Invincible, Vol. 18: The Death of Everyone

Invincible

by Robert Kirkman, Various (Artist)

Mark Grayson's entire life as a superhero, all he's learned, all he's endured, it's all been leading to this one moment. Will he become the hero he was meant to or will he choose... a DIFFERENT path? Collects issues #97-102.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy

164 pages, Paperback

First published August 13, 2013

About the author

Robert Kirkman is an American comic book writer best known for his work on The Walking Dead, Invincible for Image Comics, as well as Ultimate X-Men and Marvel Zombies for Marvel Comics. He has also collaborated with Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane on the series Haunt. He is one of the five partners of Image Comics, and the only one of the five who was not one of the original co-founders of that publisher.

Robert Kirkman's first comic books were self-published under his own Funk-o-Tron label. Along with childhood friend Tony Moore, Kirkman created Battle Pope which was published in late 2001. Battle Pope ran for over 2 years along with other Funk-o-Tron published books such as InkPunks and Double Take.

In July of 2002, Robert's first work for another company began, with a 4-part SuperPatriot series for Image, along with Battle Pope backup story artist Cory Walker. Robert's creator-owned projects followed shortly thereafter, including Tech Jacket, Invincible and Walking Dead.

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a ride. From moral grey areas taken to extreme levels to cataclysmic world-wide events to more moral grey areas again.

This comic does not short us on the hard issues. Nor does it stint on the bloody nightmares. But best of all, it gives us deep conflicts, wonderful characters, and hell on earth.

Beautiful.

[Paz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whoa, whoa, me changing a 4.5 star read originally to a 3 stars is crazy. I just didn't connect that much this time around. Like, a solid 3 stars overall until those Nolan-focused pages in the final issue. A final issue that was 5 stars if not for the last two pages of Mark and Eve. Gosh, I hate them together so much.
I know Dinosaurus was there to highlight all the ways Mark is trying to change, but always falling into the typical hero's naiveté in the end. But re-reading this storyline, it just bored me to tears. Because even when this huge disaster happens, one million people died indirectly because of Mark, there's still no consequence for him. We don't even see him down that bad, given that the next page we have Eve telling him she's pregnant, and then at the end of the volume they are engaged *rolling my fucking eyes so hard

4.5 Stars
ALL HAIL THE NEW EMPEROR
Can someone please explain me how the hell did I let more than a month pass without reading Invincible?! I've missed these characters. Great reveals, sad moments, so much blood. Good stuff, Kirkman.

This volume starts with an excellent scene between Bulletproof and his parents, explaining how he became this superhero. It is touching and emotional and then BOOM! everything goes bananas in typical Invincible fashion. What's best is that after that cold opening there's a great meta moment with the author of Mark's favorite comic explaining what just happened from the writer's point of view. Great, hilarious and smart.

There are some other excellent moments. The battle against Dinosaurus, Mark's utter defeat and the realization of how lost he is, how wrong he has acted. Mark is growing up in ways I can't begin to grasp. Seeing his progress has always been one of the highlights in this title.
There are some revelations and deciding moments between him and Eve, which guess what, I'm not crazy about, but I just decided to ignore Eve's whole existence. And lastly, what's to me the best of this title, the arc of Nolan coming back to earth NOLAN VS THRAGG and the subsequent Viltrumite reunion. What's a great, meaningful scene is followed by one of the funniest lines in this series.
This is so weird.
I get you Mark, it is. But it's also fucking awesome.

There are some typical Kirkman tropes too, like ''oh my god he killed a character, but of course he didn't.'' I guess I'm passed the point of being annoyed with that kind of scenes and I just enjoy the gore of the moment. Excellent work by Ottley once again, the action scenes are always a blast to read when Ottley is the artist.

This is more of a 4 starts, but the level of enjoyment after spending so much time away from this series is giving my rating an extra half a start. After all, this is one of my favorite series and it's always nice being back in this world.

[The Lion's Share · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Dinosaursus. I'm going to miss him :(

[Pat the Book Goblin · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW!!! This was crazy good!! Nolan is apparently the rightful leader of the Viltrumites, and Eve and Mark got engaged!!!! This is one of the best volumes of the series!!

[T.R. Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have I mentioned that Thragg is sexy? I feel like I've said it already. Because . . . you know . . . he is.

[Dr Rashmit Mishra · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 from me . Coz honestly I was a bit disappointed by how abruptly every big arc ended . The Dinosaurs vs Invincible arc , the true heir of vilturmite arc . It was all so abrupt and understanding .

There was a lot of dark moments in this though , specifically the one about bulletproof and the fact that Mark was actually responsible for something big . Those were the big moments for me in this arc .

There were a lot of big changes for characters in this book as well , so that was a nice surprise as well . Honestly this is still better than 90% of the books I generally read but by invincible standards , I found it a bit disappointing

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dinosaurus goes cray cray crazy yet again, but this time the damage is mega! Plus huge plot moves with Nolan's origin and more Thragg present and backstory! Mark's up against it, with only Invincible-Bulletproof in his corner? Some huge reveals in this volume! 8.5 out of 12.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark is back, but this time things are dark, very dark. As optimistic as the previous volumes of this series has been, this last run feels more and more pessimistic and full of gore and betrayal. Will Mark and Eve (with the rest of humanity) make it through this crisis?

[Jessy Goat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 90

Jesussss that first issue! Bulletproof's backstory is so interesting and sad actually. After that things escalate and oh boy! Someone got Glenn'd.
In all seriousness though, I remember that (lots of volumes back) I said to myself that I know every hero by name and what they're like... except for Bulletproof. Well now that changed and I'm really enjoying him. He got his screentime now.

Btw I also just wanna give huge props to Kirkman for making so many characters work extremely well. It's on the scale of Infinity War (the movie) but then not 1 movie but an entire comics series. Kirkman is just an amazing writer...

But I digress..

Oh man Dinosaurus... what an interesting villain.. uhh anti-hero? Or really just a longterm hero? Idk man. But that's what makes his character great! He had a great plan (from his pov) and some shocking things happened.
(Funny story about Mark's fakeout death. When I saw that last panel of Mark's head between Dinosaurus' hands I thought: "I feel no stakes. No one kills off their main character." Then BLAM! I was shocked but then I immediately said to myself it had to be a dummy. Turns out I was right, but still, really interesting twists and turns.)

And well, I guess that whole Viltrumite situation cleared itself up pretty quickly. A bit anticlimactic in my opinion, but I'm interested to see where this goes.

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Invincible Vol. 18 The Death of Everyone collects issues 97-102 of the series by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley.

Mark has regained his powers! The only problem is that Dinosaurus feared Mark would never return his old self and set forth a plan to lower the world population to make the planet more sustainable. Now Invincible must save the world and finally deal with Dinosaurus.

So much happens in this book! The fight with Dinosaurus was epic, major life changes are coming for Mark and Eve, and a huge shake-up occurs within Viltrumite leadership. The battle with Dinosaurus has truly amazing superhero artwork with a whole issue being dedicated to the fight full of splash pages.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

The perfect 100th issue.

The death of everyone was an event I was heavily looking forward to on my first read. And the event itself is great. A top Tier villain in Dinosaurus, nice fights and invicibles biggest mistake ever. The only things that seemed a little too convenient was the sudden change of heart by Dinosaurus and the lack of consequences for invincible. I also love the reveal regarding Nolan here, as it seems to solve a big problem, that gets bigger later tho.

Invincible is the best superhero comic book in the universe.

[Kris Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of neat character changes, well laid-out single panel pages that focused on actions and characters, and big changes for Mark and Eve made this a fun read

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

Yep, Kirkman decided to liven things up a bit. Bravo.

[MatiBracchitta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estoy enamorado del arte de Ryan Ottley. Es simplemente increíble que pueda mantener ese nivel de detalle y esas viñetas tan hermosas número tras número. No solo realiza trabajos espectaculares (en el sentido literal de la palabra) sino que además tiene la capacidad de representar a la perfección desde la mayor escena de acción en el espacio profundo a una charla de adolescentes enamorados. Se logró convertir poco a poco en uno de mis dibujantes favoritos.

Kirkman también me demostró ser un maestro de la narrativa con este cómic. Si bien conocía su trabajo en The Walking Dead, yo solía relacionarlo más con Marvel Zombies, por lo que reconocía su trabajo como entretenido, pero carente de profundidad. Con Invencible demuestra una y otra vez lo bien que sabe manejar una historia.

Dicho esto, vamos a este número. Si bien la historia de Tyrone me importa poco y nada (nunca logré empatizar con el personaje) entiendo que era necesario crearle ese trasfondo al personaje para que defendiera a Mark y le brindara el respiro necesario para que Cecil lo rescatara. Lamento mucho el final de Dinosaurus, me parecía un personaje muy interesante y aunque entiendo el razonamiento de Mark (y el hecho de que el personaje había cumplido ya su rol en la serie), siento que hubiera sido más inteligente por su parte haberlo encerrado dado que venciendo físicamente a Mark demostró tener la capacidad de hacer frente a los viltrumitas, lo que podría ser potencialmente necesario en un futuro.

La vuelta de Angstrom Levy a escena la considero un mal necesario para que se vayan cerrando las aristas que el escritor había dejado abiertas en la historia. Si bien considero que el personaje ya tuvo su momento de gloria, es verdad que dejarlo sin un cierre habría sido un error.

Me encantó el arco de Nolan y los viltrumitas, me pareció lo más interesante y atrapante de este número (y gran parte del porqué de la nota). Definitivamente Kirkman sabe como manejar el tema para extenderlo sin hacerlo tedioso.

No quiero seguir extendiéndome mucho más. Simplemente me parece un gran volumen que reafirma y renueva el interés por la serie. Ya se va vislumbrando el final, pero Kirkman aún sabe como sorprendernos hasta la última página.

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic volume! The firsts tory is the thing with Zandale and his family drama and it was brutal the story and all and then there is the stuff with Dinosaurus and how he flooded the entire world and so Mark has to deal with that and some of the things that he did are just controversial and killed so many and he has to pay for it, The sequence of events that led to it were amazing, their fight was awesome and then Cecil protecting Mark and him and Eve having a child and the whole stuff with Grand Emperor Thragg and Omni-Man being the royal heir was fascinating, its good stuff and changes the series majorly as Viltrumites seem to be a good race now and its good to see Mark and Eve together finally! 100 issues of waiting and finally it happens! Things looking good for whats to come!

[Dani Wladdimiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

No es solo que no me interese, es que más encima no me gusta la historia de Bulletproof. Debería empatizar, sentir una pizca de aprecio por él, pero no me interesa un poco su historia, necesito volver a la trama principal o a la de Rex con Amanda.

Y bueno, Kirkman haciéndolo nuevamente, parodia su propio cómic con un autor que visita Mark (el creador de Science Dog) y le explica que independiente que haga, el cómic seguirá vendiendo, y eso se debe solo por la marca que conlleva el título. Por lo que a veces, por motivos editoriales, debe alargar o añadir historias que no son necesarias con tal de seguir creciendo como editorial.

Por otra parte, el viaje de Mark sin poderes fue simple, existen otras situaciones muy íntimas donde el mejor ejemplo es Spiderman, teniendo reflexiones tremendamente personales. El problema que tiene la historieta, es que Mark es Invincible e Invincible es Mark, no existe una división entre los dos, una dualidad, más todavía después de la ruptura de Mark con Amber y salida de la universidad de Mark. No existe el Gohan que debe lidiar con la universidad y ser Saiyaman, eso no está, por el contrario, termina en una relación con otra superheroína y justifican el dinero teniendo una empresa de seguridad, que sinceramente es solo para dar lógica a la trama.

Pero hay que volver a la trama principal, y Dinosaurus era el principal conflicto. Nuevamente, el autor hace un paso en falso y nos hace creer que Mark estaba muerto, pero no era así. Y como si fuera el traje azul de Mark el simbolismo de la muerte, nuevamente con ese traje vuelve asesinar a otra persona, pero bajo el consentimiento de él mismo. ¿Por qué? Porque sabe Dinosaurus que ya pasó un límite gigante, y no puede hacer nada al respecto, es momento de su fin. Aunque un poco cobarde, se podría haber suicidado con algún invento que él mismo podría haber creado.

Y por último, como si fuera poco tanta acción, vuelve aparecer una pelea entre Nolan y Thragg porque este último no quiere que otra persona tome el poder del imperio Viltrumita, pero finalmente todos se dan cuenta de lo ocurrido y Nolan es el nuevo regente de los viltrumitas. Ni siquiera un pequeño descanso ocurrió en este volumen, y eso a veces hace que la historia se sienta acelerada o queriendo siempre mantener una intensidad que a veces no es necesaria; Rex y Amanda ya lo demostraron.

[Maria Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told you that Mark letting Dinosaurus go was dumb. Super dumb!

[Raghav Bhatia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this resolution. 100 issues crossed.

[Ostrava · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I worry the comic is going too fast in some directions, but a lot of it has to do with Nolan and the Viltrumites. Issue #100 is either brilliant or too crazy, but it's kind of amazing, really.

[aaroh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again the series focuses more
on Mark's development in this volume, and I really like it. I'm not too sure about how I feel about the whole "heir" thing. It could be good, it could be bad. we'll see.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, I don’t seem to remember a sitcom with this title... must’ve been on CBS.

[elliot · Rating 3 out of 5]

thragg is hot but hes such an idiot like if you’re gonna kill the heir who is unaware that he’s the heir, WHY WOULD YOU TELL HIM THAT HE’S THE FUCKING HEIR. just kill him and get it over with you thickhead.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a while since I've read Invincible regularly, so getting back into this volume, which includes the 100th issue, took a bit. The story is moving quickly, and does not let up for much of the volume. Major action beats, character deaths, character changes, all come and go at a pace that few comics can match. There's a page early on that is basically the author apologizing for the series going dark for a while, which was interesting to see worked into the story. But the key is that by the end of the volume, the major characters are back into what is mostly the status quo, a little wiser, and with more opportunities going forward.

[Alex Sarll]

Honestly, they managed 13 volumes all named after sitcoms - and now within five volumes, two anomalous names? Though I suppose they could back-form some, and I would totally watch a sitcom called The Death of Everyone.

The title is a slight exaggeration, but containing as it does the book's 100th issue, there is a fair old amount of carnage - and because this is Kirkman's world, not a company's, one can trust that none of it will be brushed under the carpet a few stories down the line.

[Ben Brackett · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is 0 pacing in this title anymore. Huge events just happen seemingly for no reason over the course of a couple pages. It's really hard to follow. Hopefully Kirkman got it all out of his system in this collection and will settle down for the next.

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short review, cause short on time, but great volume that finally has a big turning point for a lot of characters.

[Darnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, if that was really the reason for Dinosaurus, this was a horrible case of characters being given the idiot ball. Add in another pregnancy for drama... this series has lows to match the highs.

[Uğur Dikçe · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst volume so far

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reprints Invincible #97-102 (November 2012-April 2013).  As Mark Grayson discovers his powers have returned, Zandale’s parents learn the truth about his brother and Bulletproof…to shocking results!  When Dinosaurus plots to restore the world’s balance, Mark might discover his decision to allow Dinosaurus to live could be his biggest mistake ever.  Nolan finds a secret about his past and his relationship with the Viltrimites.  Eve reveals a big secret that changes her relationship with Mark.

Written by Robert Kirkman, Invincible Volume 18:  The Death of Everyone is an Image Comic book collection.  Following Invincible Volume 17: What’s Happening, the series features art by Ryan Ottley and was also collected in Invincible Ultimate Collection—Volume 9 and the Invincible Compendium—Volume 3.

In Invincible #97, Mark has an encounter with Science Dog writer Filip Schaff.  He explains how picky fans are and how he had to “right” Science Dog’s comic book.  This of course is a meta concept because Kirkman is “righting” Invincible in this collection and restoring a lot of the status quo of the series while continuing the extreme nature of the comic book.

Invincible was such a strange comic book because it was both extreme and time actually passed for the characters.  That means when there were big changes in the comic book (like Mark losing his powers and Bulletproof taking over), it sometimes big changes actually stuck…ultimately, Invincible is a comic book and this volume kind of proves it.  It has Mark returning to the role of Invincible, Atom Eve and Mark advancing with their relationship, Nolan reunited with the Viltrimites, and Mark back to working with Cecil.  I didn’t have a big problem with Invincible diverging so much, but it was nice to have the main themes back.

Invincible always goes for the extremes.  I liked the origin being set-up for Bulletproof with his parents and his brother, but I didn’t necessarily how it played out (though it was shocking).  I actually think it might have been more interesting to see Bulletproof fighting allegations that killed his brother.  Mark’s “death” in Invincible #100 (though faked through use of a clone) also felt more gratuitous than actually adding much to the story.  The shock value wasn’t believable and the bait and switch reveal was more irritating than “wow”.

I’m never sure where Invincible will head, and I’m still not sure what direction Kirkman will take the character as the series enters its “last third” of stories.  Mark has gone from a teenager to a character who is starting to feel like an adult and that is kind of a cool change from most comics where the characters seem to be in their thirties forever.  Invincible 18:  The Death of Everyone is followed by Invincible 19:  The War at Home.

[Alex E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its a testament to this book that I found it a bit lackluster compared to other volumes, but it still gets 4 starts. The consistent quality of the book has set the bar so high, that when you get a volume that isn't as good, its still an excellent chapter.

Kirkman and Ottley once again deliver a solid entry into the world of Invincible. Some major plot developments occur regarding Mark's life. With good reason as he has been taking a backseat to the book because of his powers being gone.

The book begins with his powers returning and realizing it at the most opportune of moments.

I dont want to spoil the book, so suffice to say some major changes to the way Mark has been thinking, and some interesting developments will take him down roads he wasn't ready for necessarily.

Now the reason why I say a bit lackluster, is because the title is a bit misleading. Dont get me wrong, there is alot of death in this book, but just not in the way I was expecting. This didnt feel so much as a big 100th ISSUE SPECTACULAR!!!, but more of another chapter in the ongoing adventures of Invincible. Though I must say that even though opening page of issue 100 is crazy... Kirkman does a bit of jumping the shark in my opinion, but... we'll let it slide because the story is so good.

Great book as always, great art as always. Highly recommended.