Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 2/17

Archie #5
Story: Mark Waid
Art: Veronica Fish & Andre Szymanowicz with Jen Vaughn

The new issue of Archie could actually have the classic Archie's Pals 'n' Gals title, since Archie himself barely appears in the issue, having been clocked in the head by a softball and given a concussion on page three. Much of this issue takes place on the metaphorical right side of the tracks, focusing on Veronica and Reggie, and Reggie's attempts to get in good with Veronica's father, business magnate and legendary comic book hardass Hiram Lodge. Last issue really introduced Reggie, but showed him mostly in context of being the weasel next to Jughead and Betty. Here, with Veronica, her father, and their butler, Smithers, Reggie gets to be a real jerk. He sells out his own dad to Ledge, clearly wants to be with Veronica for no other reason than it puts him closer to money, and in the end sells out Archie just to get in good with Lodge. In the essay with last issue, Waid said he liked to just present Reggie as a heel, because there are people like that in the world, and he does a great job of showing Reggie just like that this issue. Meanwhile, Waid continues to give Veronica depth. Her reaction when she finds out Archie has been hurt and is in the hospital is priceless; she remains an entitled princess, but has a good heart underneath all that spoiled exterior. Meanwhile, Betty meets a new guy named Sayid (a new character I believe, but I'd be happy to be corrected by the more Archie initiated) , but there awkward first moments of flirting are cut short when Betty finds out about the softball that knocked Archie out (take a guess who hit it?). Again, it's been years since I read Archie with any regularity, so I don't remember if these are traits that were part of the classic continuity, but as we meet both Smither the butler and Pop Tate, owner of the Malt Shop, I like that they're getting personality quirks, Smithers as a busybody and Pop as the guy who knows everything in Riverdale. And a highlight from the things I do remember from Archie comics from when I would read them waiting for my orthodontist appointments in middle school, we get to see Mr. Lodge blow his stack up close for the first time; new artist Veronica Fish draws a phenomenal panel of Lodge's realization of who exactly his daughter is dating. Archie's in for some big trouble next issue when hee finally has to meet Mr. Lodge, I have no doubt.

Invincible Vol.22: Reboot?
Story: Robert Kirkman
Art: Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn, & Jean-Francois Beaulieu

While Walking Dead is Robert Kirkman's most famous book, no doubt, my favorite thing he writes is still Invincible, his super hero saga about Mark Grayson, the hero known as Invincible. After the events of the last volume, where one of Invincible's friends took over Earth for its own good, or so he says, and Invincible, his fiancee Atom Eve, and their daughter Terra left Earth for the alien world of Talescria where the intergalactic government is headquartered. Invincible has spent time in space before, but changing the core location of the book to an alien world is a major shift in the status quo. The first half of this trade deals with that fallout, both on Earth and in space. Chapter One is on Earth and sees the remaining heroes escaping prison and setting up a resistance against Robot, their former friend and now secret ruler of the world. Only... the world seems like a better place. Crime is down, unemployment is down, happiness is up. So the divide amongst the rebels starts to form with the question of: if no one is getting hurt and things are better now, do the ends justify the means, the means in this case being Robot having ruthlessly seized control and killed many of their friends.

The next two chapters deal with Mark and Eve adjusting to Talescria. Kirkman does a string job of making so much of the planet seem alien. Sure, it's a city, but the local fauna is really weird. And while they have friends there, it's still a whole world of new people. And the threat of Thragg, the warlord of Invincible's people who has gone rogue, looms, and Mark has to take a leave from his family to go and confront Thragg, but not before spending a day of daddy-daughter time with his baby daughter. And that's important for what happens next, because while searching for Thragg, Mark is grabbed by a strange creature and awakens...

... In his own past and in his own body. The last three chapters play out the events of the first dozen or so issues of Invincible, but with a Mark who knows everything that's coming I've always been fascinated by how much of Invincible is about maturity and morality, and so Mark has to make a lot of tough choices, especially dealing with his father, who he knows is a good man underneath but is about to do some really terrible things. And when he makes those choices, he sees the world change for the better, maybe, somewhat, but his own life is worse for it. But Mark's a good guy, and willing to live a worse life for a better world. Until the other shoe really drops. As readers of genre fiction, we're often presented with the classic quandry of, "If you could kill Hitler before he was HITLER, would you?" But what if the question isn't about killing someone for the potential evil they will do, but "Would you sacrifice the person you love the most in the world, and by sacrifice I mean they will never be born and you will never know them, to make a better world?" And that is the question that Mark has to deal with at the end of the trade, and it's a heartbreaker. And even when he makes the choice, and I won't say which way he goes on here, but as ever with a Kirkman book, there's a price to be paid. Twenty-two trades (That's 126  issue folks) in, Invincible still finds way to stay fresh and interesting, and keep the reader guessing about where it's going next.


And hey, look, Dan Grote is back to reviewing, this month with a most Excellent comic (cue air guitar)...

Bill & Ted Go to Hell

Story by Brian Joines

Art by Bachan and Jeremy Lawson

I recently showed my 4-year-old son – you guys remember Logan, right? – Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure for the first time. He’s already seen Back to the Future a bunch of times, and I wanted to show him there are cinematic time travelers way cooler than Marty McFly. At least Bill and Ted use the phone booth to go to more places than their own town.

Apparently, more than 25 years later, strange things remain afoot at the Circle K, as Wyld Stallyns’ co-founders are still kicking, at least in comics form.

Last year, BOOM Studios brought the pair back in Bill & Ted’s Most Triumphant Return, and this year they return again, most triumphantly, in Bill & Ted Go to Hell, the plot for which is as advertised. Someone has kidnapped B&T’s pal Death, which our heroes realize because he doesn’t show up at band practice Wednesday evening. To rescue Death, they round up their old friends Rufus, Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln and Billy the Kid (Billy’s best friend, Socrates, isn’t invited) and mount a mission to hell, where they discover that the beast normally in charge of the place has been usurped. I won’t give away the final splash-page reveal, but suffice it to say the story’s big bad is another familiar yet most heinous face.

Bachan’s art captures the absurdity of the franchise, which went off the rails from time travel to the afterlife in the second film. In some ways it resembles a (slightly) toned-down version of the cartoon style Rob Guillory deploys on Image’s Chew. How else to draw a book that features a monstrous Easter bunny, good-robot versions of Bill & Ted and a giant, naked Satan?

The first issue alone features much of the movies’ supporting cast, including B&T’s princess wives, their infant sons, the aforementioned robots, their time-traveling companions, their dads, their ex-stepmom Missy, Death, Bogus Journey villain-turned-friend Chuck de Nomolos, military-school recruiter Col. Oats, et al. Brian Joines also nails Bill and Ted’s vocal ticks – that mix of stoner cadence and dime-store words like “egregious” and “odious.” (Seriously, are B&T smart or dumb? They nearly failed history in the first movie, but somehow they were able to figure out time travel enough to orchestrate a jailbreak.)

If you’re a fan of the movies and their minutiae, and you have the disposable income for a silly yet most epic adventure, the book’s a lot of fun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to rewatch Bogus Journey, because it occurs to me I remember next to nothing about that film.

Recommended Reading for 1/26: Invincible

One of the great arguments about superhero comic book fandom is whether or not fans want change, or simply the illusion of change. There are complaints that superhero titles just rehash the same ideas over and over, but the trouble new characters and ideas have of gaining a foothold in the market indicates that no matter what many say, new isn't what they're actually seeking. This is, due to the nature of the beast that is writing for a corporate entity, mainly a problem in comics from DC and Marvel, since the characters are as much brands as they are characters. So to get superhero comics where characters grow beyond who they were when they were crystallized in public consciousness for more than six months, or to see real change in your superheroes, you have to look to other publishers. And Image Comics, despite now being more a boutique publisher than a traditional superhero comic company, still has a stable of superhero comics, and first and foremost among those is Invincible.

Invincible  was created by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker at about the same time Kirkman created another little comic called The Walking Dead. The series is the story of Mark Grayson, the teen superhero called Invincible, as Mark grows up and learns what it means to be both a hero and an adult. I've said this before in previous recommended readings, but while I do try to steer clear of spoiling important plot elements of series that I'm writing about, certain twists are integral to the structure of Invincible, and not discussing them would make for a particularly shallow discussion. I'm going to try to stick to spoiling only events early in the series, but if you really are completely spoilerphobic and have any interest in reading a great superhero comic, then stop right now and go and buy volume one in trade. Otherwise, keep reading.

The first six issues of Invincible seem to be nothing more than your typical, if very well written, teen superhero comic. Mark Grayson is the son of Nolan Grayson, known the world over as Omni-Man, an alien who came to Earth to help all mankind. Mark had been waiting for years for his powers to appear, and finally they do. Mark gets a costume and join his father as a hero under the name of Invincible. Mark meets other young heroes of the Teen Team, including Atom Eve, Rex Splode, and Robot, goes on adventures with them, and works with his father. But issue seven changes everything. That issue introduces the Guardians of the Globe, a team of Justice League analogues, who are called together at their meeting place and, over the last couple pages of the issue are brutally massacred. By Omni-Man.

 Mark learns that his father's race, the Viltrumites, are not a peaceful race who want to bring enlightenment to the galaxy. They are instead a race of brutal conquerors who send an advance agent to prepare a world for conquest by the Viltrumite Empire. Omni-Man tells Mark all of this, and asks him to join him, Mark refuses, and the two fight. Omni-Man beats Invincible to within an inch of his life, but can't deliver the killing blow. He leaves Earth, and his family, behind.

Before that twist, this could be just another comic that was trying to be the new Spider-Man. But now Mark is thrust into a world that knows his father was a monster and he is now one of its most important heroes. Beyond all the trappings of the superheroic, Invincible really is about a young man growing up and learning that there's very little in the world that is black and white, especially when it comes to right and wrong. The fight with his father is one of the last simple choices Mark makes. After that, each story gives him more and more complex moral decisions.

The complexity of Mark's character is one of the things that makes Invincible a great read. He's a fully realized character in a fully realized world. When Mark's work as Invincible starts interfering with his school work, he doesn't have a magic out. He fails. The only reason he and his mother are able to stay above water financially once his father is gone is money provided by the government for his services as a superhero. He has girl trouble, his friends get annoyed with his constantly having to run off and be a superhero. And since the series is a continuing epic, a cape opera (like a soap opera, but with superpowers. That's my new description for books like this and I'm sticking to it), these events can be played out over months, if not years.

But beyond the character complexity, I have to return to the moral complexity. When Mark is next confronted by his father, it is on an alien world where he has to work with the man who hurt and betrayed him to protect this world from the coming Vilturmites. It seems his father has really changed, and Mark needs to learn to reconcile the man he knew with the man he has come to fear.

The most interesting example of Kirkman's examination of Mark learning about the facts of life has to do with his interactions with Cecil Stedman, the head of the Global Defense Agency. Cecil is the person in the government who calls in Mark when the government needs help. Mark learned that Cecil had taken one of the mad scientists that Mark had captured and was employing him. Mark didn't see the good that the scientist could do, but instead attacked Cecil and threatened him. Over the course of the next couple years of the series, Mark goes to war with the Viltrumites, fights other villains, and begins to see shades of grey. Mark eventually meets with Cecil again, tells him he understands what he is doing, and begins working with the government again. But Mark takes things even further. He eventually frees Dinosaurus, a supergenius man/dinosaur hybrid (love that concept!) who believes his duty is to save the planet no matter how many lives it might cost, and begins working with him, trying to temper the monster's more homicidal urges so they can do good. Whether this compromise will be the world's salvation or Mark's undoing remains to be seen.

The world of Invincible is filled with a wide variety of interesting superheroes and villains. Atom Eve, Mark's sometimes love interest, can control non-living things on a molecular level, is herself torn by a difficult home life and feelings for Mark that never seem to happen at the right time. Allen the Alien is an intergalactic champion trained and bred to fight Viltrumites. but who has developed a friendship with Mark and his father. Robot is the seemingly robotic leader of the Teen Team who has secrets of his own. And Kid Omni-Man, Mark's half-brother Oliver, the son of Nolan and an alien bride, who was not raised among humanity and has a difficult time understanding them and very little sympathy for most. Oliver is what Mark would be if raised in a very different culture, one where life is not held quite as precious as it is in America on Earth. Mark has many of his own assumptions about morality questioned by Oliver, and Oliver is key to Mark's moral evolution.

While Invincible is a traditional superhero comic, I should warn new readers that it is by no means an all ages comic. Violence is portrayed graphically, and fountains of blood and gore are not uncommon. Sex is discussed, never graphically, but in the way it would be between teenagers and their parents and among each other. And as I've discussed throughout, the world of greys that Invincible exists in is close to reality, and might be a very good place for adults to talk with teenagers (or to consider themselves) about being a person in a world where no decision is as simple as it might seem, it's not something that would be easy to discuss with younger readers who are used to Batman locking up the Joker at the end of the story and good triumphing over evil. In the worlds of Robert Kirkman, it's often the lesser of evils that wins the day, and not necessarily the good.

The first issues of Invincible were drawn by cocreator Cory Walker, who does reappear to do the occasional story, the series has been drawn principally by Ryan Ottley. Ottley has a great superhero style, with big bold panels and a great feel for action scenes. He also can do justice to Kirkman's more intimate bits, the character moments that make Mark and his cast so engaging. I admit that I am always amused at the faces of Ottley's characters when they are embarrassed; the expressions are both hilarious and painful, the perfect comedic look of a character who just stuck their foot in their mouth or walked in at exactly the wrong moment.

Kirkman has a lot of pop culture references in the series, and Mark is a comic fan, so Kirkman talks about comics a lot through his characters. But my favorite pop culture reference is not in the series itself. On a particularly fun note each of the Invincible trades, save one, are named after sitcoms, so classic (All in the Family) and some less so (Out of This World).

Being a hero isn't easy, and I think that is what is really central to Invincible. Mark does his best to do the right thing in every situation, and meets with mixed results. But despite his failures, despite the wounds he might have taken, Mark keeps getting back up and fighting the good fight again. And that's what makes him a hero and a compelling character, his quest to do right. As we near the hundredth issue of the series, though, things looks pretty bleak for Mark. I can't wait to see what Kirkman has lined up for the next hundred issues.

There are currently seventeen Invincible trade paperbacks, but since this is a series by Robert Kirkman, there are numerous ways to read it aside from single issues and trades. There are currently eight hardcovers, called Ultimate Collections, each collecting twelve to thirteen issues, and the first of the omnibus editions, collecting the first forty eight issues of the series. Invincible #100 comes out this Wednesday.