by Randy Lander

INVINCIBLE #12 Recommended (8/10) Image Comics Writer: Robert Kirkman Artist: Ryan Ottley Colors: Bill Crabtree Price: $2.95 US/$3.95 CAN Because I love Invincible (the book, not the character... loving a character is wrong, and can cause papercuts in naughty places) so much, I think I can say: I'm very, very worried about it. The last couple issues have had the biggest change of status quo, the biggest "everything you know is wrong" kind of moment, and while it is intriguing, it's also disturbing, and could very well ruin what I have liked about the book. It's kind of like having to confront your favorite uncle about his drug problem... he's still your uncle, but you're worried that he might just hit you upside the head with his crack pipe. Wait... it's nothing like that. At any rate, Invincible has been making a slow transition over the last two or three issues from generally light, fun superhero fare to dark, Watchmen-esque superhero fare, and this issue, as you might guess from the cover, is just brutal. Dark and unrelenting, an assault on one of the main characters that does not appear to be in any way an act or fakeout and which utterly changes the book. Be warned: If you're not reading Invincible, or if you're a couple of issues behind, skip the rest of this review. I'm probably going to accidentally spoil something, and trust me that you don't want that to happen. Because Kirkman, in the last few issues, has pulled out some doozy revelations, bigger than when Mark's dad seemingly murdered the Guardians of the Globe, although related to that shocker of an incident. I liken it to the feeling I get from watching Alias, or 24 when it's in good mode and not so much in "Kim's being chased by another cougar" mode. Big, big things are happening here, and though they play out as logical extensions of what we've seen before, they do so in a manner that is very much a twist, the kind of thing nobody saw coming. One of the reasons for that, of course, is that this is such a complete change in tone and premise. When it started out, Invincible was about a father and son superhero, or at least that's how it seemed. And I loved that we had a family that didn't freak out that the kid had powers, and the kid didn't have to hide who he was from his parents. Now, the central relationship of the book (at least as far as I was concerned) has been turned upside down, and unless this is all some big act (which seems unlikely), it's not going back. I have a hard time reconciling the character we saw before with the version of the character we're seeing now, and even if I did buy into the guy being that good of an actor, I'm not sure I like the radical change. I think he's a less interesting character now, less understandable. At the same time, though, this new status quo is interesting. The father-son hero thing is rare, but so is the notion of father on one side of the fight, son on the other. And this issue demonstrates that this isn't going to be a "father holds back on the son" kind of thing, either. The violence in this issue is a culmination of the slowly increasing gore and death that we saw when this whole thing started to unfold in Invincible #10, and Ottley and Crabtree do a fantastic job of showing the brutality of two super-powered beings duking it out. We've got the hero put through a building splash made famous by Bryan Hitch on The Ultimates, and done up very nicely here, we've got the Steve Dillon-esque flying teeth and blood, and it's all accompanied by Walt Simonson-esque (Simonsonian?) sound effects that somehow don't play things down at all. On top of all that, Kirkman provides heavy emotional blows to go along with the physical ones, and the whole fight is just horrible, horrible to watch. And yet, it's horrifying and completely compelling to see Mark beaten so much by someone he only had feelings of love and trust for. This issue, and the storyline it continues, is nerve-wracking, because I liked the book so much as it was, and I'm not sure where Kirkman will go from here. And yet... it's nerve-wracking, and I'm not sure where Kirkman will go from here, and I can't wait to pick up the next issue and find out. In addition, these "everything you know is wrong" things can never work on a big mainstream superhero book the way they can on an Image book, where there isn't the pressure from multiple licensees and corporate not to change the cash cow into something else. This change in status quo can't help but change the characters and the tone irrevocably, and given how much I liked the characters and tone, that makes me very nervous. However, I have nothing but respect for these creators for trying something so bold, and a pretty fair amount of trust in Kirkman alone because of his work on The Walking Dead, this book and others. Email Randy Lander comments about this review.