 Ever since Invincible's father, Opni-Man revealed himself to be an alien conqueror, bent on taking over the Earth, Invincible has been working for the Global Defense Agency, led by Cecil Steadman. He's been fighting their fights, defeating their enemies. He's been a good soldier, but now something has changed. Invincible can no longer follow their orders unquestioned. Now he finds himself up against the very organization he's been working for. This won't be pretty. Hey everybody, welcome to another exciting episode, and yes, you're reading that title right after many, many months. Finally, Invincible comic book discussion part 5. I am so sorry, but certain circumstances prevented me from even doing videos. It wasn't until mid-October that I finally picked up the camera again and started recording for everybody. So yeah, thank you. If you have been waiting for this series, thank you so much for waiting. You are awesome. I did the first four videos. The first one is actually one of my favorite videos on this channel. It's a collaboration between Gabe Infinity Watch and myself, talking about one of our favorite comic books, Invincible, and then I continue talking volume 2, 3, 4 by myself. The original plan was to celebrate the end of Invincible and do a video a month, leading up to the release of volume 12, which comes out a couple of weeks from now. So I have a lot of catching up to do. The plan has changed, folks. I couldn't reread everything of the previous volumes, but I have already read all of this stuff, so I already knew what I was going to say in the video. But still, you kind of want to go and reread stuff just in case, and maybe your perception changes and stuff like that. And that happens to be the case with volume 5. I didn't appreciate it the last time that I read it, a long time ago, I should say. But I do now, and I find it super interesting. This part of the series is why I love the book of Invincible so much. It's not because it's an alternate superhero tale with this character that has superhuman abilities and is a teenager. It's sort of like this Superman-esque version of Peter Parker. If you don't know about Invincible, that sort of summarizes it in a very simplistic matter. But whatever. The point is, go watch the previous videos. I am going to talk spoilers about the book. Usually this channel stays spoiler free. I'd like to just present what I thought of the book, so you'll pick it up. I don't want to give anything away because I want you to read it. That's what I want to do. I want to entice the reader. But with this, it's a comic book discussion. I'm going to talk briefly about the book and sort of the highlights and all that stuff. So Invincible Volume 5. In my honest opinion, this is one of the turning points in most of the series actually because you get really interesting themes. Mark, after being captured along with every superhero in the planet by Dr. Seismic or whatever his name is, sort of this small man type character, he finally gets his revenge and he captures every single hero. They cannot escape and it's up to Cecil and the US government with the help of the Mew Darkwing to go in and bust everybody out and help them. And it's a very turning point because Mark doesn't realize what's happening and he sees like this former lunatic that was murdering people at his city. Nobody knew about this. It was kept under wraps and finally you get the hero questioning everything around him. That's why I say it is the turning point. This book of Invincible, it's about doubt. It's about self-loathing. It's about mistrust. It's about trust issues. It's about privacy issues and it's about the realization that you're no longer a teenager and you're thrusting yourself into this big scary ugly world where things aren't as clear and as black and white as they seemed and everything is in a very scary grayish area. From relationship problems to recent hookups with the character of Adam Eve to finding your super uh younger brother having superpowers I should say and wanting to train him. The character of Mark evolves in this story considerably. He no longer is that teenager that we first saw in the first four books. He is no longer dealing with teen issues. He's starting to grow up and defy the system, defy the government and we see that with the whole Darkwing situation like yeah they capture seismic whatever but Invincible just is not having it. He is super angry at Cecil for what he's doing and it's sort of it's sort of a critique I guess on the author's part Robert Kirkman about the establishment the saddest quo and when is it right to be morally ambiguous. I think that's what we're going for with Volume 5. The whole reanimant stuff using zombie soldiers if you will to fight the battles. There's a morality in there like should you really be desecrating bodies to create them to fight wars for regular people. On paper it makes sense but up here and here it may be a different story and just I think it's really well done and it's really interesting. I also really liked the character growth between Oliver and Invincible and just the relationship between the two brothers. Oliver is not fully well technically he's not human at all he's part bug creature thing and Viltramite from his father and he doesn't perceive humanity the way we would do or the way Mark Rason would and that comes to fruition when he's training him and Oliver goes a little bit too far and kills the smaller twins in a very brutal way. This series has not shied away from its violence it doesn't glorify it but at the same time it's done in such an extravagant B movie type way where you kind of dig it especially the colors when there's like blood splatter it is some of the most amazing drawings and I think by the way Ryan Utley this is the peak of his work this is where like he is the man right there I fell in love with the art in this book and it's probably one of my favorites after the whole entirety of volume six which I will talk about at a later point in time and I really enjoyed the fact that Kirkman is able to go into the psychology of super heroics and really question the dilemma of should you capture the villain or kill these bad guys should you trust the government should you stay morally ambiguous with things like desecrating bodies hiring former killers if you will cuckoo nut heads to work operations that would otherwise seem like a black ops type thing you know and you get this huge falling out of invincible with Cecil and him abandoning everything of course the government is not going to take that lightly which is actually one of my favorite parts in the whole book when invincible is actually trying to escape because they discovered that like that ear vertical balance thing really affects his species if you will so he is able to escape and they are able to remove the whole thing after a huge fight and it keeps drumming on his head it was just really a dramatic intense a really dramatic intense situation I should say one of the other things that I really enjoyed in this book was the character arc of Adam Eve and Mark it's really sweet really cool I love the way that things progressed to full blown relationship status and baby love making it went like this roller coaster of emotions which led into that whole time travel thing which was a real surprise I'm not gonna dwell too much on that one because I want you to read it and let me know but I thought the the reveal of the character in the future storyline that was actually pretty interesting and yeah I think that would happen if the continuity continued if you will that way like I mentioned the art in this book is superb Ryan Oatley does a fantastic job of just bringing all of these characters to life I am genuinely impressed because it is some of the best work he's done and I know it progresses even further but down the line because I had gotten so used to the way he draws the characters I wasn't such a huge fan I still love the the art of I love I still love his art he's one of my favorite artists but this was fresh and exciting and really awesome and I've hopefully I remembered to show some pictures just really awesome stuff and I think people are going to dig it this is by the way this is one of my favorite covers not just because it's a hardcore or anything but this looks fantastic look at the spread with all the villains and characters and all that stuff just a really fun book I I get such a kick out of reading this man just look at that look at that it's probably a little bit too violent for some guys out there and girls but it I love it look this is one of my favorite spreads in the whole series where you see this recap of Adam Eve and Mark Grayson and their relationship and how they got to where they are now I think it's beautiful it's expertly done by Ryan there is the lockdown sorry but not out issue really cool this is my favorite comic book cover of Intensible I love I don't know if you can see it I love this so much the colors the composition the way the characters look fantastic same with the blue outfit it's really cool also one of the biggest surprise in the book is the allen omni-man tale in space where the last video I talked about them getting captured by the vulture mites and sentenced to death they do escape and we get the introduction of battle bees to one of the best characters in the book and we find out the big secret now I'm going to spoil things the big secret turns out there aren't a lot of vulture mites left there's like 50 of them and that is awesome because you get this whole theme of evil propaganda of these guys using uh to coin a famous 2018 term uh the concept of fake news and saying like the vulture mites empire is so strong and it's such a a vital force in the galaxy when it's actually not it's a front they're a dying breed and they're doing everything imaginable to stay afloat and that is awesome because now you have the trump card you can you can win you can beat them but you have to do it the right way and the character interaction by the way of allen and uh Nolan it's just fantastic I love these two characters together they have a beautiful friendship symmetry of just just uh awesome uh action star buddies you know something like that uh yeah overall it's a very very cool book probably one of my favorite stories what the hell I love the whole book but one of my favorite stories that I forgot to talk about before we wrap things up is uh and I forgot the name let me look at it real time by the way I'll get to this in a second before I wrap things up power plex is a very interesting villain let's highlight him again power plex is a very interesting villain he's kind of goofy and isn't exactly a powerhouse he's got electricity powers he's been stealing equipment to use these powers and stuff and he's blaming invincible which is a theme that could really be explored in other big two uh titles from dc marvel but um they do it really interesting in this book where the character is angry at invincible because his uh sister if I remember correctly died in the omniman slash invincible fight uh at the beginning of the series as a consequence of that fight uh they crashed into a building and that building just fell and unfortunately she died and he is hell bent on uh making sure the character pays and and he wants to kill the character and all that stuff so I think he's one of the more interesting characters one of the more interesting villains I should say in the series of invincible because of a morality issue like I mentioned at the beginning of the video it circles back to doubt fear and the not knowing what to do and not say either black or white and just stay in this gray area where things are gonna happen bad things are gonna happen and the world is a big scary and just awful place but the character learns through the actions of adam eve and his brother and all the his friends and stuff it's the everyday actions and staying true to yourself and doing good that makes it a better place and sort of keeps the darkness at bay so if you're watching this and you're going through some tough times or stuff like that let this be sort of like a quick reminder that things can get better uh it's not as dark as it seems and uh good can prevail you just you gotta stay positive I know it's difficult I know it's hard and I know it sucks trust me I know but you can't let the evil win you know and this uh book sort of reminds me of that and cheers me up and and and keeps me going forward well it's just a an awesome fun uh read that I really enjoy now I'm not saying this book is perfect because there are things that I don't like and I'll go discussing that in further volumes but for this particular book uh the astonishing is it astonishing the astounding I should say the astounding wolf man makes his uh makes an appearance here ah guys this is pretty awful um the only good thing about that crossover is the art because it's a two issue crossover but man was it a pain in the butt to read I really enjoyed the first uh issue uh because it was drawn by Ryan Oatley and the wolf man character actually looks cool the way he draws him and stuff it really looks awesome but Robert Kirkman his wolf man series is just I really tried to read it and I am sorry I I simply was not a fan if you like it more power to you because you're awesome I just you know I I I just it didn't click with me and if you want to see a quick review on the wolf man series I will link up a special video right there where you can check that out some thoughts on the wolf man series but aside from that really fun story the dynamics and the morality issues really make it a win for me and the art is ever expanding and ever growing and just beautiful to look at just awesome awesome stuff guys what did you think of invincible volume 5 um I thought it was great and I'm very curious to find out what you guys think as always you can follow me on your favorite social media platform just type a week and geek them and I'm there for you as always thank you for liking commenting and subscribing and I promise volume six of the discussion series will come very soon don't worry about it I am back doing invincible videos so hopefully you'll stick around for that thank you so much as always I will catch all of you on our next episode