 Hey everyone, welcome to another exciting episode, another discussion video here at a weekend geekdom. This time we're continuing our invincible themed discussion series. Volume 7, the long-awaited Viltramite War is finally here. And let me tell you, if this were DC or Marvel, it would have been a very long, dull and boring crossover event. There is no such thing here because the story is linear. It's been leading up to this for the past 60-70 issues and we finally get the long-awaited Viltramite War. We finally see the big bad guys against our ragtag team of heroes composed of Alan the Alien, Tech Jacket, Invincible, Omni Man, and of course, Omni Kid or Oliver if you will. This volume, I mean, if Volume 6 like I mentioned on the previous video, spoilers by the way, is a precursor of things to come, it's already here. This volume is brutal. There is a war so there is a lot of bloodshed of epic fights, kick-ass super heroics, and just sentimental, tough as nail decisions that are made in this book. The war is here. We find out that Conquest comes back and we have this epic reunion of the Grayson family if you will. And they get attacked on their way to the Coalition of Planets and one of them is Conquest. He's back and he is meaner than ever and what happens next, I did not expect the first time I read this a few years ago. The Invincible vs Conquest part 2, this time mark, definitely make sure to put down the villain in a wonderful spectacular fashion. Conquest and Invincible duke it out and Conquest literally punches a hole right through Invincible and our main hero out of necessity and a desperate sense of danger, anger, frustration and just everything that has been piling up for the previous volumes comes to a surface, comes to a boil, and he literally chokes out Conquest and kills him. It is a fascinating scene for the whole moral dilemma that I talked about on the previous discussion video. Yeah, it went there. So after being knocked out the character spends like, I think it was 3 months in a coma and it's up to Nolan and Oliver to resuscitate him and heal him to get him ready for the conflict which began as soon as these characters started fighting. So you get a lot of character bonding between Oliver, father and son, I should say, between Oliver and Nolan in a very cool and epic sort of way with them fighting monsters and getting food together and sparring. It reminded me of the hyperbolic time chamber stuff in the original Dragon Ball manga and anime. There you have these characters preparing for this big fight but since we're gonna wait you might as well get some training and build up and it definitely does pay off eventually when the characters are able to join in the fight. They find out that the Vultramites have basically, you know, they've had enough. A lot of the Vultramites strike back in the actual planet of the coalition. A lot of things happen at a very quick pace in these issues. First off, Thrag is communicating with a traitor so he has all the insight knowledge to take care of the coalition and Thadius and that is what ultimately ends up happening and it sucks but at the same time it makes the conflict extra juicier if you will. If you like these sort of heroic battles and epic fights and all that stuff and when our main trio of heroes arrive they arrive just in time because they turn the tide of the war in their favor and they take the fight with whatever remains. There was the space rider, Battle Beast, Alan, Tech Jacket, the Grayson's, Thadius himself and I think a couple extras, they take the fight to the Vultramites home planet itself. I had forgotten about the actual fight for some reason, the following issues I had read but the actual events of the war I had forgotten so I was really excited to reread this for the first time in a long while and just relive those moments. I had completely forgotten that Oliver has a near death experience with his arm ripped off and his jaw is missing, it's just a brutal fight and we finally get to see our main bat guy Thrag himself step out of the shadows, take command and just whoop ass left and right. This guy is insane, Invincible just punches him in the gut and the fist does nothing, it was like hitting a steel pipe and not bending it, that type of strength. The main heroes end up destroying the planet by plowing right through it, that was done in part by Space Racer and the secret weapons and all that stuff. They literally punch through the planet and it explodes in a very grandiose fashion. Now typically with every video I mention the art because it is such a crucial and beautiful part of Invincible in one of my favorite sequences of the whole series actually, this is one of my top 10 moments. You see them firing up the main laser if you will, hitting the planet and punching through it in this sequence of images right there, just beautiful and jaw dropping, the amount of detail, it doesn't need any words whatsoever, you see the end result of them exiting the planet through the other pole and you see the effect on the other side of the battle, the underside and the calm before the storm because the great Thrag, oh man he just takes out Thaddeus like a boss, this guy is not messing around, he wants his revenge and he gets it. This is a war that ends in sort of a stalemate, like yeah the good guys win but the end result is one of the craftiest things that you can do in a comic book, basically with no home planet the Viltrami's escape, they leave that space sector and you don't see them for a couple of issues until you find out that they have gone to earth and Thrag reveals the ultimate scenario, the ultimate plot if you will, you know we cannot rebuild our race, our species on a dead planet with dead cadavers just orbiting around it, we're going to repopulate and he noticed that even though Nolan and Mark are the enemy and the key of their destruction, they can also be the key to their salvation because he is a ruler first and foremost and he shows a type of mercy, you may have set us back a couple years, couple decades even but we're still here, we're going to be on earth and we promise you we will not interfere, we will not do anything, we will be hidden among the populace but we will of course mingle with the human species and reproduce and just take over the human genetic side I guess and reconstitute the earth as a viltramite empire of sorts and that to me is extremely awesome because you're putting what was an action packed book into a thriller slash mystery because you don't know when this silent force will strike, while all that is fun and action packed the true heart of this book, the true lady's substance is not about the war itself, it's Mark having to deal with settling back to earth after I think it was 10 months or 11 months almost a year away and you get characters dealing with that, Adam Eve of course having gone through a very traumatic experience with conquest now is in this strange position where last volume we found out that she was pregnant and in this volume we learned that she had an abortion and kudos to Robert Kirkman for taking the time to set up this beautiful scene between the two characters of her revealing to Mark what happened, I do commend Kirkman and the whole team of doing this in a very serious and not cheap matter, I don't know I thought they handled it pretty well and you know it's a superhero book it's fantasy and a bunch of things happen but there is a reality behind that fantasy there are themes that we can associate with that has always been the main goal with this series in every volume I constantly tell you guys like I associate themes or stuff that or things that happen in the book with real life and how they can inspire or motivate and in this volume it causes you to think and reflect on the meaning of life how people care about each other and how you move forward and how you do the best that you can do to help others that is probably one of the best themes that Invincible has to offer you see that when Mark he comes to the realization after facing dinosaurs and finding and finding himself in a very sticky situation with Las Vegas blows up you cannot be this hero this force for good and kill the criminal or save the criminal or just put them behind bars they escape and we repeat the process yes you're saving lives and you're helping people but it doesn't help in the long run and the book goes into that territory dinosaurs is an extreme idea of that sentiment because yeah he has noble intentions but he goes about it in a very extreme matter that might that will cause harm to others and is not like the appropriate way to solve things whereas mark is on the other side where he is the soft spoken ideal that dinosaurs is trying to bring to the table and they're both trying to do good in their own way and it's somehow not working so the character goes on this realization that he he is going to reform the villains and I thought that was actually pretty smart having conversations with the villains and trying to figure out the root of their problems you see it with the character of universe and power plex two completely different villains in the case of universe yeah she's coming down to earth with evil intentions if you will but at the end of the day all she's trying to do is secure energy for her dying planet or something and power plex is a very confused and shell shocked villain now turned hero and whenever he sees invincible he is reminded of his hatred for him and the consequences of superheroes doing their thing and and having these calamities or these casualties in their battles at the end of the day nobody's perfect and he specifies that to power plex invincible was a way saving the world from the threat of the viltramites and when he was fighting his dad to save people you know he's not perfect there will be mistakes and there will be casualties but it wasn't him it's not his intention and it's that moment where he reminds him that like I wasn't the one that kidnapped uh your own his own family and tied them up and electrocuted them by accident and all that stuff it was power plex he was the cause of his own uh villainy and anguish and just rage and that realization breaks him down and allows the character finally a redemption and a chance to reform because he's starting on the good path it's stuff like this that elevates the title from other superhero books because other titles will focus on the fighting and capturing the villain and you know let's put him back in jail and then we repeat the cycle here we are transforming that trope and just presenting new ideas also i didn't mention that robot and monster girl are back and that will be explored on volume eight on our next video and and volume nine and so forth because their arc is just starting this really epic juicy drama that is just boiling you right now you don't know why you just know that something bad happened they became rulers of the uh i think it was the flexion empire or something the bug people empire so to them it's been years and to uh earth it's only been like a couple months or something like that it hasn't been a year since they left finally to bring home the theme of redemption and and working uh hero themes versus uh back guy themes and stuff with the character of dinosaurs like i mentioned earlier they blow up las vegas so they have him in custody the character i love the idea that he is this hulkish character but instead of anger he uh transforms the guy transforms into dinosaurs out of indifference he has to be uh not caring about anything and being extremely bored to cause the transformation so i thought that was pretty unique invincible has this breakthrough idea you know things have to change it can't always you can't repeat the cycle you can't capture these guys and hope that they that the system reforms them in jail they're just gonna break out kill people and do things over and over again and yeah you might save a couple people but in the long run you're not gonna change humanity or countries or society or humanity as a whole you're not really going to change them you're just gonna save them from uh present danger and not future problems but if you can reform these minds and do things that will help in the long run i think that's a smarter thing to do so the character comes to that realization and he goes and um into the pentagon and breaks dinosaurs out of jail and the two agree to work together to create like this better tomorrow basically like this epic feature foundation of just a former villain if you will and our main hero but yeah overall that's the theme of volume seven that i enjoyed yes we do get some kick-ass action with gorgeous artwork and a special mention to uh mr rathburn for the incredible coloring on these issues they look phenomenal with ryan utley's art kirkman is at the top of his game in my opinion this is kirkman's best written work in comics and it shows because you're finally going into more mature themes with the nature of good and evil and how you can change society based on characters being reformed allowing for a redemption and second chances like comment subscribe on this channel follow me on your favorite social media platform and stay tuned volume eight nine ten and eleven are going to arrive a lot sooner than expected because volume 12 is already here and uh yeah i need to hurry things up you guys uh bear with me because we're gonna get these discussion videos a lot faster thank you guys i will catch all of you on our next video volume sub