Comic-Caps: Invincible #14-19

28 Jun

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

Previously on Invincible
Mark learns the truth about what his father did, where he really comes from and why he’s here on Earth. A huge fight breaks out as Mark tries to stop his Dad from enslaving the planet, during the fight Mark is left comatose and Nolan leaves our Solar System.

Vol. 4: Head of the Class (#14-19)

Issue 14
The aliens that captured Omni-Man back in Issue 3 have returned to attack Earth. This time they’re not ageing rapidly due to their Chronobands which counteract the side effects of our dimension. Stupidly, the alien leader points this out to Invincible and they’re soon sent packing.

Cecil tells Mark the tape with the entire recording of the encounter Omni-Man had with The Immortal and Mark has been released to the press and is being played unedited in its entirety.

At the base of the new Guardians of Globe Robot is informed that the team is being expanded to help pick up the slack. Bulletproof is introduced as the new team member along with the new consultant, The Immortal, which doesn’t sit well with Robot.

When Mark gets home later that night he finds his Mom on the kitchen floor crying, when he goes to comfort her, she asks him why he had to drive his Father away.

Issue 15
The next morning Debbie apologises to Mark for what she said to him, she’s still coming to terms with what happened and that she’s proud Mark stood up to his Dad.

At school Mark gets paged to come to the Pentago…secret head quarters of the Guardians of the Globe. When he arrives he finds Cecil with some Atlantians. Apparently, because Marks Dad killed the Atlantians King Aquarus (former GotG member), Mark now has to go to Atlantis and marry the Queen if a suitable mate cannot be found.

In Atlantis Mark finds out that he will be getting married today and part of the ceremony is involves him fighting a creature called a depth dweller and then he must have sex with his bride in front of the entire population of Atlantis. Mark soon learns that the servant (Lethan) to him and the Queen is secretly in love with the queen but due to him not being royalty he can’t marry her.

Mark comes up with a plan, when the depth dweller is brought into the ceremony he plans to be afraid and begs Lethan to help, then throws Lethan into the beast, knocking it unconscious and the queen accepts Lethan as her new mate.

Back on land, Debbie meets with Nolan’s old book publisher, who just happens to be Superpatriots wife and The Immortal is sent to thwart the evil pans of The Mauler Twins.

Issue 16
Earth is being destroyed by Invincible and Omni-Man in a bid to get us to surrender. Angstrom Levy, a scientist working with Immortal and Robot heads back to headquarters but is followed by Invincible and Omni-Man. Immortal and Robot are killed and just as they are about to do the same to Angstrom, Angstrom appears from another dimension, our dimension and pulls him to safety.

Back in our dimension the Angstroms find Earth being invaded by aliens as the current Guardians of the Galaxy are having a very hard time doing anything. After the aliens retreat Cecil fires Robot and makes Immortal the new leader.

As the Guardians go to help clean up the city, Angstrom Levy is taking himself to his secret hideout where he introduces him to about another 30 Angstroms.

Issue 17
At the prison the Mauler Twins are being held Angstrom Levy appears and offers to break them out if they agree to help him with controlling his powers better.

It’s graduation day for Mark but before he can attend he’s needed in New York to help The Capes deal with a psychotic pink hulk who’s pissed that Commander Capitalism has been dating his wife for the past few months. Invincible finally grabs Thomas Winters and takes him into space until he passes out.

At the graduation everyone throws their hats into the air, Mark throws his into space.

Issue 18
Marks latest mission is to protect some astronauts as they head to Mars, as the Martians are not a very friendly race. Upon landing the astronauts are captured, Invincible goes after them and as he opens the entrance to the underground facility a bunch of small squid like aliens known as Sequids attack Mark but cannot penetrate his skin.

Mark is taken to the Martian leader who explains the Sequids are a race that rely on hosts, otherwise they are mindless. If you’ve seen Stargate, these things are basically the Gu’ald. The Martian leader explains to Mark that the Sequids crash landed on Mars centuries ago and the Martians used them as slaves are the Sequids cannot attach themselves to the Martians due to their shape shifting ability, however with the astronauts, he Sequids can take control of them which could lead to the Martians being overthrown, so the astronauts will be executed,

Mark breaks the astronauts out and they make a run for the space shuttle and get out of there while Mark holds the Martians back. Unfortunately not all the astronauts made it, one is left behind and has been taken over by the Sequids.

We also learn that Angstrom wants the Maulers to help him transfer the knowledge from all the other Angstoms into his brain to allow him to control his dimension portal ability.

Issue 19
In the last issue we saw an astronaut get left behind, yet 4 astronauts left Mars. The astronaut left behind is Rus Livingston, the Rus Livingston who came back from Mars is in fact a shape-shifting Martian.

Invincible gets a call about Titan smashing up buildings set for demolition, when he arrives he finds Titan was just trying to get his attention to help him take out the biggest crime boss in the country, Machine Head. Cecil gives Invincible the okay and they head over there. When they arrive Machine Head is already awaiting them and sets his band of mercenaries on them.

Titan and Invincible start off well but soon become overpowered, luckily Cecil has been listening in and sends in the Guardians for backup and Machine Head and his cronies are defeated, except for Battle Beast who escapes through a portal but not before severely injuring Black Sampson and Bulletproof.

We soon find out it was all a ploy for power by none other than Titan and with Machine Head out of the way, he is now the crime lord of the country.

Final Thoughts
While every issue set up or progressed story lines some issues felt a little light on content but lets not take away from what’s happened in Vol 4. We didn’t see Allen at all here so I’m hoping his story with the Coalition continues in Vol 5.

What we did get here though is Debbie seriously struggling to get her life back on track since Nolan left and has turned to drink to solve her problems. We have a Martian living among us, why is he here and what will happen to the real Rus Livingstone? And what is Angstrom Levy’s end game other than getting better control of his powers?

Next week I’ll be recapping Robert Kirkmans The Walking Dead comic, Chapter Four: The Hearts Desire covering issues 19-24. I’ll be back with more Invincible the following week where I’ll be recapping the Facts of Life story arc covered in issues 20-24 PLUS issue #0.