Invincible (comics)

• 1. A Hero Named Invincible

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  Invincible is an American comic book series published by Image Comics, and its first issue went on sale on the 22nd of January 2003. Writer Robert Kirkman created it with artist Cory Walker. The story follows a teenager named Mark Grayson, whose father is the most powerful superhero on Earth. It is set in the Image Universe. Bright costumes and clean artwork promise a familiar kind of adventure. The story that unfolds is something else. Why would a young hero's greatest strength come from his own family? What happens when heroes decide they know how to fix a planet? And how does one comic grow into a sprawling universe of spin-offs, reprints and an animated show?

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• 2. One Writer, Two Artists

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  Robert Kirkman is the sole writer of Invincible. Cory Walker co-created the book, designed several of its characters, and drew issues #1 through #7. Ryan Ottley took over the art with issue #8 and drew most of what came after, though Walker returned for a select few.

  The series is known for extreme graphic violence, even though its colors and visuals look cheerful. Kirkman also gave back-up space in the book to a few aspiring comic creators, most notably Benito Cereno and Nate Bellegarde.

  The run ended with issue #144, with Walker back as artist. The double-sized final issue was released on the 14th of February 2018.

  The title character almost had a different name. Bulletproof was among the names proposed before the series saw print. It later went to a supporting hero, Zandale Randolph, who wore the Invincible costume for a while when Mark temporarily lost his powers.

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• 3. Father and Son

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  At seventeen, Mark Grayson's powers switch on, and he quickly takes the name Invincible. His father, Nolan, is an alien from the planet Viltrum who protects Earth as Omni-Man. His mother, Debbie, is human. Mark falls in with the Teen Team, made up of Robot, Rex Splode, Dupli-Kate and Atom Eve. He also meets Allen the Alien, an agent of the Coalition of Planets, an alliance that guards worlds against threats.

  Nolan's killing of the Guardians of the Globe, Earth's premier superhero team, breaks the story open. The world does not know he did it, and Mark at first believes his father is being controlled. Then the Mauler Twins revive the team's leader, the Immortal. The Immortal attacks Nolan, and Nolan kills him again. This time Mark and the rest of the world watch it live on television.

  Nolan then admits he was sent to Earth to conquer it, and he urges Mark to join him. Mark refuses. Their fight kills thousands of civilians and leaves Mark beaten almost to death. Changed by the people of Earth and by his son's love, Nolan cannot finish the job and leaves the planet.

  When Mark recovers, he meets Cecil Stedman, director of the Global Defense Agency, and begins working for the GDA. Cecil has Robot assemble a new Guardians of the Globe from the Teen Team, newer heroes such as Monster Girl, and the revived Immortal. Cecil puts Earth's safety above everything else. Mark will eventually quit after learning that Cecil hired some of the villains Mark had defeated to build new technology for the agency.

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• 4. The Viltrum Empire

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  Centuries before the story begins, enemies of the Viltrum Empire created the Scourge Virus, a disease that killed over 99 percent of the Viltrumite population. Nolan tells Allen this history. The series credits the virus to Thaedus, a Viltrumite who opposed conquest. Thaedus is also said to have killed Emperor Argall, which plunged Viltrum into a civil war that only the strongest survived. Afterward he founded the Coalition of Planets. Nolan says that fewer than fifty pure-blooded Viltrumites remain.

  Allen the Alien's origin is tied to that empire. The Viltrumites nearly wiped out his race, and a Unopan breeding program set out to produce someone strong enough to defeat one of them. Allen was its only successful child. He first worked as a Champion Evaluation Officer, testing powered heroes on each planet in search of a champion.

  A Thraxan reaches Mark with a plea for help, and Mark unexpectedly finds Nolan on the Thraxan world. Nolan has a child with a Thraxan woman named Andressa. Viltrumites sent to punish Nolan for abandoning Earth attack the planet and kill millions of Thraxans. They take Nolan captive, and General Kregg names Mark Earth's subjugator. Mark brings the child home, and Debbie names him Oliver. Thanks to his Thraxan blood, Oliver grows at an accelerated rate and becomes a preteen within weeks.

  Nolan is sentenced to death aboard a Viltrumite prison warship, but Viltrumite law requires him to be at full strength before an execution. Allen persuades him to join the Coalition. They escape with the help of Battle Beast, a white, lion-like alien named Thokk. After freeing his home world from oppressors, Thokk became obsessed with fighting and searches for a champion who can defeat him. Allen wins his help by promising combat against the Viltrumites, the strongest beings in the universe.

  A battle-scarred Viltrumite called Conquest arrives on Earth to inspect Mark's progress and defies his orders by attacking. He badly injures Oliver and nearly kills Eve, but Mark defeats him after a last stand. Cecil secretly keeps Conquest's body for questioning. Conquest later escapes and returns to the empire, where Grand Regent Thragg orders him to kill Mark, Nolan and Oliver.

  That order leads to the Viltrumite War. Nolan and Allen recruit Mark, Oliver and the hero Tech Jacket, and the group is ambushed by a Viltrumite trio of Conquest, Lucan and Randee. Mark strangles Conquest to death but is gravely injured. Nolan and Oliver watch over him in secret for the next ten months. Later, a strike force that includes Thaedus, Space Racer and Battle Beast follows the Viltrumites back to Viltrum. Mark, Nolan, Thaedus and Space Racer destroy the planet. Thragg answers by decapitating Thaedus and gravely injuring Mark, Nolan and Oliver. Then he spares them.

  Thragg meets Mark on Earth and offers an ultimatum. The remaining 37 Viltrumites can breed with Earth's population, or they can fight every living being on the planet, which would likely end in mass death. Mark agrees, and the war ends in a truce. General Kregg, who has a cybernetic right eye, soon takes many lovers among humans, not realizing that many people practice monogamy.

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• 5. Many Worlds, Many Marks

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  Angstrom Levy is a scientist who can open portals between universes. He builds a machine, with help from the Mauler Twins, that links his mind to every alternate version of himself. The machine explodes, and Mark's intervention leads to the accidental deaths of Levy's counterparts and the disfigurement of Levy himself. Having so many minds in his head drives him mad. His alternate selves share a hatred of Invincible, because in many other dimensions Invincible turned on humanity and joined his father.

  Levy sends Mark through multiple universes to weaken him and seriously injures Debbie. Mark apparently beats him to death and is horrified by what he has done. Levy survives with help from the Technicians, a race of technological beings. He later attacks Earth with twenty evil versions of Invincible from other storylines. Rex Splode ends one of them by charging his own skeleton until it explodes.

  Samantha Eve Wilkins, known as Atom Eve, becomes central to this fight. She was created in a government experiment to build a human super-weapon. She was born with deep knowledge of biology and chemistry, and she can manipulate matter at the molecular level. A neural block implanted before her birth stops her from affecting living beings. Near-fatal trauma can break that block and raise her power to nearly all-powerful levels for a few seconds.

  When Levy returns, he attacks Eve and sends Mark to a wasteland universe. There Mark finds that the alternate Marks resorted to cannibalism to survive. He teams up with a counterpart who wears a mohawk against the insane Sinister Mark. Meanwhile Eve talks to Levy and persuades him to end his war, telling him he could have done good if he had not fixated on killing Mark. Robot then double-crosses Mark, kills Levy and the mohawk-wearing Mark, and strands Mark in that universe. It takes six months, and the help of that universe's Robot, for Mark to get home. Back on Earth, he learns that Robot has told everyone he is dead.

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• 6. The Price of Progress

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  Dr. David Anders is a mutant dinosauroid called Dinosaurus who changes form when he feels indifferent. He is highly intelligent, and his plans to improve the world usually destroy lives. When Mark fights him in Las Vegas, Dinosaurus activates bombs that destroy the city and kill thousands. He survives and is captured by the GDA. Cecil then takes Mark to the ruins and shows him that the glass left by the bombs now captures solar energy for millions of people. Mark realizes that Dinosaurus's methods, though abhorrent, can have positive results. He breaks Dinosaurus out of the Pentagon, and the two team up. Cecil declares them enemies.

  Dinosaurus later plants bombs in Greenland, hoping that flooding will bring water to barren regions. The bombs destroy Greenland, and the floods kill over a million people. Robot builds a moon-sized base to create an artificial tide and return the water to normal. Dinosaurus then allows Mark to kill him, fearing he might fall back into his old thinking and cause even more destruction.

  Robot is the series' most uncomfortable example of the same logic. Rudolph Connors is a malformed human who lives in a life-support tank and works through drone automatons. For years he passes himself off as an actual robot. He grows a new body from Rex's DNA to win over Monster Girl. The Flaxans come from a dimension where time runs far faster than on Earth. Robot and Monster Girl follow them home and overthrow their dictatorship. They spend nearly a millennium of subjective time there and return only a year after leaving. Political strife splits them, and Robot grows ruthless in the name of improving his subjects' lives.

  On returning, Robot seizes the world, believing it is the best path forward. He kills Cecil after Mark warns the director about his intentions. His drones kill dozens of heroes and villains. Robot explains to the Viltrumites that he plans to turn Earth into a utopia. Nolan sees merit in the plan and agrees to keep the Viltrumites neutral. Mark sees the good the utopia has done, yet survivors such as the Immortal, Dupli-Kate and Monster Girl want revenge. Mark leaves the planet with Eve and with their newborn daughter, Terra.

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• 7. Thragg's Last War

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  Thragg discovers that Mark is a descendant of Argall, the former Emperor of Viltrum. That makes Mark, Oliver and Nolan the empire's heirs. Thragg tries to kill Nolan, but Kregg, Anissa, Lucan and a Viltrumite named Thula swear loyalty to the rightful heir. They nearly kill Thragg, until Nolan orders them to spare him. Nolan becomes Emperor and exiles Thragg, believing exile is the more fitting punishment.

  On Thraxa, Thragg sets out to mate with every female Thraxan and build an army of hybrids. Battle Beast tracks him there. The two fight across the planet for days. Thragg barely wins, and Battle Beast's last words are "Thank you." Thragg then rips out his heart.

  An alien cave sends Mark back to the time when he first got his powers. He saves millions of lives with his changes, then returns to the present and learns he has been gone for five years. In that time Thragg's army has taken over dozens of planets, with the twins Onaan and Ursaal as his seconds-in-command. Allen sends Oliver to infiltrate the army. Thragg orders him to stand idle while the twins help kill Mark, Eve and Terra. Oliver intervenes instead. Terra awakens her powers, and Thragg fatally impales Oliver. Mark decapitates Onaan, and Eve's near-death powers heal her and Mark, but not Oliver.

  In the final battle near the Sun, Ursaal begins to doubt that her father cares about his children. She orders her siblings to stand down, and the Coalition takes them into custody. Anissa dies in the fighting, and Nolan is mortally wounded. Robot sends Mark an armored suit, because he sees that Thragg threatens humanity. Mark is too weakened to punch, so he bites Thragg's throat. Thragg bleeds out and is pulled into a solar flare.

  Nolan names Mark the new Emperor of the Viltrumites and asks him to "change them" as he dies. Mark's first act is to end Robot's rule. He spares Robot, reduces him to a brain, and appoints the Immortal as the GDA's new director. Most Viltrumites leave Earth. Five hundred years later, Mark and Eve lead a Viltrum Empire at peace, and the Coalition has disbanded. Terra, the daughter born under Robot's rule, grows up to become the second Invincible.

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• 8. A Growing Universe

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  Amazon Prime Video began streaming the animated adaptation on the 25th of March 2021. In October 2022, Image announced plans for the series' 20th anniversary in 2023. These included a facsimile reprint of the first issue, hardcover compendiums, a reprint in a new 6"x9" graphic novel format, and a secret January 2023 announcement. That announcement turned out to be a teaser for season two of the show.

  The first collected volume, Family Matters, gathered issues #1-4 and was released on the 2nd of November 2003. Every volume is named after a television sitcom, except volumes 14, 18, 22, 24 and 25. Volume 4 is Head of the Class, while volume 14 is simply Viltrumite War. A New Edition line began in 2023, and its fourteenth volume, dated the 4th of March 2026, collects issues #79-84.

  In 2003 and 2004, Image and Kirkman published other superhero books. Tech Jacket, pencilled in a manga style by E. J. Su, was cancelled at #6. Capes Inc. ran three issues drawn by Mark Englert. Three Brit one-shots followed. In 2007, Brit became an ongoing color series written by Bruce Brown with art by Cliff Rathburn, overseen and edited by Kirkman. The characters at first barely shared a universe with Invincible. Tech Jacket tied into Invincible #27, and Capes began as a back-up feature in the same issue. Brit later became leader of the Guardians of the Globe. In The Astounding Wolf-Man, Invincible's tailor Art designs the title hero's costume, and Wolf-Man appears in Invincible #48 and #49.

  In April 2022, Image announced a Battle Beast story for Skybound X #25, with Kirkman and Ottley reuniting. It was published on the 20th of July 2022. In December 2024, they announced a prequel series, Invincible Universe: Battle Beast, set between issues 19 and 55 of the original run. It follows Battle Beast as he searches for an opponent strong enough to kill him. The first issue was set for April 2025. A collection titled Heart of Glory, gathering issues #1-6 and the Skybound X story, is listed for the 12th of November 2025.

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