Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Invincible, Issue #3! In the previous installment, Mark sneaks out of his room in the dead of night and flies to the toy store where he meets a group of four superheroes known as the Teen Team. They are there to stop a big blue guy named Mauler from stealing a pallet of video game consoles for their processors in order to build a robot army! Or something to that effect. They let Mark on the team.

Mark learns that one of the heroes, Atom Eve, has been in his biology class the whole time! They’re totally gonna fuck later. She starts showing him the ropes a bit.

The issue ended with a man exploding in a mall. He had a bomb strapped to his chest and I don’t think he was too happy to be dead one second after he woke up on a bench. We’ll see more about that soon!

Invincible, Issue #3 [March, 2003]
Written by: Robert Kirkman

Mark goes to Reginald VelJohnson high school, which is the single funniest thing I’ve seen in a comic book. Look that up. “We are currently working with the authorities to give them all the information we can in order to help them locate the missing students,” Mr. Principal says during one of those school-type press conferences. What do you call them? Assemblies, yeah. The principal tries to assure the student body that these three students are friends and this disappearance may have been planned, so, like, don’t freak out yet. OK?

Later in the hallway, Mark admits to Eve that, in nicer words, “Good riddance”. Green Day, baby. Eve calls him cruel, saying that she can’t speak for the other two, but TODD JEFFERSON was always nice to her. Mark tells her it’s because she has the pussy. Eve thinks Mark is hitting on her. Mark gets a giant anime sweat drop.

Now that Eve has made it weird, Mark doesn’t make it any more reassuring that he’s not creeping on her: following her to the cafeteria, asking to sit next to her. She’s not into it whatsoever, but this really dumb teenager isn’t picking up any of the very obvious social cues.

…

…

“So…” Mark hazards with a smile, “sure is fun being a superhero, isn’t it?”

“Did you hear there was another mall bombing?” Eve responds, not listening fully. Just sucking all that fun right out the Funnest Place on Earth. The school cafeteria.

Robot is on these scene trying to figure out what’s going on, but the bombs are so powerful that they’re destroying all the evidence on the scene. We’re talking Fat Man and Little Boy. We’re talking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We’re talking Oklahoma City. We’re talking How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love It.

Another bombing! Why that’s two in three weeks! That’s one every week-and-a-half! That’s, like, half a bombing every 126 hours, man. That’s almost as long as it took James Franco to cut off an arm! Sorry, you were saying?

God, the panels here are awful. Nothing good yet to include in the post! Sorry, more words ahead.

Eve wants to know if this kid is serious about joining the Teen Team yet? He should swing by after school and make it official with all those ritual paddlings that all new members are required to undergo. Mark can’t make it, he’s going to work at the Burger Butt even though his dad is a big rich “semi-famous novelist”. Working builds character! I think Mark’s been hanging around Calvin’s Dad a little too much lately. Building character by working at fast food restaurants and digging holes and the like. Grinding down pennies until they’re the size of dimes and using them in vending machines! Nothing builds character like victimless crimes.

Mark’s friend William thinks he and Eve are going out. “Trust me. She is not my girlfriend,” Mark half-complains.

Building character through irreversible crippling depression.

At the Burger Fuck, Mark’s manager hollers at the kid for spacing out. Customers are demanding their awful, greasy food! Clientele of varying degrees of obesity, ranging from morbidly to catatonically, are going through fat and sugar withdrawals. STEP ON IT, KID.

How about no? Life’s too short to not be using super powers at every minute of every day! Mark calls his Nazi boss a jerk and storms out of there with a BIG OL’ SMILE on his face.

Then he stands outside near the dumpsters with a BIG OL’ FROWN. “Dad’s going to kill me.” You better hope that’s the least he’ll do. Dad is super strong, he could rip your limbs off like wings on a fly. HOWEVER, lucky for Mark, Dad’s on the same page. In fact, right after dinner, Dad even suggests quitting! He’s like “you’re a dang superhero, stop flipping burgers and start flipping bad guys”. Mark smiles in a patented Mark-style aw-shucks face and tells his dad that maybe, heh, maybe he could swing that. Heh heh.

Dad later catches Mark squeezing into his Invincible costume. So proud, this mustachioed dad is of his acne-riddled son. Mark’s gonna go patrollin’! Dad asks if he’d like him to join. “I think we’re about due for a team-up.” Daaaawwwww!!

They take off and fly side-by-side while having a congenial fatherly-sonnily chatty chat. “You’ve done a lot of good these past three months. To be honest, I’m quite impressed.” Really? Mark has barely done shit except sneak out of bed late at night and accidentally make the girl at school uncomfortable. Mark thanks his dad. Dad tells him to keep up the good work.

Something bad’s gonna go down soon. This issue is too banal and sinister! I have nothing to talk about! Have I mentioned my love of mostaccioli before in this blog? Several times, actually! There’s a little Easter egg for ya. Find all the mentions of mostaccioli in my blog and win a prize! The prize is your testicles hooked up to a car battery.

Behold, the representative exciting tone of the comic book so far.

Father and Son go to BEEFY FRANK’S, where the two enjoy a meal of American-style hot dogs! Dad admits that since Mark is a loathsome half-blood, he may never get to be as powerful as Dad. Do I even know Dad’s name? Is “Omni-Man” his God-given Christian name from Planet Quoobs or wherever he’s from?

Hold that thought, Dad’s superhero pager is going off… and he’s gonna need Mark’s help with this one! Whattaya say, buddy old pal? Ready to do crime-busting with Dad?? You bet you are! *noogie*

They fly high in the sky, guy! Jets are fighting with other jets, so I assume this is the military versus some other military? “Let’s help these boys out!” Dad grunts as he flies around like a dang superhero. Invincible punches some dudes, making Dad proud.

BOOM BOOM POW BOOM POW HURK MOO. Aircraft explodes, guys are blowing up, Dad says that these jets keep flying out of “that portal”.

Says you! I’m from Jersey City!

Looks like it’s aliens, Scully. “Let me help you find your way home,” Mark cries, uppercutting this bitch and sending him flying back toward the large pink portal.

“I think we’re dealing with some sort of other-dimensional army here,” Omni-Man does some Omni-Mansplaining. “I don’t recognize these things at all. Which means they could have an entire universe worth of soldiers ready to spill out of that thing!” Well well well, things aren’t that easy for the most powerful sorta-human in the world, is it? Is this part where Mark watches his dad die? Hilarious!

SKRAGG! That’s the sound of Omni-Man ripping an alien jet into two pieces. Invincible continues punching aliens. “Wait a second,” Invincible hesitates by waiting a second. “…is it just me or are these guys getting slower?”

Yeah, that’s pretty sus. In fact, now that they look… even… harder… at these guys… *leans in for a kiss* … they seem to be aging right before they’re very eyeballs! It sure is making beating these losers up much easier. They’re, as Omni-Man says, using an Earthian English expression, “dropping like flies”. Even so, there are about a quintillion of them and poor widdle Invincible is getting tired and, uh, more Vincible by the minute.

“GET OFF MY PLANET!” Omni-Man screams as he launches an alien tank toward a group of aliens who aren’t currently in tanks. Invincible gingerly approaches his dad, who is snarling and growling and frothing up a storm. “It’s ok, Dad. They’re leaving. It’s over.” Invincible points over to the portal where the aliens are retreating. They look sad. “You’re right, let’s go,” Omni-Man responds. And just like that, they go.

This doesn’t happen often. Another couple of nanoseconds and Omni-Man would’ve had to call in for backup. Guardians of the Globe. Megaforce. NAMBLA. Whoever was available. Anyway, let’s head home! I think Mom made a pile of chicken nuggets and–

OH NO! LAKESIDE MALL! LET’S BOOGIE!

Heh, uh… hey Dad… let’s try not to strangle the patronage, ok?

Omni-Man speeds ahead faster than Invincible can keep up. Eventually, Invincible makes it to the mall where he discovers a giant hole plowed into the roof. Then, as you can see, dad’s fucking up some kid’s shit. Well, the kid has a bomb strapped to his chest with three seconds left on the timer.

“Quickly! Tell me who did this to you!” Omni-Man bellows, hoisting the kid up by his jacket.

“D– did what?”

Then the superhero tosses this kid through the hole in the roof. The kid explodes. Everyone is safe!… except for the exploded kid.

“That was one of the missing students from my school!” Invincible exclaims. Omni-Man thinks on this for a moment. “But that would mean–”

We don’t get to know what that would mean. A portal appears behind him and an alien drags him right through. “Dang it,” Invincible stares at the empty air before him. Bye bye, Pops! Maybe forever? I’m still predicting a dead dad scenario here.

Invincible flies home to his bedroom and puts on his Mark clothes. I’d hate to be him right now, having to tell his mother the bad news! I’ve had to tell my mother the bad news in my day; I failed college. I got fired. I’m addicted to heroin and fentanyl cocktails. But I’ve never had to break news THIS bad before. And I’ve watched Breaking Bad twice.

“I guess I can look forward to you both being late from now on,” Mom sighs, setting the table.

Ha ha. Uhm. “Actually… Dad was sucked into a portal about fifteen minutes ago, I don’t think he’ll be home tonight. It was some aliens we fought earlier today… I’m sure he’s fine.”

…

“Well that’s more pork chops for us,” Mom replies, emoting like a mailbox.

Final Thoughts

“Dad”, if that is his real name, is probably going to need to be rescued from another dimension by his son IF he has already been eviscerated and heavily probed in the buttocks.

I predict Mark’s going to have to leave for an extended time with his new Teen Team. That’s a lot of extra pork chops for Mom. She’s a lucky gal.