Shop For Invincible: The Ultimate Collection Volume 5

Don't let the bright, bright colors and the very cool art and all the exuberant superhero antics fool you. There's a sort of camouflaged complexity to INVINCIBLE, underneath that shiny sense of fun, and that's only one more layer which Robert Kirkman consistently weaves into his world-building and storytelling. It seems like only yesterday when I first picked up this comic book, and look at it now, about to hit the 75th issue mark, clearly having stood the test of time. And the same nod goes to Kirkman's other monumental title, THE WALKING DEAD. At this stage, Mark Grayson, teenaged powerhouse, has become an established superhero, the go-to savior of the world. But he's still learning.

INVINCIBLE: ULTIMATE COLLECTION Volume 5 collects issues #48-59 of the ongoing series, as well as ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #11, meaning that if you already have the trades INVINCIBLE Vol. 10: WHO'S THE BOSS? and INVINCIBLE Vol. 11: HAPPY DAYS, then you've already peeped this bunch of goodies. What's striking about this particular run is that it doesn't seem to feature a consistent thru thread, unless you count the arc which develops Invincible's younger half-brother, Oliver, whose own powers manifest in early, astronomical fashion. We follow Oliver's acclimation as a fledgling superhero under Invincible's wing, and it's interesting that the kid means to redeem the reputation of his hero-turned-villain father. And so he assumes the codename "Kid Omni-Man.' The most fascinating theme in these issues, for me anyway, is the clash between Oliver's pragmatic worldview and Mark's more humane principles. This is one of the things Robert Kirkman, a dynamite writer, really excels at. He raises morality issues but offers no pat resolutions, although the characters do engage in meaningful conversations about them. Kirkman always sets a torrid pace. He throws in oodles of other story arcs. Except that, in this particular stretch of issues, those story arcs don't feel epic.

Friendly warning: The following may be fraught with SPOILERS and, also, with words like "fraught."

Kirkman, possibly comic books' premier dabbler in the realm of pure superhero escapism, keeps on cavorting in his personal playground, guest-starring plenty of his other created characters as well as other established characters from Image Comics. The first arc here deals with Mark Grayson's falling out with Cecil Stedman and the Global Defense Agency, as Mark leans that Stedman is even more underhanded than first suspected. Also, Dr. Seismic launches his big power play, utilizing his legions of Underearths to capture most of the world's superheroes. This gives us a chance to feast our eyeballs on the likes of the Dynamo 5, Savage Dragon, the Capes, the Guardians of the Globe, and the Astounding Wolf-Man rubbing elbows in shared captivity. Invincible and Atom Eve dramatically fly in to save the day. Except that they don't.

I don't know exactly what it is about Atom Eve that I like so much. Maybe it's her awesome power set, or maybe it's that she's simply this hot babe, and yet she acts like that down-to-earth girl next door. Anyway, there's solid progression in her relationship with Mark, although Mark's ex-girlfriend manages to briefly pop up.

Ryan Ottley's artwork is clean and crisp and dynamic and so dang perfect for this comic book. And Robert Kirkman keeps you guessing. You just never know in which direction this dude is gonna swerve. Predictably, he peppers in a few shocking moments in these pages, again reminding readers that the contents here aren't suited for the younger kids. As always, Kirkman ushers in new plotlines even as he closes off existing ones. Somewhere in this trade we get sucked into a gang turf war and there's a catch-up interlude with Allen the Alien, still imprisoned in a space vessel, and with Omni-Man, Mark and Oliver's dad, who is still scheduled for execution. There's a nifty crossover with Gary Hampton, a.k.a. the Astounding Wolf-Man. Gary is a fugitive wanted for his wife's murder, and Mark gets roped into bringing him in. Later, Mark and Eve, looking ahead financially, venture into freelance superheroing. Mark responds to a plea for help from the future and runs into an old friend. At the hind end of the volume, we get wind of Kirkman's next epic arc as the demented genius Angstrom Levy, after months of discreetly spying on Mark, finally launches his revenge scheme against Invincible. But, in issue #59, we don't have to wait to see how supervillain Powerplex's revenge play turns out.

End SPOILERS.

To commemorate having achieved the 50th issue landmark, Mark Grayson gets new superhero threads (even though he didn't ask for a makeover). Oliver also gets outfitted, and his costume is actually cooler looking than Mark's. And because absolutely no one asked for it, there's also Cecil Stedman's secret origin revealed.

As ever with these terrific Ultimate editions, there's a ton of extra goodies in the form of Ryan Ottley's sketches and cover art with behind-the-scenes commentary from Kirkman and Ottley. The script for issue #50 is also reproduced (in very, very small print). As fun as they are to read, I do get the sense that most of the stories in ULTIMATE INVINCIBLE Volume 5 are of the tread-the-water variety, filler stuff while Kirkman preps for the massive events about to go down. I collect the individual issues, so I know what I'm talking about. Devastating, earth-shaking stuff is about to go down! ULTIMATE INVINCIBLE Volume 6 can't come soon enough. Still, this Volume 5 is still very much worth the get, even if its sense of epic isn't as "epic" as in the previous editions. But no one blends those personal little moments and those large scale, world-hanging-in-the-balance moments quite as exquisitely as Kirkman. And no one draws his stuff as invigoratingly as Ryan Ottley. This applies to Volume 5.Get more detail about Invincible: The Ultimate Collection Volume 5.