Invincible

As I'm currently flushed with the joys of destitution I find myself reaching to my once proud but now miniscule collection of pop culture and loooking for happiness.
I have the first 7 Invincible trades by Kirkman and Ottley (published by Image) and they remind me why comics still capture my imagination.

To get this out of the way, I'm what is known as a Marvel Zombie (which apparently means I will soon have a cover by Arthur Suydam done for me), I grew up on the X-Men and Spider-Man and to this day think the only Superman worth bothering with is to be seen on celluloid or as part of the JLU animated series. I caught the last episode of the recent Smallville season: spoilers ahead....seriously don't read on...here it comes...the episode was absolutely terrible. What a twist.

Well my childhood/teenhood/adulthood favourite X-Men got boned by Joe Quesada's genius idea of hitting the reset button as there were apparently too many mutants in the Marvel Universe. Ok fair enough, just a shame that leaving only a handful of remaining mutants kind of destroys the next phase of human evolution part of the mythos. Also the politically allegorical subtext which drives the Mutant idea is pretty much destroyed if a movement has less members than the Uwe Boll fan club.
Thankfully Joss Whedon has kept Astonishing X-Men pretty much away from all of the M-Day fallout nonsense.

Meanwhile JMS is taking Spider-Man down a fascinating new route in which he's dark and brooding. Oh and commiting crimes. Because he is dark and brooding. For 7 issues. But don't worry, the rumour is a magic reset button to turn Amazing Spider-Man into Ultimate Spider-Man but without Bendis writing it is soon to arrive. Don't go forming the queues to get this blockbuster right away, the ending has the same twist as Smallville's.

For more genius, read Loeb and Bianchi's recent Wolverine run, actually don't, read the always entertaining Paul O'Brien's review of Wolverine 55. After Loeb's first issue the theme song to Itchy and Scratchy came to mind as Wolverine and Sabretooth "fight and fight and fight and fight and fight". The difference being Itchy and Scratchy are funny and entertaining and don't compel me to stab myself.

Forgive my digression but I am a bitter man and it leads up to why I love Kirkman's Invincible.
It is a Super-Hero comic. It is well written.

Crazy I may seem but those characteristics appeal to me.

Invincible is Superman if he was raised by Ben and May Parker except Ben didn't die he just saved the world a lot. There is well-timed ironic humour, solid action and a Whedonesque sense of sub-plot and story arc pay-off.
Basically it is a lot of fun with characters you gradually fall in love with being put through the mill regularly. It doesn't reinvent the genre (Superman meets Spider-Man meets Buffy meets the JLA) but it does what it does very well and isn't trying to be pretentious doing it.
There is a large cast of characters each with a story that I'm more bothered about than most of Comics' leading icons at the moment.
I don't want Tony Stark to be Dick Cheney and I don't want Peter Parker to be de-aged and un-married with a wave of a magic wand because editors think they can't write stories that are interesting without altering a character completely.

World War Hulk works even if it is obvious how it will end and consists of Hulk walking from a pile of dust to show he has beaten someone else up (much more of it and he'll be nicknamed Pig-Pen).
It works because it takes the basic concept of the character and puts him in a situation that will be interesting.
Taking the basic concept of a character and changing it until you hope something interesting happens doesn't work.

Have a read of Invincible and enjoy the simple pleasure of a good idea written well.