Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

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MacynSnow
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by MacynSnow »

Jabroniville wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:14 am
MacynSnow wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 3:27 pm Look at the selling numbers for both Invincible and The Walking Dead for about the same month.Note how much more Kirkman's hero book was selling than his Horror one....now check 4-5 months later;notice anything wierd?...... ;)
I thought TWD was one of the biggest sellers in comics. Have any specific examples ofthe trolling or sales?
Nothing specific readily comes to mind......but i suggest you guy's check the sells of both Kirkman's books(try around when TWD was at season 2 of the TV show)for more in the way of "evidence"......
MacynSnow
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by MacynSnow »

Shock wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 3:00 am I find it hard to believe a writer would intentionally write one of his books poorly just because he didn't want it to have better sales than another book he was writing. That would take a special kind of mental illness
Not if said writer was making more money off the rights one over the other.After all,didn't the Great wrestling heel Ted Dibease ounce say;
"Everybody has a price,it's just a question of how much......"
Jabroniville
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Jabroniville »

I'm more inclined to think that Kirkman just wanted to focus on his MUCH more lucrative property, which is why Invincible often went off the rails or on strange tangents. You could practically FEEL him not wanting to go along with the Invincible Universe concept, which is why those characters mostly got nuked and then ignored.
Jabroniville
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Jabroniville »

The Post-Viltrumite War issues are a bit interesting- certain things are glossed over (William is revealed to be gay, but never matters to the book again), everyone kind of tries to settle into a "new normal", and various character bits pop up. Nolan & Debbie are back together for good. Oliver grows totally dissociated from humanity. The Viltrumites decide to hide out on Earth, renewing their empire by making babies with Earthlings for a few generations- the threat of them living on Earth is not lost on Mark. Mark decides to become much more pragmatic and thus begins to ally with Cecil again, and then suddenly steps back and chooses a really dramatic way to "make things better". And Allen, new leader of The Coalition of Planets, enacts a possibly-genocidal plan to wipe out the Viltrumites once and for all.

I'll say this- for all the tension that was lost during the Viltrumite War's finale (because it was the peak of drama for the series), they managed to ramp it back up with interpersonal conflict- Allen is put in a difficult position, as Earth could die because of what he's about to do. It's in the greater interest of the universe, however. Mark & Nolan are horrified by his actions and fight back, but then THRAGG shows back up again, taking the "do it and I'll kill you" approach, before speaking to Allen's sense of duty and pragmatism (ie. now the Viltrumites KNOW about this threat, and are ready to fight back at a moment's notice- Allen cannot allow this, while Thragg cannot fight back without causing the extinction of his people. They are thus in detente, and a truce must be signed.
MacynSnow
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by MacynSnow »

So,basically it became like a forced Cold-War?
Jabroniville
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Jabroniville »

The finale of the Viltrumite War leads to Mark getting hit with the new "Scourge Virus", and being de-powered for a while, which gets Bulletproof to become the "new" Invincible for the time being. He even appears in Invincible Universe this way. This necessitates Kirkman giving Zandale a lot more characterization, which includes his weirdly-hideous, bitchy parents, who verbally abuse him until his girlfriend freaking KILLS HIS MOM by accidentally caving in her skull with a frying pan. His horrified father then beats on a shocked Carla, and Zandale accidentally snaps his neck in return. He then tosses his parents' car off a cliff to make it look like an accident, and he & his girl are left staring at each other in horror. This is HILARIOUS, especially since Kirkman immediately jumps to his "Writer Stand-In" going on about throwing out shocking events to hold the fans' interest before Issue 100 can come out, even if it's over-the-top, excessively violent and all about the shock value.

I have to say, Ottley's art looks BETTER THAN EVER, here. You can tell at times the deadlines are wearing on him, because he'll half-ass a few issues so badly it doesn't even look like his stuff, but around this time, his art is phenomenal. I thought he was adding some more shading lines to the figures and "beefing" everyone up, but it turns out a huge chunk of this was the COLORIST, who had recently taken over coloring duties and knocked it out of the park, adding such distinctive shadows that everyone had volume and solidity that was not there before.
So,basically it became like a forced Cold-War?
More or less. Kirkman has a really odd thing where he solves situations very quickly and simply, in a way that somewhat deflates the tension.
greycrusader
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by greycrusader »

Reading your running narrative of the book's history, it IS pretty clear in hindsight just how much Kirkman decided to just plow through the series and concentrate on his FAR more lucrative TWD franchise (and totally understandable, from a career standpoint). I can barely count the number of story lines or character arcs which got truncated or essentially just forgotten about altogether. The Immortal was hinted to eventually become a major, world-conquering threat-he was dictator of the world in a "possible" future timeline Mark was briefly trapped in-but ultimately not much as all came of this, though though events in the last couple issues actually could serve as a set up for this, if the book wasn't ending. Atom Eve starts out with an interesting back story, and odd aspects to her powers, then eventually just ends up in the super-girlfriend/sidekick of the protagonist. Her transformation into a BBW (preceded by earlier "enhancing" her own figure to Power Girl proportions) and the hint that Invincible was very much "into" her new physique was controversial among the fan-service readers, but ultimately just got dropped in a perfunctory manner. Intriguing characters like Best Tiger get lost in the plummet toward the finale. Supposedly major villains such as Set and Machinehead are sent packing off-panel, while even Rex Robot gets dealt with pretty easily once the heroes get their act together, after Kirkman seemed to set up his robot army as the equal of the Viltrumite race. It was almost always a fun read, however, with a few swerves I never saw coming. But ending at this point seems like the best move for the series overall.

All my best!
Jabroniville
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Jabroniville »

Yeah, re-reading the bit where Immortal is the insane "World Dictator" in the future, I was like "!!!!!!!!" because I'd JUST READ the issue where Mark (who WAS THERE TO SEE IMMORTAL DO THAT) instills Immortal as... unelected dictator of Earth. Yes, a guy who hasn't been on Earth for YEARS, and abandoned it to Robot, just decides he has the authority to place Immortal in charge of the entire planet... with the heartless murderer Robot giving him advice.

SO, SO WEIRD.
greycrusader
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by greycrusader »

Jabroniville wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 9:53 pm Yeah, re-reading the bit where Immortal is the insane "World Dictator" in the future, I was like "!!!!!!!!" because I'd JUST READ the issue where Mark (who WAS THERE TO SEE IMMORTAL DO THAT) instills Immortal as... unelected dictator of Earth. Yes, a guy who hasn't been on Earth for YEARS, and abandoned it to Robot, just decides he has the authority to place Immortal in charge of the entire planet... with the heartless murderer Robot giving him advice.

SO, SO WEIRD.
You know, that could ACTUALLY be Kirkman showing again Mark Grayson/Invincible makes poorly reasoned, impulsive decisions again and AGAIN-during the course of the series, he frees Dinosaurus-an Orange and Blue morality villain who destroyed Las Vegas-because Invincible is persuaded the creature's ideas will be good for the world; this ends with millions dead and wholesale flooding of major cities by tsumanis and hurricanes. Mark abandons Earth to Robot's "benign" rule when Eve and other civilians are threatened, does not insist on Thragg being executed when the opportunity first arises, TWICE abandons Eve on ill-considered, high-risk missions to parallel worlds/timelines...while his actions DO prevent the Viltrumite conquest of Earth (and eventually he and his father turn their race into a benevolent force), Invincible's attempts to move beyond just "punching out the bad guys" generally end in personal tragedy or utter disaster with massive collateral damage.
Jabroniville
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Jabroniville »

Worst of all, one of those jaunts cost us BBW Eve!!! THAT WAS THE BEST EVE!!!!!

But seriously, that girl is messed in the head. She was pathologically obsessed with Mark. And nobody ever really called her out on it. Except for Kate, of course.
Jabroniville
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Jabroniville »

Around their one-hundredth issue, there's more shake-ups. Mark's deciding to SPRING DINOSAURUS and let him do environmental stuff, thus making Mark a fugitive, and an accessory to whatever Dinosaurus does, is very odd. It makes Mark look impulsive and REALLY naiive, while at the same time kind of undercutting his whole "do more than just punching things" mentality, because it's pretty clear that he's too stupid to do anything but punching. And of course when he's injured, Dinosaurus goes and commits to a devastating plan that kills around a million people. Dinosaurus is all "let me convince you I'm right", but Invincible points out that all Dinosaurus did was temporarily stall humanity's progress, and that this could all be a waste. Dinosaurus IMMEDIATELY realizes the flaws in his plans, and demands that Mark kill him before he justifies some OTHER evil action. The dialogue here was pretty weak and half-assed, and I didn't really buy Mark's whole method of convincing the baddie of his error. Invincible suggests he go to jail, but Cecil just goes "I've worked with villains before" and they're back to their OLD status quo, with Cecil giving Mark orders. This arc is REALLY WEIRD, seemingly creating an all-new status quo and making Mark the indirect killer of millions, but they gloss it over so quickly in the story that it barely matters after more than five issues. I still can't believe we were supposed to take a guy named DINOSAURUS seriously.

Meanwhile, the Viltrumites engage in rapid-fire characterization, as being on Earth for MONTHS has led to a change that took Nolan YEARS to achieve, because hey, Kirkman's on a timeline, yo. Then it turns out that Thragg was hiding Nolan's existence as the heir to the throne secret, and he's IMMEDIATELY assaulted and turned on by his most elite agents- Anissa, Lucan, Kregg & Thula nearly kill him, but Nolan both spares his foe, then chooses EXILE as his punishment. This idiotic, naiive move is supposed to show the Viltrumites a better way, but not only do none of them talk about what Nolan's done, Nolan has basically doomed everyone who dies near The End of Everything, forty issues later. So GOOD JOB, IDIOT.

Heh- Mark cracks a joke about the superhero life, chuckling about getting tossed into the future, "and missing my kid's childhood." Eesh.
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Arkrite
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Arkrite »

And this is about where I lost interest.

Mark just starts carrying the idiot ball inexplicably, decides that the only way to effect a better change on the world is by... teaming up with a super villain.

He has access to aliens (and thus alien technology), large groups of heroes with impressive powers and super genius intelligence, and a girlfriend who can literally rewrite creation.
But the only thing he can come up with is working with a super villain?

This series started off pretty strong with a lot of fun an interesting ideas. But as the series progressed it started seeming more and more like he'd come up with a really good concept, set up a story for it... get completely distracted and forget or bored and just pretend it never happened. And for a while I didn't notice because things were interesting and he was really good at increasing the stakes.

But yeah, I just cringed at this whole storyline.

And I never noticed how much Eve devolved as a character. She started off fairly strong hero with her own goals and motivations... and slowly devolved into a wreck who never did anything and seemed obsessive about her boyfriend.

And just to weigh in, I preferred original Eve.
But I couldn't help but laugh when she gave herself an "upgrade". 'Cause I'd totally make myself super buff and huge if I had that power ;~)
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Ares »

I was just telling Jab how weird it was to watch Eve's general de-evolution. She basically becomes this clingy woman whose life is defined by her relationship with Mark, and she goes from someone trying to improve the world by re-shaping matter in developing nations, to someone who is basically a very crappy Green Lantern who only transmutes clothing and/or provides an emergency heal as the plot requires.
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Arkrite
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Arkrite »

Wasn't there a part where Mark and Eve were trying to save up for a house?

How is money even a thing they need to worry about with Eve around?
Let's just disregard that she's capable of building a house by herself.
Let's just disregard that should could transmute gold.
Let's just disregard that she could fabricate pretty much anything she had a mind to.
...
But she literally admitted she could turn leaves into chocolate cake with all the flavor and zero calories. She should be rolling in billions of dollars!
Jabroniville
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Re: Robert Kirkman's Invincible - Thoughts?

Post by Jabroniville »

Arkrite wrote: Sun Feb 11, 2018 4:08 am And this is about where I lost interest.

Mark just starts carrying the idiot ball inexplicably, decides that the only way to effect a better change on the world is by... teaming up with a super villain.

He has access to aliens (and thus alien technology), large groups of heroes with impressive powers and super genius intelligence, and a girlfriend who can literally rewrite creation.
But the only thing he can come up with is working with a super villain?

This series started off pretty strong with a lot of fun an interesting ideas. But as the series progressed it started seeming more and more like he'd come up with a really good concept, set up a story for it... get completely distracted and forget or bored and just pretend it never happened. And for a while I didn't notice because things were interesting and he was really good at increasing the stakes.

But yeah, I just cringed at this whole storyline.

And I never noticed how much Eve devolved as a character. She started off fairly strong hero with her own goals and motivations... and slowly devolved into a wreck who never did anything and seemed obsessive about her boyfriend.

And just to weigh in, I preferred original Eve.
But I couldn't help but laugh when she gave herself an "upgrade". 'Cause I'd totally make myself super buff and huge if I had that power ;~)
Eve is just the weirdest part about this book. A fan wrote in when Eve "died" in that issue, and went into this thing about how "I know she's basically what most fans would consider to be the perfect girlfriend". At this point, she hadn't done the "I got overweight when you left" or "I got anorexic when you left" thing yet, but we'd still seen Future Eve's obsessive desire for Mark, and I couldn't help but think... was that deliberate? Was her love for Mark supposed to make us like her MORE, and want to be her boyfriend more? The weirdest thing is how Kirkman just didn't seem to be aware that he was doing it. Because she came off as weird. Never mind how "Angry Eve Face" practically became a cliche for a couple of years. Made worse by Ottley's more cartoony art style (particularly the way he always drew teeth sort of "leaning inwards", so when someone had their mouth open, it became really prominent when they were pissed off).

Her whole "Well I'll fix the world in Africa, because super-heroics don't really fix anything" arc is especially bizarre. Though it's quite clear she did that just to get away from Mark & Amber because she was having issues with that. But the bit where she's feeding starving people by creating food from NOTHING, but then just goes "Agh- it doesn't really work here. Things keep getting screwed up." It's equal parts condescending ("Africans can't do anything without us, and everything we do goes to crap there anyways") and "UGH I just want to write this out", because we never actually get the specifics of that.

And yeah... the whole "Invincible Inc." thing was weird. They needed money because they wanted to build a home on a lot of land they'd have to buy, I guess (Eve does mention she can create a house from nothing), but they act as if Eve couldn't really earn any money on her own without being a businesswoman leading Mark around. Ultimately, that whole bit came off as an excuse just to give Mark SOME kind of status quo without Cecil around (naturally, this is before they just had the two make up and start working together again).

It occurs to me I'm about to start posting the Invincible builds, and I won't be able to read the final issue until like, the DAY OF, so many I should push that back by a bit :).
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