Invincible #111
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Ryan Ottley – Pencils, Cliff Rathburn – Inks, and John Rauch – Colors
“Jesus ****ing Christ. Didn’t see that one coming.”
Spoilers will follow.
Use that for your pull quote, Image. For better or for worse, “didn’t see that one coming” could describe a lot about what makes Invincible tick and why we keep coming back for more of that sweet, sweet stuff. I never know what’s going to happen next. Nobody’s safe. Nobody needs to appear in a company-wide crossover next month. I could go on about how great this book is at defying superhero convention, but any reader can tell you that. This deep into the run, defying convention is just part of the fun. The meat of enjoyment is the way Robert Kirkman sticks with his decisions. Inincible is always a book with consequences. When the shit goes down, the shit goes down, and this issue, jesus-****ing-christ, the shit went down.
What’s bad about Invincible is when it just makes you say “Jesus ****ing Christ.” My jaw can only sustain so many drops before I’m just drooling and staring at the page in a catatonic state, unable to process any more horrific violence, and brother, this issue was chock full of horrific violence, occurring to characters that’ve been here since issue #2. Kirkman’s not an exceptional character writer. In fact, he’s pretty bad at it, but when you go that far deep for your shocks, some emotions are bound to surface. I don’t usually connect with any of his characters on an emotional level, but I actually felt bad for Mark this time around. He’s in a rough spot.
The rape of last issue is barely dealt with, but it’s dealt with effectively. It’s tragic that Mark doesn’t have the time to recover emotionally. Invincible only earns the right to be melancholy for a couple pages before he’s thrown into a brutal battle with Robot. Mark’s silent flight to the Pentagon does actually add a somber tone to that establishing panel they love to reuse. Once he gets there though, and confronts Robot, it’s just blood and guts till the letters column.
It’s been a long, long time since this was a book for the faint-hearted, but it’s been almost nonstop R-rated gore since Dinosaurus committed ice-cap melting genocide last year. I was excited to see the changed world his last act of eco-terrorism brought about, but that’s one detail that’s been entirely glossed over. There’s just too much going on. Seemed like a big deal to me, but I guess Kirkman wanted to focus on more of the bloodshed in his master plan. There was seriously ONE issue not dedicated to horrific violence in the past year, and I’ll stick with the comic to see what’s really happening once all the smoke settles, but the direction this book’s taken is downright grueling, and Kirkman goes a long way to make this one of the most gruesome issues in the whole damn series. Ryan Ottley is right there with him, drawing all the nasty details necessary to sell the horror of it all. Ottley draws one of the more detailed throat-slashings I’ve seen in comics in some images that I won’t soon forget. I haven’t felt this disturbed since I discovered Garth Ennis all those years ago.
It’s hard for me to judge just one issue of a comic like Invincible, especially an issue like this. I’ll just say that this here’s a comic in which Robot spends most of it murdering, or trying to murder people, and his last line of dialogue is “Oh well, let the slaughter begin.” As though he was playing nice before. There’s no end in sight to this stuff. Can you handle it? I gotta go read something lighter to decompress. Maybe Preacher.
Art by Ryan Ottley – Pencils, Cliff Rathburn – Inks, and John Rauch – Colors
“Jesus ****ing Christ. Didn’t see that one coming.”
Spoilers will follow.
Use that for your pull quote, Image. For better or for worse, “didn’t see that one coming” could describe a lot about what makes Invincible tick and why we keep coming back for more of that sweet, sweet stuff. I never know what’s going to happen next. Nobody’s safe. Nobody needs to appear in a company-wide crossover next month. I could go on about how great this book is at defying superhero convention, but any reader can tell you that. This deep into the run, defying convention is just part of the fun. The meat of enjoyment is the way Robert Kirkman sticks with his decisions. Inincible is always a book with consequences. When the shit goes down, the shit goes down, and this issue, jesus-****ing-christ, the shit went down.
What’s bad about Invincible is when it just makes you say “Jesus ****ing Christ.” My jaw can only sustain so many drops before I’m just drooling and staring at the page in a catatonic state, unable to process any more horrific violence, and brother, this issue was chock full of horrific violence, occurring to characters that’ve been here since issue #2. Kirkman’s not an exceptional character writer. In fact, he’s pretty bad at it, but when you go that far deep for your shocks, some emotions are bound to surface. I don’t usually connect with any of his characters on an emotional level, but I actually felt bad for Mark this time around. He’s in a rough spot.
The rape of last issue is barely dealt with, but it’s dealt with effectively. It’s tragic that Mark doesn’t have the time to recover emotionally. Invincible only earns the right to be melancholy for a couple pages before he’s thrown into a brutal battle with Robot. Mark’s silent flight to the Pentagon does actually add a somber tone to that establishing panel they love to reuse. Once he gets there though, and confronts Robot, it’s just blood and guts till the letters column.
It’s been a long, long time since this was a book for the faint-hearted, but it’s been almost nonstop R-rated gore since Dinosaurus committed ice-cap melting genocide last year. I was excited to see the changed world his last act of eco-terrorism brought about, but that’s one detail that’s been entirely glossed over. There’s just too much going on. Seemed like a big deal to me, but I guess Kirkman wanted to focus on more of the bloodshed in his master plan. There was seriously ONE issue not dedicated to horrific violence in the past year, and I’ll stick with the comic to see what’s really happening once all the smoke settles, but the direction this book’s taken is downright grueling, and Kirkman goes a long way to make this one of the most gruesome issues in the whole damn series. Ryan Ottley is right there with him, drawing all the nasty details necessary to sell the horror of it all. Ottley draws one of the more detailed throat-slashings I’ve seen in comics in some images that I won’t soon forget. I haven’t felt this disturbed since I discovered Garth Ennis all those years ago.
It’s hard for me to judge just one issue of a comic like Invincible, especially an issue like this. I’ll just say that this here’s a comic in which Robot spends most of it murdering, or trying to murder people, and his last line of dialogue is “Oh well, let the slaughter begin.” As though he was playing nice before. There’s no end in sight to this stuff. Can you handle it? I gotta go read something lighter to decompress. Maybe Preacher.
A Look Inside
