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A review by twilliamson
Invincible, Vol. 2: Eight is Enough by Matt Roberts, Erik Larsen, Bill Crabtree, Cory Walker, Cliff Rathburn, Mark Englert, Tony Moore, Robert Kirkman, Dave Johnson, Terry Stevens, Ryan Ottley
3.0
Collecting issues #5-8 of Invincible, the second volume is really where the primary wrinkle of the series' overall story starts to pick up. Although the major twist has yet to reach fruition from the book's first year of publication, the series starts to take a new direction in these issues that serves to strengthen its potential.
Although the main plot of the book begins by centering on Mark's transition through highschool as a superhero, issue #7 has a major reveal that changes the trajectory of the series moving forward. I still remember the surprise of reading the book the first time, and it's really in this volume's issues that I felt like the series had the most potential to be great--and the reason I continued reading beyond just the first few issues.
Kirkman still works within pretty established tropes for superhero fiction, and there's a lot of stuff in this second volume that still feels rather underdeveloped; we don't spend a lot of time with supporting cast, and yet their interactions do start to take more precedence within the story. It all feels like it's still moving much too quickly for the book to feel deeply satisfactory, but Kirkman's writing often relies on readers to supply their own knowledge of working archetypes to fill in the gaps where the story doesn't deliver much information. Take, for example, the appearance of the Mauler Twins in issue #8's conclusion: we still have no real measure of who these characters are, why they're important to the plot, or why it's such a big deal that they show up at the end of #8. These are just things we're left to accept for the story, and it's one of the reasons the series in its infancy still has yet to really work. The same can be said for any number of other story beats in the series to date.
There's also the issue of the book's art, which continues to waste a lot of space with duplicate or barely altered artwork in order to meet page count, and the book only starts to feel slightly more dynamic with its style in issue #7. I do know that the book gets better as it goes along, but these earliest issues hold the series back from meeting its potential.
Volume 2 is much better on the whole than its previous volume, but it still has yet to really tap into what makes the series such an enduring treat. Kirkman begins playing at bigger ideas in these issues, especially in issue #6 and #7, but these first two volumes still just feel like a warm-up.
Although the main plot of the book begins by centering on Mark's transition through highschool as a superhero, issue #7 has a major reveal that changes the trajectory of the series moving forward. I still remember the surprise of reading the book the first time, and it's really in this volume's issues that I felt like the series had the most potential to be great--and the reason I continued reading beyond just the first few issues.
Kirkman still works within pretty established tropes for superhero fiction, and there's a lot of stuff in this second volume that still feels rather underdeveloped; we don't spend a lot of time with supporting cast, and yet their interactions do start to take more precedence within the story. It all feels like it's still moving much too quickly for the book to feel deeply satisfactory, but Kirkman's writing often relies on readers to supply their own knowledge of working archetypes to fill in the gaps where the story doesn't deliver much information. Take, for example, the appearance of the Mauler Twins in issue #8's conclusion: we still have no real measure of who these characters are, why they're important to the plot, or why it's such a big deal that they show up at the end of #8. These are just things we're left to accept for the story, and it's one of the reasons the series in its infancy still has yet to really work. The same can be said for any number of other story beats in the series to date.
There's also the issue of the book's art, which continues to waste a lot of space with duplicate or barely altered artwork in order to meet page count, and the book only starts to feel slightly more dynamic with its style in issue #7. I do know that the book gets better as it goes along, but these earliest issues hold the series back from meeting its potential.
Volume 2 is much better on the whole than its previous volume, but it still has yet to really tap into what makes the series such an enduring treat. Kirkman begins playing at bigger ideas in these issues, especially in issue #6 and #7, but these first two volumes still just feel like a warm-up.