"Invincible Comic Series" A Must Read for Any Comic Lover

 

    Ok so yes I did go back and re-read through the whole Invincible series because of the show, and no I don't regret it. I once watched a video on the series in which someone described it as pastiche, and I think that's a perfect way to describe this comic series. It kind of does the evil superman thing for a little bit but it drops it pretty quickly. Also a lot of indie comics have done that anyways like Irredeemable, so just go read those if you really want that (I never did end up doing a review on that series). Anyways, this series is not like The Boys, yes it pokes fun at superhero tropes, but it usually does it from someone who has read comic books and still enjoys them. That is not to say that this series is perfect, but by making their character nigh invincible, it does allow Kirkman (who is a great comic book writer) to play with things that the big two never really would.

    Let me start with the good, what this series gets right. I think while some characters are a bit forgettable, ultimately this show does a good job of showing the mental toll that super heroism can have on people and those around them. Thankfully, they are allowed to actually develop and grow their relationships, but multiple times you'll see Mark facing these dilemma's about his morality and the consequences of them. I'm not saying that you have to laugh in the face of Batman's "no kill rule" or whatnot, but when Mark does actually kill, it generates some conversations that are pretty interesting. Also, people can be selfish, they do not just bow down to the greater good at every chance they get, which is pretty accurate. They're meant to represent the best of us, but ultimately they're still humans.

    My favourite arcs are the ones where Mark is working for Cecil and they have that tension/dynamic between them, and the Viltrumite war. Honestly, I was never a big Angstrom Levy person, and I could not care too much when he was killed unceremoniously. I know it's cliche to say that I basically enjoyed the biggest and best fights, but honestly it was pretty satisfying to watch, and I know the show will hopefully do them justice. I mean did you really expect me to enjoy the random reboot arc? I know it was making fun of reboots in comic books, but it was not that long, and was basically just an excuse for Eve to get mad at Mark again. Or what about Dinosaurus? I did enjoy this "smarter Mark" development, but I think there's only so many times you can do the "Mark feels guilty because x amount of people died on his watch" thing. I just feel like you could have gone away with Mark barely saved the world and he feels extremely guilty about it. If you really wanted to return to status quo that badly it couldn't have been that hard anyways.

    Personally, this series had its fair share of "are you really the good guy Mark?" moments, and they could have done away with a couple of them. I suppose Kirkman mildly redeems Mark in the ending of this series, though honestly Mark's whole "viltrum empire" thing mostly just felt like fanfiction where the readers could go "wow he finally did it he made the whole universe a better place" thing. I think the comics could have done without it. I mean there are also some very clear power-scaling issues in this show. Frankly, I don't know how Oliver didn't survive his injury, yet Eve managed to heal everyone else. To be honest, I get that they didn't want to make Eve useless but she went from being really powerful to kind of sidelined to also could kill a viltrumite so many times it was ridiculous. Don't even get me started on Robot his plotline I could just not care for and there were definitely some powerscaling concerns on my end. I'm not saying it felt like the series needed to end, but it did feel like Kirkman may have padded it out a bit so as to not immediately jump right into the final fight with Thragg, who also has powerscaling issues

Final Score: 85/100

    Did I just totally rate this the same as The Fellowship of the Ring. Yeah but like I said in that review these numbers are all so wonky and it's just hard to compare, I think I'd rather just enjoy. Perhaps not my favourite comic, but it certainly was very good even if it did drag on a tad bit by the end. I'm not sure which series I would prefer between this and The Walking Dead, but the issue is I did read The Walking Dead as a child so I will always be biased to that comic book series. Honestly, the show does a great job of fleshing out a lot of the smaller characters, so I have full faith Kirkman will be able to help remedy some of these issues from the original run.