next issue… and yet I can’t recommend it to anyone who isn’t already reading it. If you’re not already reading it and you like superhero comics, you should be reading it, but I instead recommend that you just go out and and get the first trade paperback. The depth of the backstory and continuity make the book almost review proof, which is why I normally skip it for review… but this one I couldn’t resist. Granted, I’m glad it’s good, but honestly? You put a one-eyed monster and a load to the face in a comic? Oh, that’s getting reviewed here.