Book of Doom: Invincible #42

It’s Saturday once again, which means it’s time for the Legion’s weekly Book of Doom review. Our featured book this week is Invincible #42, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Ryan Ottley and Bill Crabtree. The issue is being billed as “New Reader Friendly,” and the five of us are in a position to see what that equates to from the perspective of faithful readers, casual fans and folks who’ve never picked up the book before. Now, on to the praise/ridicule:

I’ve been reading Invincible for several years now, and I can’t say I’ve ever read an issue that I didn’t enjoy. Sure, some issues have been a little disappointing, but more often than not Kirkman & Co. have knocked the ball right out of the park. Unfortunately this issue is one of the former, but to be honest, it was only disappointing because I wanted new readers to be knocked on their collective asses by its sheer awesomeness.

Invincible #42 was on of those “everything’s quiet on the western front” issues. Those stories are a comic book staple, and for good reason. Just like when the Women’s Title match is booked right before the main event at Wrestlemania, it gives a chance for the audience to recuperate so they’re ready to be excited again. I can only hope that means the s#!t is about the hit the fan in Invincible.

Of course, even this “filler” issue has a lot going on: Invincible helps out on a space mission, fights a cyclopean giant and an octopus man, plays catch with his nearly super-powered half-brother, and even has time to hold a press conference. Okay, so maybe that last one wasn’t too exciting. There were moments this issue that obviously seemed aimed at new readers (like that one), but Invincible usually has so much going on that a little refresher is never a bad thing.

As far as issues of Invincible go, I’d give #42 a pretty solid “meh.” But “meh” for a book of this quality still beats a lot of other stuff on the racks.

Now let’s see what the rest of the Legion had to say about the issue. We’ll begin with our special guest reviewer, Paperghost of paperghost.com:

“Hi, I’m Paperghost and make no mistake, this site rocks. With that in mind, it’s an honour to hurl out a spot of guest reviewing so let’s get things moving. I just finished reading Invincible #42, and to be honest, I think they made a mistake to recommend this as a “jump on point” for this comic. Mainly, because anyone getting this for the first time will think each issue is a ton of talking (some pages have 50% or more text filling the space of each panel, which is insane) and endless setups for stuff-that-has-yet-to-be. To then finish the issue off with a recap of everything that’s happened previously just made my eyes glaze over, to be honest. They’d have been better off sticking it at the front of the book and taking things from there. I mean, where’s the logic in putting “Previously….on Invincible!” at the back of the book?! It just seems weird to me.

I don’t have much of an idea what’s going on in the story, so general observations as a casual, first time reader: the art is sometimes amazing to look at, while at other times very strange faces and expressions are handed to the characters. I know everyone raves about the art in this book, but it seems a touch uneven to me. Also, does it always have this much dialogue filling the page? I hope not. There’s a page where astronauts are talking about Invincible, and oh dear – I was half expecting them to start swatting the speech bubbles out of the way. It just seems odd to take a visual medium then obliterate the pretty pictures with pilesandpilesandpiles of text.

Finally (in my superficial and rambling look at this comic), I must mention the cover. The drawing is horrendous, and Invincible looks really weird and stiff. He looks like he’s been nailed to a surfboard and launched into the atmosphere. They can’t even seem to hold off from reams of text here, either – wherever you look, you’re being implored to “buy! buy! buy!”, or being reminded how “new reader friendly” it is. The quality of the paper used is vaguely dismal, too – really thin and rippable. I’d like to add, I don’t have big gorilla hands or anything; they’re small and girlish. Yet the cover still managed to fall apart pretty easily. Maybe I just have radioactive fingers or something, but the point is – as a new reader, colour me unimpressed. I will check out the early trades, because I have a feeling a standard issue of this comic is much, much better than a BUY! THIS! NOW! copy.”

Jim Doom: “I like Invincible. I’ve read up through volume 5 of the trades (thanks Colonel Doom and Fin Fang Doom) and I think it’s a pretty good comic. But other than this $1.99 Book of Doom issue (the guy at the store tried to charge me $2.99 but I caught him) I don’t buy it. Because while I think the stories are interesting enough, they happen so slowly that each issue is about 90% talking and 10% plot advancement (if that much). These are stories much better suited for the trades, but I don’t buy those either because it takes about 10 minutes to read them.

Issue 42 proved to be no different. Let’s look at what happened in this issue: recap events, establish characters, have conversations, and the one new development – saved for the last page – is that little brother can fly. I finished it and wondered what I really got out of it; everything was just painfully expository recapping.

I understand this issue is designed to be a starting point for new readers, but if I were a regular reader of this comic, I’d be annoyed at how little happened. Maybe some people can write that off, being glad that the book might attract new readers as a result of the sacrifice. I, however, don’t read comics to be philanthropic – I read them to be entertained.

But while this book tends to basically be the printed version of the Gilmore Girls, with its heavy reliance on snappy dialogue and melodrama, not all was lost – it does have the potential to be more than just a quasi-parody of superhero comics.

I really like the intrigue of the Viltrumite weakness being buried in his dad’s sci-fi novels (although it would have been a little cooler had those been a part of the story all along, rather than just being introduced lately). There’s a mystery there that will likely be fun to watch unravel.

So I guess that means I’ll have to borrow someone’s trades in 2008.”

Doom DeLuise: “The nicest thing I can say about this issue is that it was cheap. Thank G-d for that. This is my first issue I’ve read of Invincible since the first trade, so I had a basic knowledge of the characters without much prejudice and the like, but I couldn’t help thinking throughout the entire thing, “What an odd thing to say…” In its attempt to bring new fans up to speed and offer a series-wide recap within the story, this issue was forced to add a ton of cutesy dialog to flesh out everything that had happened. Quite unnecessary, when you consider the fact that the back few pages were simply blow-by-blow recaps of everything that’s happened so far.

Just because it was part of the concept, that they fully intended to make this issue a cute summary, doesn’t mean that they should be given a free pass. The last thing I want is to picture the writer winking at me the entire time I’m reading his latest issue. That’s just annoying and a little bit creepy.

Another thing that I’ll say about this issue is that the art is really cool. It’s pretty, stylized, relatively stream-lined and, well, just flat-out cool. I am a big fan of the art.

The rest of it? Not so much.”

Jean-Claude Van Doom: “First, to establish my standing with Invincible. It started during my time away from comics (or shortly thereafter) and evaded my attention until it was quite a few issues along. I’ve caught up with the first few trades, and they’re excellent reading. But I still haven’t been compelled enough to buy the singles month-to-month.

I say all this because this issue seems to be all about making people buy Invincible as a monthly (and dropping the dough on all the backstory in trades), rather than actually advance the plot. That made for lots of exposition, which was understandable but still dull and really overt in spots.

That said, the issue works pretty well as a catchup. I’m sure I could add Invincible to the pull list and have no confusion (thanks in part to Dave Campbell of Dave’s Long Box and his “the story so far”). There’s also a nice small moment at the end, in which Mark plays catch with his half brother, who reveals that he has powers too now.

While that does change the status quo, I think Kirkman had an opportunity here to really shift the paradigm of the series again (as he did when revealing Omniman’s evil intentions). Ratchet things up a few notches, as the saying goes. But that doesn’t happen at all, and I’m back to where I was at the beginning. I have no plans to start picking up the floppies, but I’m sure eventually I’ll collect the trades.”

Well, as far as Book of Doom reviews go, this one seemed to be fairly positive. It doesn’t seem as though anyone was too thrilled with this issue in particular, but it looks like everyone has at the very least a passing interest in the series as a whole. I personally wouldn’t say I’d recommend the monthlies over the collected editions, even though that’s how I buy Invincible, but even if you got only a slight bit of enjoyment out of this issue, do yourself a favor and give the trades a try. In this reviewer’s humble opinion, Invincible has been one of comics’ best serial superhero stories to come out in a long, long time.