The last issue of Invincible wrapped up the end of the “Death of Everyone’ story line. Going into this issue you would think we were going to start our new story arc and in a way we did, and in another way we were just given a whole new bag of twists to change the status quo once again in the life of Mark Grayson aka Invincible.
The fun thing is that it’s not even Mark that is directly involved in the changes. Just like the big changes that happened in the beginning of the series it’s Mark’s father, Nolan, that causes a whole slew of changes to rock the world that they live in.
The scene opens right as the last comic ended with Nolan and Debbie (Mark’s mother) embracing. Right as this happens General Thragg smashes through the ceiling and viciously attacks Nolan. As he is being beaten down he sees that Debbie is being sucked out into space and flies up, grabs her and throws her back through a door into the building which seals behind her. She’s safe but there’s no time to celebrate.
The second Debbie is safe the General is once again beating Nolan viciously into the ground and once again we see that there is no scarcity of brutality in this series. While he tries to find out what the cause of this is we learn something that they barely hinted at the last time Mark was nearly killed by the virus.
Mark is the descendant of the great Viltrumite leader that General Thragg had taken over after. That means Nolan is the son and the heir of the Viltrumite Empire. As Thragg is about to end Nolan’s life we pan back and see that the remains of the Viltrumite Empire have shown up and the fight quickly comes to an end. They pull Thragg off Nolan and start beating him to death as is their race’s solution to everything.
Nolan stops them and soon after we see that he has risen to the leader of his people. He clarifies that he will not be the same kind of leader that Thragg was and as many of the Viltrumite have already learned there is another way to live that isn’t just brutal conquest.
Short term I believe we’re finally going to have some peace among the Viltrumite though long term I believe the General and his most trusted lieutenants who believed in their strict rule as the only way to happiness will try to revolt. That should be down the line though as with how much has just happened I think we’re going to get a few coasting issues, at least where the Viltrumite are concerned.
Oh yes and at the tale end of the issue Invincible in a very round about manner asks Eve to marry him and she of course agrees. So there’s that to focus on for a few issues.
There really is a lot going on in the world of Invincible right now. He’s still hated by many of the world’s heroes. He’s engaged to get married. His dad just became the leader of the race that once threatened Earth’s extinction and is now trying to protect it in secret. The next issue though? It promises the return of Angstrom Levy whose entire goal in life is to destroy Invincible. I’m sure that will spell a few problems to Mark and Eve’s happy news.
Story by: Robert Kirkman
Art By: Ryan Ottley & John Rauch
