Ok, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to the meat of this. As I've mentioned before, I'm huge Kirkman fan. Up until recently, he's been the only reason I walk out of the shop with anything labeled Image in my bag. Invincible and The Walking Dead are both stellar series, and I highly recommend them to anyone who likes comics. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Invincible, well, the rest of this post isn't going to making any goddamn sense. But if you're looking for a somewhat more realistic take on superhero comics(realistic in the sense that people react to things like real people, and there are consequences for actions, because people totally fly around in space and punch through planets and shit), check it out.
So this is it. Issue 100. Anyone remember what happened in issue 100 of The Walking Dead? Seriously, fuck Negan. Nothing that crazy happens here, so long as you make it past page 2. Because that's where Invincible dies at the hand of Dinosaurus, who in issue 98 melted the polar ice caps and flooded coastlines around the world, killing only a million people due to the intervention of every other superhero. It's quickly revealed that Dinosaurus mastered teleportation technology and "killed" a lifeless clone of Invincible he had created months prior. In reality he had escaped back to his lab with the real, unconscious, Invincible. Dinosaurus wants his help to save the world, by whatever means necessary. That's what the global flood was about, thinning the population to reduce humanity's strain on the planet. Invincible responds by telling him that this isn't the way to save the world. Killing people would work, yes, but it's not really saving anyone. If you want to save people, you need to teach them, and things like this aren't the way to do it. Dinosaurus realizes he's been clouded by his pursuit, and always will be, so to prevent anything like this from happening again, he asks Invincible to kill him. Cecil, the head of the secret organization that polices superheros, and does pretty everything, shows up and offer Invincible a deal: work for him again, as an on-call superhero, or go to jail for freeing Dinosaurus weeks earlier and allowing all this to occur. He accepts and flies home to meet his parents and girlfriend, Atom Eve, who are glad to see it wasn't him who was brutally murdered on national television. On the last page, Eve tells Invincible that she's pregnant.
Ok. That got kind of long, but given that it was the 100th issue, and a lot of ground was covered, I don't think it could have been compressed much more than that. So, my impressions? Good, but not great. Invincible not actually being killed was to be expected, since Kirkman doesn't take death as lightly as some other comics do. So his apparent death was extremely effective, and not really cheapened by the fact that he was alive, since that was what I was expecting. What did feel a bit off was the whole conversation with Dinosaurus. He seemed to accept Invincible's argument too easily, considering Dinosuarus is considerably more intelligent than Invincible. So him being talked into letting himself be killed in such a short exchange felt a little forced. Cecil's reappearance also struck me as a bit of a backslide, since he'd been put through Cecil's shit so many times already. All of this seemed like a roundabout way to slip back into the old way of doing things, although I'll give Kirkman the benefit of the doubt on this one. The biggest event was of course the pregnancy reveal, which I am looking forward to. Sure, there was the previous pregnancy and abortion(?), but this is different, due to Mark actually knowing about it. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
So, if you're an Invincible fan, well, you've probably already got this, so this review didn't really affect you too much. If you're not a regular reader, well, despite me spoiling all the major plot points, pick it up, along with anything else Invincible that you haven't read, because it's absolutely worth it.
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