When I finished reading Invincible #103 I was extremely excited for issue 104. Well, I got excited for nothing.

This issue is basically a one issue story (again) that deals with Mark’s battle with an evil version of himself (again), and Eve’s encounter with Angstrom Levy (hey, something we have not seen before). First and foremost, Ryan Ottley’s art was fantastic as always in this issue. We have really got to see him grow and evolve as an artist during his time on Invincible, and I hope he can continue to improve, as his art is all that this book has going for it at the moment.

The confrontation between cannibal Mark and our Mark was very uninspired. Did we not do this during the Invincible War? Maybe if this was not another one-of story like the Invincible War, Kirkman would have had space to actually make this one entertaining. The only interesting part of this sequence is formally evil, blue suit Mark helping out our Mark. Speaking of the blue suit, didn’t Mark say he was switching back to it? Maybe Kirkman just forgot about that.

The truly engrossing part of this book was Levy and Atom Eve’s conversation. It was interesting to learn that a lot of Marks throughout the multiverse are evil, and usually because something tragic had happened to Atom Eve. He revealed all of this after discovering that Eve is pregnant and informs her that he plans to kill her in front of Mark. Eve then turns things around on Levy, questioning him about the accident that caused his deformities. Of course, at first Levy blames Mark, but Eve bluntly informs that he caused the accident himself. Overall, this was some great story telling. Too bad it was sandwiched between some of the worst action sequences yet in Invincible.

Then, the worst happened. Kirkman did it again. He ruined a perfectly good villain by having him recognize the error of his ways. Really, Kirkman? It was novel the first time, but it is not the fourth. So, first it was Galaxia, then Dinosauras, then the Viltrumites and now Levy? Levy is insane! He cannot be a reformed villain. This goes against everything his character is. This is just horrible and lazy writing.

To finish things out, formally evil (wait is that five reformed villains?), blue suit Mark takes Levy to his Universe to “deal with” him, and with the help of Rex, Mark starts looking for a way to follow them. With that, I get some hope that this story might end up being decent in the long run, but that does not stop this issue from being very weak on it’s own.

Maybe Kirkman is trying to take things easy before he goes on his six month, bi-weekly run with The Walking Dead, but he cannot keep doing this to Invincible. A book cannot survive on good art and novel ideas (that are not novel anymore) for very long. Overall I give Invincible #104 a heartbreaking two out of five stars.