The Invisibles: The Deluxe Edition, Book Four

The Invisibles: Deluxe Edition

by Grant Morrison, Phil Jimenez (Artist), Chris Weston (Illustrator)

Behind the curtain of everyday existence, a vast and unholy Conspiracy is at work, twisting and deforming reality to pave the way for colonization by hideous extradimensional powers. Facing this onslaught is a laughably small resistance movement scattered across space and time - a handful of subversives known as the Invisibles. This silent guerrilla war has raged for millennia, shaping the very fabric of the universe. But now the countdown to the final battle has begun, and soon everyone will have to make their crushing, soul-rending conformity, or radical, anarchic freedom? Which side are you on? Illustrated by a host of comics’ greatest artists, New York Times best-selling author Grant Morrison’s groundbreaking saga of spiritual engineering and psychocognitive hacking is now available for the first time in four deluxe editions. This final volume collects THE INVISIBLES VOL. 2 #14-22 and THE INVISIBLES VOL. 3 #12-1, and features art by Chris Weston, Sean Phillips, Philip Bond and Frank Quitely.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Comic Book, Science Fiction, Conspiracy Theories, Horror

506 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 21, 2015

About the author

Grant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning their American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then they have written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, they have also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS.

In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.

Reviews

[Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magic, psychic war, time travel, espionage. But how about that ending.



Well, that was a bit anticlimactic. The Invisibles starts great but stumbles under its own ambition at the end, like Morrison never had a clear and definitive ending in mind. It's fun and crazy while it lasts, until the free association gets carried away and soon there's just a loose plot of "war" pulsing under long form word scramble you're forced to project meaning upon. I was really skimming at the end, hoping for a firm punctuating end, but there wasn't. I'm confused about what even happened. Spoilers ahead.

The psychic war ends, that much is clear. It's The Invisibles versus "evil satanic negative-universe anti-masonry dudes who actually control the government." I think. But some Invisibles are bad, some disappear, some baddies are good, some are both. Still confused about what Division X even is. Then the future evil King of England doesn't quite make it, so I guess that's the real climax. But this moment failed to satisfyingly end this 1500 page mind fuck. And then the book went on for another 100 pages...

Time, jumping every chapter or so in previous volumes, jumps every few pages. It's hard to keep track of when anything is happening. And the artwork is unprecedentedly random is this volume. I mean really, like fifty different illustrators are involved in this volume alone, changing several times in one issue. Talk about distracting!

Okay, okay. So the series wrap up has some problems. But let's back up. What's the message of all this again? That we, average human beings, are brain-washed and don't see the psychic war that's happening. That all of reality is a fabrication by controlling evil hands. And what a war it is! So okay, I guess the ending is about as chaotic as I should have expected. It mind fucked, it weirded, it fizzled out. I just wanted more explosions. Less time jumping. And maybe ten fewer illustrators.

This series educated me, the reader, on both sides of the psychic war, mostly The Invisibles, the good guys, and their wacky and diversionary quest for truth, whatever that is. The double-edged sword is that while limitations don't exist here, the story goes off the rails and becomes a sort of rambling psychedelic prayer. That everything is everything, and whatever that means we should gobble up that truth and amen. Unfortunately this "philosophizing" ends up detracting from the story and eventually becomes the story itself, metafiction and all that justifying "bollocks." What I really noticed is that The Doom Patrol is focused mind fuck and this is unfocused mind fuck. That's what it is.

Rambling aside, The Invisibles is a fun, wacky, imaginative, and ambitious series overall, but the ending didn't quite stick for me.

[Lukas Sumper · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is some structure to this madness! I just finished the final book and I have to say that I loved it, its very edgy and probably the weirdest graphic novel series I've read so far but underneath it was a solid structure which held this thing together till the end when it blossoms up. I was enjoying the time jumps a lot as they gave a lot of context to whatever Morrison was on about.

There where a lot of interesting themes throughout but sometimes it just felt like he was trying to make some things overly cool - talk about james bond all the time -, which is odd considering you gotta be pretty openminded for reading this totally strange psychedelic trip. I guess you have to cater to multiple audiences, but for me that is where the book looses 0.5 of the rating. It should have gone all the way in the sience direction without a lot of the violence and sex, it didn't really help to get any meaningful subject matter across.

But how he writes is where Grant Morrison really shines, and thinking back to his other works it almost makes them look a bit pale in comparison to the Invisibles.

4.5 out of 5 stars (only for openminded people)

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's been a long, weird year, and I guess it's not totally inappropriate for me to wrap it up by finishing THE INVISIBLES.

I've hated this series for such a long, long time, and I am now finally coming out the other end of it -- I'd hated it without having read much of it, until they started putting out these omnibus paperbacks with Bolland covers and like, I am such a sucker for a Bolland cover and really, I kind of needed to put to rest exactly what The Invisibles was -- sort of the epitome, really, of everything I hate about writers and writing and stories, the ridiculous zeitgeist grab that was (and is) Grant Morrison at his insecure, narcissistic worst. It's been a long time of worming my way out of the impostor syndrome that so many of us are born with, and sitting on a couch for what seemed like years just staring at the wall or reading comics, and I dunno, I'm on the other side and I finished The Invisibles and it ends, really, as a sort of abominable heap of nothing, just a very young man trying to outwrite his heroes and embarrassing himself, violently, all over the floor.

It's not all bad, and I'll likely reread it again to know for sure. I forgot to even note when I read Invisibles Book Three, and I actually sort of liked that one; not to mention this was the year that I actually finished Gotham's Most Wanted without going totally insane.

It's been a year, kids. I didn't even post everything I read on Goodreads, so I think that frees me of the outer void or something. Go to bed or whatever you want to.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

For those wondering what all the fuss is about on this book, this four-volume deluxe edition is a terrific way to get acquainted with Grant Morrison’s epic end-of-the-millennium story that feels like an extended version of one of those insane conversations people get into at 3am when they have had way too many recreational chemicals. Unhinged, grotesque and gratuitous at every turn, The Invisibles could be forgiven for being all of those things if it was not also so insufferably self-important. Reading Morrison’s pitches for the series reveals a writer who is so keen on saying everything that he ends up saying nothing, convinced that loading every thought he ever had and blasting them onto the page is the kind of brilliance the world deserves. Morrison would go on to produce some fantastic work, but by the powers, The Invisibles isn’t it. It’s that sophomoric orgy of excess some writers go through when they have found success but wish to be seen as Important, and believe too much of their own press. At least it’s over.

[Jack Kuper · Rating 1 out of 5]

For the later issues of this series, it seems like Grant Morrison got rid of plot in favor of pulling big words and highbrow concepts out of a hat, then connecting them, stream-of-conscious style. The dialogue is very similar to sitting sober, listening to a friend try to describe something when they are very, very drunk or high. They talk all around a bunch of subjects, but are never able to land on anything resembling a reference point, so you can't figure out what they are actually talking about. It gets boring really fast, then ends very anticlimactically.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grant Morrison was right, The Invisibles is a spell. It's not just a comic book.
No doubt, one of the greatest comic book series ever written.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll start by saying that the questions and concepts I was hoping would be resolved in the final Invisibles book were not completely resolved. Part of this, I think, is due to the nature of the book itself. Part of it, however, I think is because there is more to this series than I originally thought.

The Invisibles is not a straightforward story with a well-defined plot, a clear enemy, and traditional themes. This is a series that will challenge the reader, force them to really think about the story, and encourage them to take the time necessary to digest the complex ideas that are being discussed.

I definitely think this series warrants another reading, or four, and I'm looking forward to coming back to it. This time, I will at least be familiar with the story and the characters, and I'm excited about really being able to dig into the series and hopefully come away understanding it a little bit better than the last time.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well it's finished and I'm definitely far more confused than I was at any other point reading this series. I don't think I will grasp the meaning of most of this book without some further study and explanations. I think that's the way it's supposed to be though and it didn't make it any less enjoyable.

Overall though it was quite an enjoyable series albeit not up there with my favourite Morrison titles.


Now I think I'll go read some straight forward stories for my simple mind. Consume! Consume! Consume!

[Keen Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Middle class parents are terrified of non-existent child killers; soon we’ll have them so terrified they’ll gladly allow us to electronically tag all newborn infants. We are engineering a generation of sick, obese, passive consumers. Even the video games they obsessively play contain demoralising subliminals. A weak-willed child is easy to manipulate using product hypnosis. Look at their clothing, for instance. The new breed are simply mobile hoardings, advertising the multi-national corporations which control their minds.”

This edition comes in at around a weighty 500 pages, and the whole series at over 1000 pages. Volume 1 in this deluxe format is an exceptional piece of work, but as it goes on it seems to become a case of ever diminishing returns. This is obviously an ambitious project, it’s playful, non-linear approach isn’t always easy to follow and it doesn’t always work. In fact too often too many characters are jumping around in too many places. True this has been a consistent feature from the start but for me the tipping point came here and the story became messier and more confusing, resulting in a poor, flat ending.

The colouring remains almost flawless and the dialogue lively enough, but I found the plot a bloated, drawn out affair. Imagine watching a film and then half way through all the characters are suddenly played by different people and then around two thirds of the way through all the characters are played by a third set of actors. How confusing and bizarre would that be?...Well that’s what reading this book is like.

“'Individuality’ is the name you give your sickness. Your deviation from correct functioning. Understand this: We have come to free you from chaos and uncertainty. And ‘Individuality’”

For whatever reason the drawing in here, has thrown the idea of continuity and conviction to the winds. A number of other writers have been drafted in to assist, meaning that every main character looks totally different than they did before. If this isn’t bad enough then around page 200 the art work changes again, and then they look even less like they did before. And then it changes yet again and again until you wonder what the hell they were thinking?...It borders on the absurd. From around half way through, the overall standard of the drawing drops quite significantly, and subsequently so does the enjoyment.

This is a huge flaw and greatly compromises the flow, effect and integrity of the storyline. This bizarre lapse really sticks a huge clown’s nose onto the book that we’re all supposed to pretend isn’t there. So basically what you end up with is art work and characters who keep on changing, locations and appearances as the years keep on changing, funnily enough it stops being fun.

There are many interesting ideas in here, but most of them don’t seem to get developed properly they seem half hearted, unconvincingly sleepwalking down dead end alleys, or getting lost in vague mumbo jumbo. Often it seems some profound piece of knowledge or obscure slice of history is setting up an equally meaningful piece of action, but it comes to nothing, ending up like a poor substitute for a decent plot instead.

To be brutally honest, it’s just too long and I think over ambitious. The shifts caused by so many different artists are just too harsh and jarring. It lacks the focus, discipline and coherence of the truly great works in the genre and by the end I found this to be quite a confusing, self-indulgent mess that was sorely disappointing. A poor ending to what started out so promising.

[David Raz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume contains the last 9 issues of v2 and the 12 issues of v3. I am not sure why they chose to do it this way, as there is a big difference between the two parts. The first half is rather good, Mostly continuing with the quality of v2. However, v3 was not good enough.

The volumes starts with slow three issues, "Only Lovers Left Alive", "The Philadelphia Experiment" and "Scorpio Rising" (v2 #14-16). These are mostly mind games the opposition plays, and although slow, the build some good tension to the following stories. "Black Science 2" (#17-20) is the culmination of these, another raid by the Invisibles on Quimper and Colonel Friday. It felt a bit repetitive at first, but the end is brilliant and worth the wait. The final issues of the volume are unrelated. "All Tomorrow's Parties" (#21) goes back to time travel in quite an interesting way. Finally, "The Tower" (#22) is there to prepare for v3, with some more interesting developments.

Following this are the issues of v3, issued in reverse order (from 12 to 1). Sadly, this is just not as good as v1 and v2. I can put my finger on several issues that made it much less fun for me. First there is the choice and change of artists. The overall quality of the art was not par with the earlier volumes. In addition, artists changing every page distracted from the story. Secondly, there was not much story to begin with. In the earlier volumes, Morrison went crazy as well, but there was always some plot line and some action going on. There is not enough of that here. Thirdly, from the original five Invisibles, only King Mob and Jack Frost really do anything. The rest are either given minor roles, or completely disappear (with or without a good reason). Finally, it was anticlimactic. I was expecting something big with all the buildup, and got big confusion.

It starts with "Sandstorm" (v3 #12-9) which is about the forces gathering on both sides of the conflict. Most of the Invisibles are ignored. Jack Frost gets some training, which never becomes relevant. King Mob changes… but not really. Most of the focus is on Division X, introduced Helga (though very preliminarily) and the evolution of Sir Miles. "Karmageddon" (#8-5) is more of the same. The passing of Edith is the outlying story, which was just not interesting. We get the end story of De Sade and Helga is developed, but the pace is unbearably slow and the art quality does not help. "The Invisible Kingdom" (#4-2) is where this should all lead. With the changing artists every second page, this was really unsatisfactory and anti-climactic. If you think of it, 12 issues are spent for a few minutes of nothing and a single pane of triumph. "Glitterdammurung" (#1), which ends it all, is one of the weakest issues in the entire work. I kept asking myself, who are these characters? What are they doing? If Morrison was aiming at confusion, he made it.

To sum it all, I am giving the volume three stars out of five. The first half would have gotten four, but the taste that remains with you in the end is what counts.

[Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75. Grant Morrison’s Invisibles saga ends on an interesting note—one too amalgamated for me to fully comprehend, but thematically bold enough to reframe what the end of the world even means. Deluxe Edition Four, the final book in the series, turns everything up to eleven: time, space, language, story, character, and the kitchen sink. But it does so to a point that makes it the hardest edition yet to narratively follow.

This series has always been difficult to fully grasp. The gist is easy enough—a psychic war fought across the physical and metaphysical planes between radical anarchists and extradimensional fascists. But the way it reframes perception, narrative, and identity has always been too nonlinear and too nonsensical to absorb off the cuff. No more is this true than in this final edition, where the apocalypse is reimagined not as a mass extinction-level event, but as a mass shift in consciousness: either the totalitarian Kool-Aid of the Outer Church or the radical freedom of the Invisible College. An interesting take, I must say.

As for the stories and characters, I struggle to venerate—let alone recall—much of this installment. Characters like Boy and Ragged Robin exit the narrative in ways that feel a little too abrupt and unearned for my tastes. The rest of the cell—King Mob, Lord Fanny, Jack Frost—drift through the story like soliloquizing passengers waiting to be summoned, while other lesser-known, less interesting forces take over the heavy lifting of moving the story toward its ultimate climax. Time, space, narration, and language all seem to collapse in on themselves, which is consistent with the series’ ethos, but here it just felt like too much—too fragmented to follow, too abstract to anchor to.

I know this is probably better than I’m seeing. I’m just not equipped, at this point in time, to decode how much better. And that’s my overall take on the series: the radical philosophies and metaphysical messages it preaches are way above my current paygrade and knowhow. Still, for what I did get, I understand both why The Invisibles doesn’t have the fanbase of more accessible graphic novel series, and why it has the devoted fanbase it does. I’m glad I read it, but I don’t see myself returning to it again.

[Klara · Rating 3 out of 5]

the weakest of the series, albeit with standout moments, but mostly a victim of its own frenetic pace. all the ideas that come up frequently in morrison are here, as are reiterated fragments of earlier storylines, but the repetition and reframing rarely add anything to our understanding of the whole: time is fluid and faceted, the universe is made of matter increasing in complexity and consciousness, humans are fourth dimensional beings who are just beginning to awaken into ego destruction. but we knew that by the end of the last volume, and the only thing this one adds is more language (which, imo, is less compelling language than what we get thru most of doom patrol). also, king mob remains a highly annoying clear self insert, whose cyclical clinging to and renunciation of violent machismo is the least interesting character arc of the whole series. but i do think that this series as a whole will keep improving with rereads!! what gets frustrating and repetitive here is not the lack of ideas, but rather the form running up against the wall of what morrison is trying to talk about. and morrison seems to know this, because the proliferation of meta narratives in this volume feels like a way of talking about pushing comics as far into alien narrative and linguistic incomprehensibility as possible without fully breaking. but that does mean that even at its best, the invisibles feels like watching morrison fail at something in interesting and ambitious ways. that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

[Jake Nap · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never read something like The Invisibles. It not only maintains Morrison pushing the boundaries of the medium, but it pushes the boundaries of your mind. It does sound kind of corny, but it’s true. The series makes you think and overthink time, society, people and concepts like no other form of media I’ve ever consumed. It’s so intrinsically Grant Morrison.

This volume wraps up the series and ties up all the loose ends, it effectively leaves the story in a loop allowing to be restarted an infinite amount of times allowing the reader to take something new from it every time. Morrison actively challenges the reader’s knowledge of pretty much everything over the lengthy course of this series.

I’ve reviewed each volume prior to this with 4 stars (probably ranging from an 8-9/10 for each book) but this one puts all the concepts introduced previously into perspective allowing for a satisfying conclusion to the literal trip Morrison takes the readers on.

And for those reasons I give this specific book and the whole series a 10/10. It’s boundary pushing, mind bending and a whole lot of fun.

[Henry Blackwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed most of vol 2 of the invisibles run. I feel like that’s where Morrison really hit his stride.

But the last four issues of that and probably the whole of vol 3 I was kinda disappointed with. I’ve seen other people say Morrison has a problem with ending his runs and at the moment both of his runs I’ve read have had lacklustre endings. It’s not that I thought that Vol 3 was particularly bad, because it wasn’t. It seemed to have some pretty interesting things going on in the background but seemed to tend to focus on the mundane aspects of it all. Plus it feels rushed but at the same time like nothing is happening? It’s very odd. I’m going to have to read this series a couple of times over and I won’t want to read it for a while haha.

I still really enjoyed this run overall though even if I was a little underwhelmed with the ending. I would have to say I’ve never read anything like this and would recommend it to any Morrison fan or anyone who wants to be really challenged with their books. Definitely one and a half thumbs up

[Nate]

Hmm. I’m not sure how to feel about The Invisibles as a whole. I knew going in that it would be wacky – and it certainly was – but I’m surprised how much of it I actually enjoyed, or at least understood; when it comes to this book, comprehension and enjoyment are often synonymous. The second series is the high point in my mind. It’s the most exciting and most interesting part of the story, and, yes, the most coherent. Then there’s v3, which is one of the more challenging things I’ve ever read. I did my absolute best to stay on track, but just couldn’t follow Morrison’s bizarre storytelling. I love Morrison, I really do, but his self-indulgence sometimes comes at the cost of clarity. This is one of those times. It’s a shame, because I felt I was starting to get the hang of The Invisibles, embracing the characters and the style during the second series. Alas, it all fell apart. I guess should have known better.

Maybe I’ll reread it one day, but I’m not sure how much a reread will turn me around.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Done and done. So much of this book seemed like Grant Morrison navel-gazing. A large portion of the plot plays off the idea of having the reader question who is on which side, and which side thinks it has the upper hand, and on and on it goes. Some of the last books play around with the art, bringing back artists from earlier issues in the series and creating an interesting assemblage of styles.

Glad I reread this to remember it a bit better, but I understand why I didn't have a clear picture of much of the plot based on the convoluted nature of the whole thing. Much of this book, and the series as a whole, comes off as the "deep thoughts" one encounters talking to a first-year philosophy major. Being older with this reading, I can only shake my first at a cloud and yell at Grant Morrison to get off my lawn. It wasn't the worst way to spend a sick day, certainly, but I didn't really enjoy ending. It just was not too terrible fun to read.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m conflicted.

This series as a whole is wildly inventive and likely revolutionary in its style and story format.

But honestly, the back half of this last volume was near incomprehensible. Was Morrison on too many drugs? Getting too pretentious at the time? Too experimental? I honestly don’t know. The main thrust of the last arc finally started to make some sense. But so much surrounding it was needlessly confusing. And I can follow along with some Morrison plotting generally. This was just waaaaay too experimental at the end.

But I also wanna give it props for shooting for the stars. Trying crazy stuff like this only allows for more bold projects to follow in its footsteps.

Fan of the first three volumes, okay ending, needlessly confusing.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collects The Invisibles Vol. 2 #14-22 (April 1998 - February 1999) and Vol. 3 #12 - 1 (April 1999 - May 2000) as well as some supplemental material.

The last half of volume 1 and pretty much all of volume 2 (collected in Books Two, Three and the first half of this volume) were so good that the last half of this book feels like a real let down. The final issue is interesting, but all in all pretty disjointed and incoherent. Really didn't like most of the art work in volume 3 and I really missed Boy and Ragged Robin as they eventually drifted away. The other characters (including a few new ones) just couldn't fill in that gap. Good material here but I kind of wish he had stopped with the end of volume 2.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I love the content of what Morrison does some times I'm lost as a reader from a story perspective. I think this is the type of read that will vary in rating each time I read it as I'm still stuck trying to figure out if Morrison is pure genious or deranged lunatic. To be completely honest after finishing this I had to take to the internet to see what popular opinion was to see if some other ideas would help to stimulate what I myself was thinking. All in all despite my confusion and uncertainty it was a tidy conclusion that had all the themes and characters that kept me in it until the end.

[Ivan Kehelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find Grant Morrison intriguing and have read some of his other work. I have just finished the deluxe The Invisibles series and to be honest I don't know if I am in a position to write a review. I guess I'm perplexed. I decided by Book 3 just to go with it as I did loose track of the narrative however with a lesser author I would have given up. It is certainly original and I am aware that Grant saw it as his own sigil and it was intertwined with his own personal life so me losing the plot may say more about me. I do think it is a series of books I will revisit. So it does have a magic to it but if you are not into having your brain pickled... stay away.

[Patrick King · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Everything is coincidence here -- just like the coincidence of the light coming on when you flip the switch--Try taking drugs and sitting in graveyards and channeling the dead through your laptop.”

Not sure I understood all of it, but boy did I enjoy it. It was enhanced by the fact that barbelith.com is still online and providing summaries, annotations, and analysis of all of the issues. It helped me to keep things together as time started to all happen at once. In the end it all felt extremely Gen X, but that’s a good perspective to have sometimes. (At least it’s a 90s Gen X, rather than a 2025 Gen X).

[Char Lee Sea · Rating 5 out of 5]

DMT in comic book form. This is the best comic series I've ever read. Imagine if Philip K. Dick, Terrance McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, William S. Burroughs, Aleister Crowely and William Gibson collaborated to make a graphic novel. It'd be The Invisibles. It is mind warping insane genius.

It gets a little bogged down at times spewing metaphysical, mystical rants that can be very hard to understand. I'd have to read some sentences 5 times to grasp a concept. Interdemensional multiverses can get complicated. Is interdemensional a word?

[Jamie Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a large consensus of people who believe that if you don’t understand grant Morrison’s work, it’s your own fault for not being on his level. Well I’m here to tell you that isn’t the case. Half the shit that this guy puts on paper makes no sense at all. He doesn’t explain nearly enough to the reader and anyone who says that they “understood everything” is a blatant liar. Anyway it was still pretty descent although I am glad it’s over and done with. 4 stars.

[Bryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

At their best, Morrison performs flawless close-up storytelling magic. At their worst, it’s like watching a stand-up dying on stage during amateur open mic night. I’ve never understood how they can be so good in certain situations and miss the mark so completely in others.

And I’m not sure they’re aware of it either. The final volume of The Invisibles positively reeks of a smugness that is wholly unearned. It was an excruciating read that I forced myself through in order to be done with it.

[Dan Boulet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just finished my first read of the entire series and, honestly, I have no clue what the hell happened in this story. I might go through it again in the future and I expect it to make more sense on second reading. I like to think that Morrison intended for this, as evidenced by this King Mob quote from the last issue:

“If you don’t get it the first time, you have to keep running it. It’s different every time.”

[Dan Prestwich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the first comic run of Morrison's I've read that runs low on gas before the end, although the highs of this series were high enough that this counts as at least a mild disappointment. Feels like it's really spinning its wheels until it gets to the final 3 issues or so. I do appreciate the outright flamboyant weirdness of the final issue, which satisfies on those terms, but the series had me primed for something a little more mind-blowing (even if just in a stoner/philosophy 101 sort of way) that it doesn't manage to deliver.

B-

[Zardoz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending to bizarre series which has a Byzantine ending. Basically, Jack the chosen one does his thing and the Invisibles win easily. I think the Invisibles was definitely a product of it’s time 94-2000. The Post History utopia after the Cold War which dissolved into our era of feudal capitalism.
I found a nice video that explains everything here. https://youtu.be/khNj91vnbTo?si=809wo...

[Daniel Molina · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the narrative coming to a close and the Invisibles combating the Outer Church before the world ends, a new society is created that incites internal and external changes in both characters and readers.
Finally, the reader is urged to reflect on the transformation s/he has undergone, questioning the nature of reality and consciousness after reading Morrison's self-proclaimed work of Magick.

[Dan Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sad trombone.
I understand how the fractal scene sequences were a story telling technique, but to me it came across as one long diatribe.
Also it seemed like Morrison was just spinning a big wheel of generic occult mythology / conspiracy theory and pop existentialism.

Art was good, twenty years ago I’d have loved it.

[Amanda Lett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Builds up and up and up...to an ending I really wanted more from. This was really the first one that felt like it was more about ego than story. I really felt the emphasis was on how cool everyone was rather than bringing the plot together in the end.