Issue 28: Superhero Information Initiative
By The Dude

New Kid on the Block, Are You Tough Enough?

If you have not heard of, or read, Invincible, I will offer you the same advice I was given. Quit reading now. Invincible will suck you in, and consume every last dime you have. If you are stupid enough to still be reading, then let me introduce you to the next icon of the comic and movie industry, as predicted by a survey of one- me.

In the 1980’s, (by human years), a Viltrumite came to earth. He went by the name Nolan Grayson, and his real name, Nolan, would have caused entire alternate universes to quake. So imagine how a mere galaxy in ours would respond. Needless to say, but as often said, he is a living legend.

When it came time for Nolan to pick a superhero name he originally picked Supra-Man. Since his superhero costume includes a blue shirt, red cap, and a big chest symbol, someone somewhere thought Omni-man might keep him from being sued. Since his powers include extreme viltrumite strength, (think “superhuman” and then multiply it by all the consonants in this article), speed, endurance, invulnerability and flight, someone somewhere, (me), thinks someone somewhere else made a wise choice.

Not long after establishing residence on earth Nolan saved a young lady named Debbie. She was good-looking, twenty-something, and he looked a ruggedly handsome forty-something. Let me break in here while all the romantic crap happens, and explain that Nolan is a few thousand earth years old. Where were we? Oh yes, they got married.

Why don’t they call the comic book Omni-man? Well, it came to pass that Nolan and Debbie had a son, and they named him Mark. At age seven Mark’s father sat him down and explained Mark’s heritage to him. Mark now knows his father is the greatest superhero ever. He now knows Omni-Man is Guardian of Earth against a vast multi-verse of evil bad superthings. At age seven Mark Grayson now knows he might one day be Omni-Boy.

Ten years later at his burger flipping job Mark was throwing the trash out, and four or five comic book issues later we see it land somewhere in China. If you had just gained super strength, flight, etc., what would you do? Quit your burger flipping job, and save the world.

Mark excelled at superherodom. He was putting the smack down on bad guys like Michael Jordan competing against preschoolers. The stage was set for the greatest father- son superhero duo ever. So Nolan decided his son needed a costume and a catchy name, and encouraged him to make both iconic. Invincible was born

Invincible started to run part-time with Teen Team. Omni-Man continued to let Guardians of the Globe be his sidekick. (He was not willing to be tied down to membership commitments, or maybe he was too cheap to pay dues.) All was going well, and Invincible’s powers were increasing much more rapidly than Omni-Man expected. Nolan told Mark as much while they floated two miles above the earth playing catch back to back. (I would like it if someone could do the math…around the earth at two miles up, on how far that ball traveled.)

Then someone killed the Guardians of the Globe.

Upon the swift and brutal death of all the members of the greatest superhero team ever assembled, confusion, shock, paranoia, and lots of questions filled the void. I will skip all the page fillers, and say with a name like The Immortal you don’t stay dead. When you wake up from the dead and someone killed all your teammates you go looking for answers. When Invincible has grown up seeing you like an uncle, you’re supposed to be dead, and he sees you flying around on the news, he goes looking for you. So you might say Invincible was in a little shock when he came upon his father sticking his fist through The Immortal’s chest.

At age seventeen Mark’s father sat him down atop a snow-capped mountain and explained his Viltrumite heritage to him again. Mark learns his father is the conquering force sent to take over and rule earth. Mark learns his father has been given a hundred years to accomplish victory, and felt two things were pushing him to act. First, he would have an extremely powerful ally in his son. Second, the only real threat was the Guardians of the Globe. Mark learns his father has no true attachment to Earth or Debbie, (wife/mom), but only the Viltrumite Empire. To sum up what Mark learns about Viltrumite ways, if you kill another Viltrumite you get a medal for cleansing the blood line of weakness. At age seventeen Mark Grayson learns he has a half-Viltrumite, half-praying mantis brother, but that is another story.

Nolan asks Mark to join him. Mark sides with earth, and a bloody apocalyptic battle ensues. (I am not sure if that paints a good picture of cities and mountain ranges being razed to their foundations?) At the end our hero stands invincible. If you just smiled, or got warm fuzzes, you were probably a pansy boy that played with My Little Ponies. For the rest of you, that is not what really went down. Invincible is what really went down, and in a bloody-baseball-bat-to-a-watermelon way.

If you didn’t quit reading and you want to know what happens next, spend your own money, sucker. The Dude would like to thank Sly’s Alter Ego frontman Kyle Simmons for letting The Dude borrow his Invincible graphic novels.