100+ Definitions 13

Invincible #13

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL):  Friday the thirteenth brings the thirteenth issue of Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley’s comic book Invincible.

Invincible #13 (I#13): This issue displays the aftermath of Mark Grayson, his family, and the world coping with the betrayal and abandonment by Omni-Man, a superheroic defender of the Earth and Mark (Invincible’s) father.  Mark meets the super-secret, super-high-level government official named Cecil Stedman who manages the Guardians of the Globe.  Stedman asks Invincible to become the replacement to Omni-Man; Mark agrees in return for a college scholarship and care of his mother.  The issue ends with Invincible talking with Allen, the pink alien space guardian he talked to in issue five about the Viltrum and their expanding empire.

L-FL: In his essay “Superheroes By Design,” John Jennings writes that “The superhero is symbol of power that is reified as the hyper-physical body, and that body then comes to be a visual representation of that power…The perfect body of the superhero is an object of cultural production that stands for many socially constructed ideas regarding power, justice, and morality…In a sense, the superhero is exactly that, an illustration of the perfect fusion of mind, body, and spirit…The superhero is an embodiment, but not just of an individual.  It is an embodiment of cultural and social values—a gestalt of various belief structures in physical form.”  Based on the events in issue thirteen, how does Invincible embody these (or other) ideas of the superhero?

I#13: Superheroism is defined in this issue by the acceptance of mistakes and focus on future actions to improve the situation rather than punish errors from the past.  Invincible doesn’t blame others for not recognizing Omni-Man’s imperial nature and plans, instead he focuses on caring for his mother and protecting the planet with a sense of nonchalance, as shown by voicing his future plans, when asked by the alien space guardian what he plans to do next, “Finish high school, I guess.”