Well the wait is over and Invincible has reached it’s 100’th issue. It’s been a harrowing journey as we’ve watched Mark Grayson evolve from a teen learning his powers to seasoned warrior whose sole purpose is to defend the Earth. While he is half alien, he is still only human when it boils down to it. Humans make mistake and Mark has made a huge one. As stated in my review of ‘ Invincible ‘ #99 he had let Dinosaurus free from where he was imprisoned believing that working together they could make the world a better place. He was wrong and on the first panel of the issue we watch as Dinosaurus crushes Invincible’s head between his hands.
We fade out here to watch the reactions from everyone around the world. The end of the fight was being broadcast on every channel and we see as all of the major players in this world are shocked by what they had just witnessed. Mark Grayson, Invincible, defender of the Earth, is dead.
Is he though? Is that actually the what happened? Is the climax of ‘The Death of Everyone‘ story arc actually the death of the main character? Did the bad guy actually win? While Robert Kirkman is absolutely willing to put his character’s lives through hell, it’s not going to be a spoiler when just a couple pages later you see that Mark is still alive and well. His entire ‘death’ was a hoax perpetrated by Dinosaurus to allow Mark to be fully free from the shackles of humanity and work side by side to change the world for the better. He currently has him tied down as to not overreact as anyone who knows Mark knows that he’s going to be angry.
Honestly until this point in the comic I was reading it in a lull. While I was enjoying the plot, but I wasn’t drawn in between the many all black backgrounds and a lack of motion in the feeling of the artwork. It’s a shame because once the actual artwork kicks back in the story went from interesting to not being able to put it down. I get what they were doing there. They were trying to put you in the mindset that Invincible was dead and talking to someone or something. With how quick the read was through it though I felt that the ‘effect’ fell flat on page.
Mark of course wasn’t going to be agreeable to this. In fact, even while in chains he was able to use all of the introspection he had done over the years to talk to Dinosaurus. He was able to convince one of the smartest creatures to ever exist to not only doubt himself , but to doubt the results of changing the Earth to save it from humanity itself. In the end, Mark was able to persuade Dinosaurus to do the right thing.
The right thing though is going to change the status quo in the world. The results of what has transpired in this issue is not going to just change how Invincible operates but it clearly has changed what he believes in. This was written to be a major event and while the full blowout of what occurs hasn’t quite hit yet. It will clearly be a turning point in how Mark lives up to the responsibilities he has been piling onto himself since day one.
With the story line ending we also see the return of a previous villain popping back up into the world. It’s quickly clear whose going to be Invincible’s antagonist in the next few issues. The question will be how exactly will Mark deal with him or anything else from this point on? Not only that, but how will he deal with the news he finds at the very last panel of the issue? It’s a piece of news that everyone following the comic would already know but for Mark it will change everything!
I wanted to give this one a full 5 stars but I really felt that the art didn’t properly match the feel of the comic until half way through the issue.
Story by: Robert Kirkman
Art By: Ryan Ottley & John Rauch
Cover By: Ryan Ottley
Variant Cover by: Cory Walker, Marc Silvestri, Bryan Hitch, Arthur Adams, Charlie Adlard, Ryan Ottley
