Comic-Caps: Invincible #1-4

9 May

Robert Kirkman – Writer, Letterer
Cory Walker – Penciler, Inker
Ryan Ottley – Penciler, Inker
Bill Crabtree – Colourist

Official Synopsis
Mark Grayson is just like most everyone his age. He’s a senior at a normal American high school. He has a crappy part time job after school and on weekends. He likes girls quite a bit but quite doesn’t understand them. He enjoys hanging out with his friends and sleeping late on Saturdays (at least until the good cartoons come on). The only difference between Mark and everyone else his age is that his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet, and as of late, he seems to be inheriting his father’s powers.

But that’s only the beginning of Marks problems.

Vol. 1: Family Matters (#1-4)

Issue 1
This first issue packs in a lot, which means it jumps quickly from one thing to the next but it doesn’t feel overwhelming nor does it leave you feeling that things have been rushed.

The opening pages of Invincible start with a bang, quite literally as Invincible is blown out of the sky by bomb that has been implanted into a man that he’s carrying away from the public.

After the bomb blast we’re launched 4 months into the past as we meet Mark Grayson before he got his powers. He’s just a normal teenager who’s dad (Nolan/Omni-Man) has been battling a mind-controlled dragon in Taiwan for the last 10 hours and can’t hang out with his friend WIlliam because he has his after school job at Burger Mart. Which is where Marks powers kick in, while throwing out the trash.

We see Mark testing out his powers, taking down his first criminals and his dad introducing him to Art, the tailor for superheroes but until Mark comes up with a name he can’t have the iconic suit he wants.

Back at school Mark sees a kid being bullied and stands up to the bully by putting him through a locker. In the principals office Mark is reminded that he’s a good student and should continue to concentrate on his school work not fighting bullies as he’s not INVINCIBLE.

The next thing we see is a bank robbery and as the robbers are running to the getaway car they round the corner to see Invincible standing there in his brand new suit with the getaway car above his head. As the robbers point their guns at Invincible, he retorts, “I wouldn’t try that…I’m Invincible.”

Issue 2
Issue #2 opens with a flashback to a younger Mark (probably 10) sitting down with his father for the talk of where daddy comes from. Nolan tells his son that he’s a Viltrumite from the planet Viltrum; a race of people who became so advanced and civilised that they wanted to spread that peace and prosperity across the galaxy by going to planets they felt are ready, Earth was not one of these planets but Nolan convinced the Viltrumite council otherwise and volunteered to become our sole protector until we were deemed worthy.

Back in the present day Mark is out on patrol in his PJ bottoms because he couldn’t sleep. You’d have thought with super speed he could at least put on some pants and a t shirt before leaving. While on patrol he see’s a very large blue guy (who we later learn is called Mauler) stealing boxes from a video game warehouse, upon investigating he comes across some other heroes who call themselves the ‘Teen Team’ featuring Robot, Rex Splode, Dupli-Kate and Atom Eve, whom he recognised from Physics class at school.

Mark joins Eve the next day and heads to the Teen Teams secret lair where Robot explains they put a tracker on Mauler and wiped his memory from the past night. Upon Mauler getting back to base we discover that they were stealing microchips to power an army of robots.

Invincible joins Robot and Eve in taking out Mauler and his buddy but while that’s going on a man wakes up on a bench in a large shopping mall with no idea where he his, he opens his shirt and 0:00:01 BOOM!!

Issue 3
Principle Winslow is giving a very important talk to all the students of Reginald Vel Johnson High School regarding the three missing students, informing them that there’s no conclusive deviance that the students have been abducted, they all knew each other so they could just be skipping school, but warned everyone to remain vigilant none-the-less.

Mark meets up with Eve during lunch and it’s revealed that prior to the bombing in issue 2, another bombing took place and Robot’s looking into it.

At Burger Mart, Mark finally has enough with his boss and quits, luckily when he’s back home doing the dishes with his dad, Nolan suggests Mark quits his job because with his new found powers, he’s got better things to do than flip burgers.

This leads us to the first Omni-Man and Invincible team up, as they’re patrolling the city Omni-Man gets call about a disturbance down-town, when they arrive they find hundreds of trans-dimensional aliens attacking the city and pouring out of a portal, as they’re working their way through the army they soon realise the aliens are ageing rapidly, making the fight much easier.

As they head back after defeating the alien horde Omni-Man senses something at a mall, he grabs a guy off a bench, who Mark realises is one of the missing students from his school and throws him through a hole in the ceiling just as he explodes. Just as Omni-Man was about to reveal a possible connection between the missing students and the bombings a portal opens behind him and an alien from earlier drags him through and the portal closes before Mark can react.

Issue 4
After learning students from his school are being used as organic bombs, Invincible makes a stop at Teen Teams lair to tell Robot the news. As Mark arrives Robot is inspecting the robots they found at the Mauler twins hide-out in Issue 2 and surmises that if they had succeeded in implanting the robots with the stolen chips, these robots would be near unstoppable.

At school Mark and Eve discuss the bombings over lunch and remind each other to keep an eye out for anything suspicious and they’ll meet up later in Mr Hiles’ class. After that class Robot, in the middle of a battle calls Eve to tell her that the only person at their school capable of creating a bomb is their Physics teacher David Hiles.

Mark and Eve suit up and head over to Mr Hiles’ home, where he recognises them both, when Eve asks how he knew she responds with “Are you kidding me? You’re not even wearing a mask.” He admits instantly to the bombings and shows them to the basement where he has a fourth student on an operating table.

Mr Hiles explains he’s doing this because the bullies caused his son to commit suicide, which resulted in him getting divorced and eventually losing his job. While Eve and Invincible are distracted with Derek, the fourth student, Mr Hiles activates another bomb, this time, the bomb is in him. We’re now back to the first page of Issue 1 and now learn that the man at the beginning Invincible was carrying is Mr Hiles.

After Mr Hiles has exploded Mark heads home, moments later his dad comes back and reveals that while it’s only been a day or two here on Earth, he’s actually been gone eight months. For the past eight months he’s been enslaved but led an army to revolt against their captors, regained his powers and a team of scientists from the rebellion helped get him home.

Final Thoughts
A good start to the series and while it threw a lot of things at you in these first four issues it was easy enough to take it all in without having to flick back to check on something you may have missed. Through the four issues there were a few name drops, most notably The Guardians of the Globe that Omni-Man is part of and with Invincible getting stronger every day, we will no doubt be seeing them soon. We were introduced to the Teen Team but who are they and do they have anything to do with GotG? Will we find out what happens to Derek after Mr Hiles’ nefarious plan to blow him and innocent people up? Who called Omni-Man when the trans-dimensional aliens attacked? And will those robots the Mauler Twins were creating make a return? Only time will tell.

Next week I’ll be recapping Robert Kirkmans The Walking Dead comic, starting from the very first issue through to issue 6, covering the Days Gone Bye story arc. I’ll be back with more Invincible the following week where I’ll be recapping the Eight is Enough story arc covered in issues 5-8.