The blank badge and everything that surrounds it: an Invisibles reread

i'm into this, so bookmarking. i can actually see the trades from my desk.

Should be no problem, I've been moving back my comics after I got them sorted at home. I got an idea where the box-o-Morrison is located.

I re-read the Illuminatus Trilogy last year, then Valis/Radio Free Albemuth earlier this year; so re-read of the Invisibles should fit well in this current days/daze.

I’m definitely up for this. I bought the first four issues from Comic Showcase in Covent Garden, liked but didn’t love them despite being a GM superfan (I had cut up the Animal Man panels from UK reprint “DC ACTION!” and blue-tacked them over my bedroom wall) and then quit comics until Seaguy came out a decade later. I read Invisibles in the mid-2000s after interviewing, er, Cameron Stewart.

2-3 issues a week sounds doable!

Excellent. I’ll do the first post tomorrow, those two issues are the ones we’ll discuss for the week, then do three following week and alternate to let people catch up.

Cool. Just spent an hour this afternoon digging these out of storage. It better be worth my while, Morrison!

Here's how I'll do this: I'll make a post like this with some basic framing and then we can discuss the issues in question. You ex-Barbelith types will no doubt find some of my insights very amateurish but it is what it is.

And so we return and begin again.

Week 1: Vol 1, issue 1, Dead Beatles and issue 2, Down and Out In Heaven & Hell.

https://i.imgur.com/URwsv6n.jpg

People always say the series starts slow but I have never thought this. The first time I read this, it hit with a bang - all these disparate ideas and images and characters colliding and you don't quite know what's happening yet but you like it. First line is spoken by El Fayed, who I've always loved, and
our first "nice and smooth". Flashes of King Mob graffiti as though dreamed. Yeah, I knew instantly this series was for me.

The teaching in this in 2020 is darkly funny - imagine the absolute dogshit coverage you'd get nowadays teaching kids about communism and anarchism as ideas. Three of my favourites right from the start in this issue - Edith and Mister Six.

I really like how Yeowell drew Lennon's face as he lit the cigarette, all long nose and hollows and angles. The invocation of Lennon is classic, and Revolution 9 is a really great song for this issue: all cacophony, reversals and time skips. Side note: I am making a playlist for this as we go, feel Revolution 9 and David Watts are nailed on for this issue, but let me know if I missed any others.

"It was Kropotkin. And you'll never fucking understand me." combined with Dane's bared teeth is a frame that haunts me.

Miss Dwyer and Mr Gelt. Monsters with holes for eyes and glasses that reflect the blankness. Harmony House is a horror.

Dane hears The-King-In-Chains breathing through Gelt's door, the scene that follows is disturbing but also in a very mundane way?

King Mob showing up to rescue Dane from the brain room, like a god into the machine. "Goodbye Mr Chips," makes me giggle every time. The first time you read this, you don't care about the guards, the second and subsequent times, you see Bobby. Dane alone in London ends the issue.

https://i.imgur.com/CDYt2UB.jpg

This is actually one of my favourite issues, I love Tom and the initiation in some ways is very standard origin story but it's the details that stick with me.

The first time I read this, in early 2007, I had never been to London. The first time I went was a few months later, after reading this, and until after I'd moved over here a couple of years later, I had never seen homeless people with the regularity that you do in this issue. There is a lot about this series that comes from you, the reader, and your perceptions at time of reading, but reality changes all the time. Tories then, Tories now. We return and begin again.

Tom in the underground declaiming poetry. Nobody looks at this homeless person, not even other homeless people.

"And see, the rain's off too. That's me that did that." Keep thinking about how Freddie becomes one of the greatest magicians in the history of their species, after Edith had finished burning him in the fire. She was right on that.

Tom pissing on the Churchill monument! Couldn't do that these days.

Fanny is our second Invisible to give Jack money.

How Sir Miles and his mob go unremarked in tearing through the streets in full hunting gear was probably pretty dead on in 1994, but it feels outright painful in 2020.

Luan-Dun, city of the moon. This immediately read as Irish to me, Morrison being Scottish is probably pulling from Gaelic? Or not, because we have another reference to Irish in this part of the story, next issue maybe. Although looking it up, the word luan, is old Irish though the original word survives in Dé Luain (Monday). It is a very glancing reference, I know, but it hooked me and drew me in further, whereas before it had just been a good story.

First meeting with Barbelith. Traffic lights and wet paint under the ground. Cities have their own magic.

Issue ends with Dane being abandoned again - the next part of it is on. The hunters' look is deliberately referencing Harmony House. Onward!

That is some excellent framing!

Yeah, for all that me at 19 was "Oh they say it'll explode your mind but actually they just explode some heads", there's a lot of genuinely weird stuff in the first one - along with the adventures of a supercool bald mod spy.

The world wasn't short of Beatles fans in the 90s, but it's interesting to think about the idea of this total immersion in the time of twitter and tumblr fandoms. That said, I'm glad that I don't know Morrison's views on it - one thing that I like (er, unless I'm wrong) is that he seems to have retired from any attempt at being current - he's happy being DeSade at the disco.

I stared at the phrase 'video card' (as in "Mum, give us the video card, will you?") for a bit until memories of Xtra-vision returned with a thump!

You've inspired me to re-read along with you online. Tbh, I barely remember the details of this series compared to Morrison's other works. So I'm welcoming all your exposition explaining what the heck is going on!

Interesting that Gaiman's Neverwhere series shares some of the "spooky magical hidden London" vibe, which was probably made around the same time or soon after. It's all alien to me, I've never been to Europe. (Also recently watched the original House of Cards so I suppose a lot of this is in reaction to post-Thatcher UK society?

It is yeah but because there’s gaps of time in between issues there’s also some anti-Blair stuff... mainly as you say though. Original HoC is incredible, btw.

I memorised the membership number on our family video card (I think it was 9713!) because I’d always forget to bring it with me. Inevitably there’d always be some tough-ass clerk who wouldn’t let you rent Tremors on a Saturday night if you didn’t bring the plastic.

The opening arc is fantastic. The first time around, I quit after a couple of issues of the second arc, which iirc was disappointingly Gaiman-y (i.e. long captions written in hard-to-read joined-up handwriting).

Now that I think about it the original Books of Magic also trafficks in this vibe, and that was around 1990; guessing something occulty was in-fashion at the time in London.

xp gyac yeah HoC was great, the ending of the first series is so entertaining. (2nd and 3rd series probably unnecessary but still fun.) I heard the US Netflix version slows everything down and takes a few years to go to that point lol

...not a fan of big pages filled with scrawled cursive, but let's see how it goes...

Some Iain Sinclair / Peter Ackroyd influence in the air too, perhaps, mid 90s onwards.

And V for Vendetta too, obvs.

People always say the series starts slow but I have never thought this.

This was definitely the case for me when I first read this in the '90s, in fact reading the first issue almost put me off of reading the rest of the series. By the time I got to the Inivisibles, the first couple of trades had come out. I was an anarchist/activist, into techno and drum'n'bass and rap, and I was under the impression this series would be exactly for someone like me, but then the first issue has... John Lennon and several pages of some psychedelic bullshit prose accompanied by similarly hippie imagery. I was like, fuck that boomer shit, but thankfully I did continue reading it, and issue 2 was already much better. But judging by the first issue it definitely didn't feel like the sort of zeitgeisty "this is '90s" comic that it had the reputation of being.

Issue ends with Dane being abandoned again - the next part of it is on.

This interesting, because a later storyline involving Boy has a very obvious criticism of V for Vendetta's idea of forcing someone to have an anarchist enlightenment through cruel manipulation, as Morrison (quite accurately) understands that forcibly pushing someone into anarchism goes against the very idea of it. Yet here the Invisibles cell is doing almost the same to Dane... Did Morrison's own ideas regarding this change between this and the later story, or are we to think the Invisibles are wrong to treat Dane like this?

The series ultimately (and fairly explicitly) lands on option b. Forces of control inhabit each end of the spectrum.

Also, the very first page of the very first issue seems to imply this is sort of a circular story, where in the end we return to the beginning, so I was waiting for the series to end like that. But as far as I can tell, the actual ending has little to do with the beginning, the line of the story is continously rising and not a circle that returns to itself... Unless we accept the interpretation that the entire story is the virtual reality video game King Mob developed in the final issue, and the ending of that issue is the ending of the first playthrough, after which you can return to the beginning and play it again on a harder difficulty?

(xpost)

About Barbelith: Morrison has admitted that some parts of Doom Patrol bled into this series, with Ragged Robin being an alternate version of Crazy Jane... So with that in mind, Barbelith also seems to be a variation of the similar shape Rebis sees in Doom Patrol when they have their final enlightenment. But what that is supposed to tell us about the connections between the two series, I have no idea.

Or actually I do have sort of a universal theory of how every one of Morrison major DC works are connected to each other, dunno if I've shared it here?

morrison was explicitly trying to make the dc universe literally a self-aware magickal entity in his superhero run iirc but i'd be interested to hear your theory for sure

i still haven't started my invisibles re-read but my current theory is that morrison's chaos magick 'every reader must have a wank to save the series' ritual did indeed save the series but unfortunately it created qanon as a side-effect

Okay, I posted this a long time ago on TVTropes.org, so I'm just gonna copy-paste it from there... I'll put it in spoiler tags, cos it has spoilers for All-Star Superman, Seven Soldiers, and DC One Million:

Almost all of Morrison's DC works are tied to each other, as well to the real world, forming a big "Morrisonverse". Here's how it goes: In All-Star Superman Superman creates the infant universe Qwewq. In JLA we see the heroes discover (a version of) Qwewq. Both in ASS and in JLA: Confidential we see that Qwewq actually contains "our" Earth, i.e. a realistic Earth with no superheroes. The final Morrison-penned issues of Doom Patrol and Animal Man take place in a realistic world with no superheroes (and they both share the same colour scheme, meaning it's the same world in both), which is presumably Qwewq, i.e. "our" world.

In Seven Soldiers we find out the ultimate fate of Qwewq (or at least one version of it). Final Crisis (which takes place in the same universe as JLA) refers to Bleed (the "sea" that separates different universes in the DC multiverse) as "ultramenstruum", and the same term is used is The Invisibles, implying that the Invisibles universe is a part of the larger DC multiverse. If we accept that Qwewq is "our" universe, this means our universe exists inside a larger universe populated by superheroes. Both Flex Mentallo and The Filth feature the "real" world to which superheroes from outside this world burst in; thus, the real world in both these comics could be (a version of) Qwewq. Lastly it also seems that DC One Million takes place in the future of All Star Superman as Solaris and Kal Kent appear and happens to be the story of how Superman ended up having to fix the sun.

Or to sum up just the Invisibles connection: in Final Crisis Morrison calls the Bleed (the space between alternate universes created by Warren Ellis) "ultramenstruum", which is the same term Invisibles uses about the weird floating mirror substance we see several times, which would imply the Invisibles universe is one of the alternate universes in the DC multiverse.

Whoop's I messed up the spoiler tags there...

The first few issues still give me "CBBC 5.05pm drama, but with much more swearing and violence" vibes. There was talk of a BBC Scotland adaptation, if I remember right?

The series ultimately (and fairly explicitly) lands on option b. Forces of control inhabit each end of the spectrum.

i still haven't started my invisibles re-read but my current theory is that morrison's chaos magick 'every reader must have a wank to save the series' ritual did indeed save the series but unfortunately it created qanon as a side-effect

― you are like a scampicane, there's calm in your fries (bizarro gazzara), Monday, September 21, 2020 8:09 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Plus the thing where we never escaped/must constantly relive 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4__NWrfejTg&t=194

The first few issues still give me "CBBC 5.05pm drama, but with much more swearing and violence" vibes.

There's more than a passing similarity (specifically, the focus on am underground "magipunk" world hidden beneath real London) between the first storyline and Gaiman's Neverwhere, which was a BBC drama first. Maybe the BBC commissioned Gaiman to do something similar to Invisibles, but more feasible for TV?

Otm, Dane going back to Liverpool and Boy leaving are both fairly explicitly about this in their separate ways. I don’t think that Fanny’s recruitment (while she’s recovering from assault and bleeding) is portrayed neutrally either. John-a-Dreams recruiting her at her lowest point has always sat uneasily

The problem here is that Mister Six is supposed to have been enlightened beyond the Invisibles/Archons dichotomy, yet he seems to be a part of the plan for Dane, or at least does nothing to stop it? This is one of the reasons why I feel Morrison changed his mind about the Invisibles and their moral justification at some point.

There's more than a passing similarity (specifically, the focus on an underground "magipunk" world hidden beneath real London) between the first storyline and Gaiman's Neverwhere, which was a BBC drama first. Maybe the BBC commissioned Gaiman to do something similar to Invisibles, but more feasible for TV?

Sorry, I didn't notice Nhex already mentioned this connection upthread.

Plus the thing where we never escaped/must constantly relive 2012

well, yeah

promethea also goes full 2012 apocalypse at the end iirc, it was def in the air for comics' two magick uncles

Didn't they both get the 2012 date from the Mayan calendar entering a new cycle in that year? IIRC that was explicitly referenced in the Invisibles?

yeah, the mayan calendar ended on 21/12/2012, as did our reality

sorry to break it to you like this but we've been living in hell ever since

Mods please ban Tuomas

?

I will be posting my thoughts on the first two issues of The Invisibles early this week!

Can’t wait to catch up on the thread and see what people are saying about those first two issues of The Invisibles

I’m going to *not* do a dump of some random thoughts from here on our and, delving into both the guides published for the series and my own thoughts, avoid plot summary as well. But for today..

#1/#2 of the first series of The Invisibles

The Invisibles starts off with a bang. Well, multiple acts of violence. There’s the feeling that, given the need for a punchy intro issue Grant Morrison front-loaded the confrontation into the beginning,

This gets dialed back, and put into retrospect (to great effect) later. But the ideas are unsubtle at the start. Morrison’s strength is in his cultivation of ideas. Interviewed, he’s claimed that he has a story he’s returned to, all the way from cheap licensed properties he wrote at the beginning of his career. Alluded to in this thread, he reiterates and builds. There are a lot of pieces in the beginning here, that seem like one-offs, that he returns to later in the series. The best reader of Grant Morrison is Grant Morrison, and it’s not as much a Chekhov’s gun situation as it is an intentional building on prior work.

The Dead Beetles title is literal and figurative. I feel that Lennon-as-godhead is part of a thought cloud of ideas riffing on the title. The scarab pushing the orb comes first: The scarab being the titular beetle, the introduction of Dane as Liverpudlian follows as a character origin. It takes Morrison until the next issue to give Dane a voice of reason friend on the street who’s from Glasgow — author insert? King Mob/GM fusion isn’t evident yet. Morrison loves conceptual zeitgeist/rock figures as embodiments of orgone energy or cosmic fulcrum. Lennon is.. the dead be(e/a)tle!

When I first read the series, I was irritated by Dane at this point. He’s the kid with completely justifiable impulses to lash out, with a sympathetic teacher he can’t hear, and a judge who says all the right things within a system he’ll never listen to — with reason — because it’s never done shit for him. Ironically, the first words of the Harmony House administrator, who we then see is serving evil, are right. He’s the square peg they’ll shape into fitting in that round spot, but it’s the Invisibles who will be doing it. But with kindness (really?), as in the second issue we get to..

Tom. Tom’s much more sympathetic with every reading, (And so we return, to begin again) as the character most in tune with the world as it is. He introduces us to magic as it exists, the will to understand the world as it can be and accept that what happened was the results of your incantations. Abandoned tube stations as sanctuary, constructed totems, mold as cosmic hallucinogen. Is it really magic, or is it Dane accepting that scrapings from a dusky wall is a drug to take him beyond? It’s both, I’d say.

The magic of monarchy and ancient ritual are both accepted and ridiculed throughout the series and the faux-fox hunt, with the as-yet-unnamed introduction of Sir Miles are a bit cliche and heavy-handed as they escape a literal hunt of the homeless.

The ending with the hinted-at but unintroduced Invisibles posing as the hunters at the end is another incident of parallelism between the purported villains and our yet-to-be-introduced team. We’re the good guys, and we’re doing this as a hazing ritual! We’re not the good guys. The series will draw nuance later, but at this point the differences between the Invisibles and their not-yet-named adversaries are vague. We’re fucking with you, but.. for good!

"And so we return and begin again" was semi-nicked 20 years later for The Wicked and the Divine, which is actually the only time since then that I can (probably faultily) remember a creator doing the "I've written stuff before and I'll write stuff again but this is The Big Work"

The first time I read this, in early 2007, I had never been to London. The first time I went was a few months later, after reading this, and until after I'd moved over here a couple of years later, I had never seen homeless people with the regularity that you do in this issue.

I can't honestly remember whether I went to New York or London first but when I'd been to both I was struck by the fact that the homeless population in NY had a much larger percentage of people with (obvious) mental issues - this is no longer the case, and not because NY's gotten any better :/

The first cover is by Rian Hughes, who presumably designed the font for the creator names that continues into cover 2, which is I think the first time I saw Sean Phillips' painted work? It's fucking beautiful. Hughes will also have done the Invisibles / Streisand logo?

I remember hearing the theory that Tom was a time-shifted Dane, at the time.

"Urizen, deadly black in chains bound" is from Blake of course, and reminds me of the giants of London bit in Heaven, the last track in Alan Moore's piece about Blake.

There's no letters for the letters page yet of course (when did the practice of sending out samples early to get some kind words in?), so in the first two issues we get two-and-a-half doses of Morrison as the kid's version of a Very Exciting, Grown-Up, taking drugs and chances in Tahiti and Kathmandu and New Zealand - the half is because he got to share the On The Ledge column with J M DeMatteis (before he was using his comics as telephone boxes to stick up his guru's card in).

(I'd forgotten that he was pulling the Brett Anderson "heterosexual (with possible latent homosexual tendencies)" line here)

On the other hand:

THE INVISIBLES is what I'm going to be concentrating on for the foreseeable future, and I think I've at last found a concept wide-ranging enough to accommodate all the ideas I've had which would otherwise be spread through a succession of one-shot books and specials. Although we have a core group of characters, anyone can belong to or oppose the Invisibles, giving me the opportunity to tell stories ranging across time and genre, stories that will eventually come together and be revealed as one large-scale, shimmeringly holographic tapestry. Generally, the longer stories will feature the activities of our five principal players, while one shots will explore the lives of various ordinary and extraordinary folk drawn into a web of conspiracy that extends from the back streets of your home town to the dark blue-green planet circling Alpha Centauri and beyond, out past the horizon of the spacetime supersphere itself. This is the comic I've wanted to write all my life--a comic about everything: action, philosophy, paranoia, sex, magic, biography, travel, drugs, religion, UFOs... you can make your own list. And when it reaches its conclusion, somewhere down the line, I promise to reveal who runs the world, why our lives are the way they are and exactly what happens to us when we die.

very very sign me up

Week 2: Vol 1, issue 3, Down and Out in Heaven and Hell, Part 2; issue 4, Down And Out In Heaven And Hell Part 3; issue 5, Arcadia, pt 1: Bloody Poetry

https://i.imgur.com/QyXzMtE.jpg

"Even your life doesn't belong to you." That's what King Mob says as the rest of the cell disappears into the dark, and it's true, isn't it? The only way to be free is to fight against the outer Church and everything, but you can't do it alone and that comes with obligations.

"Nobody's got a good word for the younger generation nowadays but all they need's the threat of death to get them going." Whether it's the past or the future, Freddie/Tom has always been funny.

I've always loved London pigeons, diseased and stupid as they are, so Tom telling Jack to leave them alone is one of my small favourite pieces of this issue. :) I used to take photos/videos of unusual or strange looking pigeons when I was in London every day, they are everywhere and nowhere at once. You see them perching on anti-bird spikes and wobbling down bus lanes obliviously. Stupid, endearing birds!

Also, I just realised that park they're in is St James's Park.

"All my teachings are on this level of consciousness and that's why you can't remember where all the time has gone." I had never thought about this line before, it always flickered past me like taxi lights in the dark. How long has passed?

"When you dream, what makes you think it's not real?" - lol, this is one of the most obvious bits ripped off by The Matrix early on.

I get such an ache rereading the scene at St Dunstan's-in-the-East, because the look in Tom's eyes as he sees himself and Edie pass by in the past kills me. Both Toms quote the same part of King Lear.

Lol when Jack says he can't be arsed by any more walking around - in this issue they've gone from St James's Park to Tower Bridge to St Dunstan's in the East to Cleopatra's Needle which is about 2 hours. More or less a straight line down the river in both directions.

Dane's awakening is always very moving to me, water-based rebirths are such a cliche but this one really got to me.

Sorry I'm late doing this today, if I don't post 4&5 today it'll be tomorrow!

The ending with the hinted-at but unintroduced Invisibles posing as the hunters at the end is another incident of parallelism between the purported villains and our yet-to-be-introduced team.

The bizarrely didn’t fix that in the trades or omnibus!

Rereading issues #3 and #4 made me feel even stronger about what I mentioned earlier in this thread: Dane is being gaslighted, almost brainwashed into accepting the Invisibles' agenda. First King Mob's cell abandons him to live on the streets for months, then when he's at his lowest point, Tom comes along to give him a new ideology that makes him feel like he has a purpose and place in the world. The most damning bit here is the Invisibles masquerading as the hunters: what other purpose does it serve than gaslighting?

This honestly feels as bad as the V's manipulation of Evey in V for Vendetta that Morrison criticises later in The Invisibles, yet Dane's conversion here is depicted as a completely positive thing. I honestly feel Morrison changed his mind about the morality of the whole thing later on.

There's a clear colouring error on the last page of issue #2, when we first see the Invisibles-disguised-as-hunters: both Boy and Fanny are coloured to be as white as Robin and King Mob.

This isn't remotely true, though? Boy is clearly darker than Fanny (which has always been the case quite apart from her fondness for makeup) who is clearly darker than Robin - if there's a colouring error then it's on King Mob.

I'm genuinely not sure if you've spotted this, but the gent he tries to sell a Big Issue to in #2 is the only non-Invisible person he talks to all issue. For good or ill, he's not been abandoned.

(he = Dane there, sorry)

Yeah, I know the Invisibles are still keeping an eye on him, but they have let him live as a homeless person for months instead of taking him in because... he needs to suffer to understand their viewpoint, or something? And on top of that they dress up as the hunters and torment him, because he needs to see how the enemy is? Even though it's not the enemy but his supposed comrades? How does that make any sense?

This isn't remotely true, though? Boy is clearly darker than Fanny (which has always been the case quite apart from her fondness for makeup) who is clearly darker than Robin - if there's a colouring error then it's on King Mob.

Coloring error might be in the reprints? There isn't a huge degree of variance in the original issue but it's there.

The most striking thing to me about these three is how much I'm not into it - if you'd asked me I'd have said oh yeah, the buildup is great but once we get to King Mob in captivity that's when things really take off.

That's interesting - for me, the series takes off when we get Fanny's backstory and picks up speed here. I really enjoy the capture-rescue storyline and the wide cast of characters drawn into it, and it's got some of my favourite scenes.

A lot of that is just how really badly the Gideon Stargrave stuff has aged - I know Morrison frames it as "this is the kind of trash that you'd build up as a baffle for psychic interrogation" but he's also his own proud mum putting it on the fridge - and getting Phil Jimenez to illustrate it!

Yeah, there's a lot going on here & irl lol at "putting it on the fridge" - great way to put it. Basically it's GM's id in some ways, y/n?

He's quoting an actual handbook - I also like that the lighting for his first appearance makes his face look like a mask.

The scene with Mary Brown is amazing alright - it reminds me a little of the stenographers in the film Brazil, and I think you could argue it serves as a critique of the idea of just being kind to everyone as a way of life.

Which factors back into Audrey Murray. I've never seen Brazil but I should, it seems like it ticks off a lot of interests for me.

I can't think of Miss Dwyer without picturing Priti Patel, no lie.

Week 9, vol 1, issue 21: Liverpool and issue 22: House of Fun

Well now.

https://i.imgur.com/hoTG8UX.jpg

Jack turns up at his mate Billy's house carrying Tom's bag and after having cut his hair with kitchen scissors or something.

Billy's weird twisted half-pose looks like he's doing the time travel moves. I agree with Dane, it's annoying as fuck when people won't sit down.

"When did I stop?" When he was with Tom, I think?

The way Dane brags about Boy to Billy compared with how he actually acts around her in reality...sad lol. But he's still sharp enough to notice Billy's suspiciously nice lighter.

We travel back to Dane's time with Tom, and all the things Tom left him with which will come to the forefront of Dane's consciousness in this and the next few issues. We see Dane and Tom both plummet, but Dane falls through space into Barbelith, which breaks his fall. Barbelith calls Dane a "lost one."

Billy has a new stereo too and tons of CDs, including Jim Crow's band Root Doctaz. Dane is naturally suspicious of this, but Billy, doing the near-identical nervous twist, tells him it's fine. Dane has flashes of memory from his time with Barbelith; the Invisible Academy, illuminated in green, then back in the present he starts talking about the things he's done before waving a gun at Billy.

Dane trails off into sullen silence as Billy gets the door but something - his natural suspicion, something Tom taught him? - makes it click just in time.
https://i.imgur.com/Bv3B9bf.png

The cops burst in just in time to see Dane racing away from the flat having shinned down the drainpipe.

Mr Six! In a newsagent! Is he too deep in the role of Mr Malcolm to not be caught totally flatfooted, cos Dane gets away from him luightning quick!

Dane's with his mother.

"Doctor Who shite about space aliens and fucking time machines and fuck knows what else."

The masks in the background remind me of the Harlequinade.
https://i.imgur.com/tiJ2zWJ.png
Dane is trying to explain things to his mother but she doesn't understand and gets angry with him.

"Oh Jesus Christ, love. What's been happening to you?"

This is the first time Dane's seen his mother since Tom stripped away the layers he built onto himself to prevent himself feeling anything. His mother doesn't understand, because she's still got hers, but Dane reaching out to her manages to touch her anyway (she is his mother after all).

Dane is back with Barbelith, which tells him that he created it. There follows some extremely Catholic imagery - he is trying to prise the nails from Christ on the cross. In the present, he cuddles up to his mother and cries like he's never learned to forget how. All his mother can do is pet his hair, as though he's her baby again, and try to listen.

https://i.imgur.com/o0Jfcxk.png
I really like this panel of the two of them, Dane clinging and soft, but his mother's eyes fixed on the door are hard and her mouth is set. Dane (wrongly) thinks she's sold him out too, but it's just Mr Six come to save Dane, although Dane doesn't yet understand this either.

"I'll wipe the fucking floor with him if he starts anything!" And you suspect she would too.

Tom's magic pops up in Dane's conscious mind, just when he needs it most. "Totep." And all the windows go and the building cracks.

Boy shows up just in time to knock down one of the coppers who's not been knocked out - the one with a metal plate in his head.

https://i.imgur.com/3ocyHjw.png
"Except wake up, I guess," always amuses me.

Dane asks Boy why should he care, and then Barbelith, surfacing in his consciousness once more, tells him (and us). As above, so below.

Dane has already decided to go with Boy by the time she's making her case. The issue ends with Dane asking "are we going or aren't we?" So the band is getting back together, finally! It's been like 13 issues!

https://i.imgur.com/ASUqf0z.jpg

Everyone looks glam on this cover, ngl.

Jim Crow and Ragged Robin are outside the creepy joke shop. Maybe all joke shops are creepy by default and that's redundant phrasing? The vibes are bad enough that Robin's vomiting everywhere.

We go straight to the source - the King-of-all-Tears and Miss Dwyer. "Death-prayers and obscene rosaries...The world sickens and begins to change." Ok, he lays it on with a trowel here, but you do feel the dread!

Fanny is trying to get King Mob up, but he's in a dreadful state and is having difficulty. Fanny perceives it first.

"There's something in here with us. Something that shouldn't be in the world."

Fanny has to drag King Mob down the widening corridor because he can't walk.

Outside, Robin has been to the shop. On the list:
https://i.imgur.com/ggqqeP8.png

Now we see the payoff from issue 10 and Jim's debut - we already know how he works with Guedhe and the things he can do.

Robin has to spit the rum into Jim's eyes to help ensure Guedhe comes, and does he?
https://i.imgur.com/6RTASQ2.png

Does he ever.

Fanny is panicking because they're developing little growths on their bodies and they don't know why. At King Mob's request, they go back into the room where Sir Miles is. You get a quick reminder that Frankland is dead - unnecessary but nonetheless welcome.

Our crew quickly realise Sir Miles is immune to whatever's happening to them. Sir Miles clues them in quick, they're getting cancer because of the nanomachines the archons use to reconfigure the environment for themselves.

Weak as he is, King Mob realises what the solution is.

"Who'd have thought we'd end up...blood brothers, Sir Miles?"

Outside, Jim and Robin have finally got their way inside the shop with the help of Guedhe.

Flashback to a few hours ago in Liverpool, where Dane is saying goodbye to his mam for the last time.

https://i.imgur.com/4YG18zZ.png
I've always really liked this panel; the lack of colour and the tiny scale makes it look as unreal and meaningless as the normal world now is to Dane.

Outside the shop, Dane also feels the bad vibes coming off the place, but there's nothing to be done but go in.

Fanny and King Mob are watching their tumours disappear, before Miss Dwyer bursts in and King Mob shoots at her with what are pretty decent reflexes given his condition. I really like the weary resigned look on Sir Miles's face as he says "That was my...superior. That was Miss Dwyer."

Ah no. The Mary Brown scene. I've written about the earlier one a bit upthread, but this one is always a hard reread for me. We are spared from seeing her final fate by the closeup of the dead insect eyes of Miss Dwyer's 4D armour, but it's horrific.

In the next scene, Jim/Guedhe remarks that somebody just "died bad". But Guedhe/Jim is laughing at the skulls and horror paraphernalia all over the place. It doesn't reassure Robin much, because zombies that have hijacked the bodies of soldiers come shambling towards them.

Robin uses her nanobot bracelet!

Back with Sir Miles who is grimly telling Fanny and King Mob they can't hope to win. KM collapses and Fanny goes to him, calling him "Gideon", which is interesting. A reminder of how young Fanny/Hilde still is.

Boy and Mr Six are separated from Jack. They're beside an abscess in reality and Jack is running through God knows where. And suddenly he breaks through to meet the King-of-all-Tears.

https://i.imgur.com/JstRBL6.png

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.

I have a very high opinion of Brazil, but I don't think I've seen it since moving to the UK - it's one of those things where I don't think there's anything specifically terrible (some "lol rich women are vain" is all I can think of) but I'd still be a little nervous.

SIGH

This is not the venue for your Tory ws of shame!

The Boy issue is a weird one, partly because in the context of the Invisibles, Boy stands out as the 'normal' one - she has no magic / sufficiently advanced technology - and so neither does her origin story. In the framework from the last few standalones, there's a lot that happens here because it's assumed that everyone already speaks the language of US cop show.

I say there's no magic but there's still the same questions about backstory and twists - how long is "all this time we've been partners", is it just co-incidence that it's the invisibling of his partner that's the upshot of all of this? See also: how long had Mister Six been Big Malkie?

And "is it just coincidence?" is the eternal question of the conspiracy theorist (or rather "no" is the eternal answer) - one angle hinted at here is that for decades conspiracy theory belief was higher in African Americans than the rest of the population, partly because a lot of conspiracy theory-ish stuff did happen - there was a Black Wall Street, and the government did bomb it. I'm just guessing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the racial pendulum has swung back in the last 4-5 years. There's a passage from Grant Morrison in the letter column of #18 bigging up Paradox Press's Big Book of Conspiracy Theories, which I wish I still had a copy of.

I hadn't intended this to be topical, but I see that the idea of anything to see in Pat Finucane's death is also now a conspiracy theory.

Oh and some stuff from Anarchy for the masses on How I Became Invisible:

Apparently the W.A.S.T.E sign in the background when Oscar and Lucille are in the diner is a reference to Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, which "will influence the the second Boy arc" - does this mean I have to go read some Pynchon? I haven't got on with him since the mandatory first 100 pages of Gravity's Rainbow 30 years ago.

The guy on the street rambling is telling the truth in his way, but Lucille doesn't hear it. But there's a reason his words have stuck with her six years later.

Apparently this fellow bears a resemblance in body and spirit to Philip K Dick - I might need to read Valis at some point (or I might just rewatch a Scanner Darkly and fake it)

That's Mister Six watching the journal burn, on his own way up to Liverpool.

The commentary claims that Eezy D as well as Oscar is an Invisible, but I'm not convinced - as per above, I don't think you need to be incepted into a secret order to see shit if you and yours are at the sharp end of it.

Liverpool!

For some reason I like Paul Johnson's art here more than the previous Dane issue - you get the impression that he's under harsh interrogation-room lighting the whole way, unable to really relax - the cover brings out some of this (and is also just amazing Sean Phillips work, the fact that the same guy did this and the Sheman covers and the next three that we have coming up..!)

It's really rough on him too - one of the problems with any kind of superheroes in that they end up estranged from the people that they're doing it 'for' and this is the episode that he feels the punch of that. He gets a pretty solidly hitting vision as well, one that the others won't have (although, if King Mob is Polish...)

"Except wake up, I guess," always amuses me.

Yeah, me too.

Week 10, vol 1, issue 23: The Last Temptation of Jack, and issue 24: Good-Bye Baby Rabbits

I miiiiiight do 25 later today just to finish the volume off and resume with Volume 2 in the New Year?

https://i.imgur.com/jnA9PvI.jpg
I hadn't noticed before doing this, but the covers of 22-23-24 all fit together, bookended by Fanny. Not sure how I feel about Boy being relegated to the background of 24 though, especially as she's the mirror for Jim Crow on 22? Maybe it foreshadows her Volume 2 role a bit?

Anyway.

We know Jack doesn't die because the issue opens in 2012, with him recounting this story to a homeless man he's got cradled in his arms. This is an old friend of his who calls him Dane.

Mr Six's way of twirling his eyes out of their sockets is terrifying! And to do it with all those horrors rampaging about too.

Mr Six is clearly as powerful as has been hinted at; he tells Boy to stay close to him unless she wants cancer. Boy is freaked but not too freaked out not to snark baxk with "Right. Funny I don't remember that from the 'How To Date Boys' book." Ha!

Fanny is still calling King Mob Gideon. I think Fanny is so far the only character we've seen break code like this, right? Sir Miles is watching Miss Dwyer and taunting that King Mob is dead. It's all going to shit, isn't it?

And then there's Jack.

Tom's Tesco bag contains a box of cigarette ends, which Jack crumbles and scatters around him in a circle. We get this delightful reflection:
https://i.imgur.com/MbhYiGr.png
This magic is no different from ToTEP in issue 21. Jack believed in it, so it was. And so it is here too.

He protects himself from the King-of-all-Tears, but the King can still touch his mind. And so he does.

"Put your money where your fucking mouth is, dickhead." This reminds me of King Mob at the beginning of Vol 2 responding to Roger saying Jack might be the Buddha, "if the Buddha grew up poor in Liverpool and swore a lot, he might be a bit like Jack."

Jim Crow is tickled by the zombies and jokes about Mickey Mouse being scarier, but Robin's not so comfortable. Jim dispatches them with the zozo gun and asks Robin how she's doing. "This is great. It's just like watching a film." One that she wrote, perhaps.

https://i.imgur.com/IaOJ8F7.png
Jack tells us some more about how the Archons work, which we've already seen a bit of with Mary Brown.

Flashback to Dane's youthful love with Crystal Quinn, back in Liverpool. This reminds me of Tom O' Bedlam breaking through the walls built around himself when Dane thinks "You couldn't love your mum and dad. Not really. You couldn't love your mates or you'd just be a poof. The only person you were really allowed to love was your girlfriend." The King-of-all-Tears finds this tale of youthful heartbreak, and within it Dane's ache for love and to be loved, and pulls it out and confronts him with it.

Miss Dwyer is running rampant in the room with Fanny and King Mob.

Back to Dane's memories. As he marks the permanent record of his love on the bus windows, he sees Crystal pass by outside on the arm of an older man. You can hear his heart shatter in real time.

Crystal rubs salt in the wound when she snaps that the other guy "at least knows what to do."

Here the King-of-all-Tears invents a cruel twist in the story out of whole cloth, and that's where it tries to hit Jack hardest. That's where Barbelith comes in.

https://i.imgur.com/SYs1tWw.png
That's Barbelith there on his forehead, like an inoculation scar protecting him from the King-of-all-Tears's attempt to shit on his soul.

"We made it to save us," Jack says, and he means humanity here, rather than himself?

Now we skip forward to the far future, where 70 year old Dane is dying in hospital. I appreciate the casual reference to him being "pre-Jack", which in this context I read as some sort of technological leap forward? Anyway, him dying just as he's struggling to tell the doctors to fuck off is funny and hilariously in character, especially as one of them then remarks, "Good timing, huh? Pub's open in ten minutes."

Next Dane is confronted by the soldier he killed while escaping from the windmill. Shades of Last Man Fall on fast forward.

The next vision is the most convincing, with Boy and Mr Six. I think it's really notable that it's these two - Boy who Jack fancies, who taught him to fight, and Mr Six, who he definitely listened to in school even if he affected otherwise.

Older Dane is the most convincing, mainly because most of what he's saying is true!
https://i.imgur.com/tlj0y5y.png

Outside, Jim's overpowered the ghouls and zombies. And then Jim, who misses nothing, asks Robin about what year she was born. Time traveller confirmed!
https://i.imgur.com/e1wbBUz.png

Dane is seeing the entirety of existence written before him, far from the joke shop and the King-of-all-Tears.

"I even knew what 'Manichaean' meant."

Mr Six loses sight of Dane, but he and Boy have more pressing problems as the abscess continues to grow, spewing giant maggots and other obscenities. Onto the next one!

https://i.imgur.com/rI4soKn.jpg
Again, everyone is very glam on the cover. Robin's half-hidden face foreshadows her Volume 2 storyline.

King Mob's voice comes through the dark - temporary telepathy. Direct line to Fanny's head. And King Mob has an idea. Just in time too, as Miss Dwyer has Fanny bound and at her mercy and Fanny's panicking. And the plan is Key 17.

Robin and Jim are approaching the room where it's all happening and the vibes? Are extremely bad. I really enjoy her sulk here.
https://i.imgur.com/6XopFIP.png

Mr Six knows what he has to do because what you always have to do in these kinds of stories is make a sacrifice to seal the abscess. Boy can't stand it and she collapses, and it's tearing at the very fabric of Mr Six himself. And he battles through the horrors to know what he has to do.

Barbelith brings Jack back from bliss, and he's not happy about it. But there is, after all, still work to do.

"I am not the god of your fathers," it tells Jack sternly, "I am the hidden stone and break all hearts." It tells him the Archons must withdraw if he knows their names and that he must remember.

In the abscess room, Mr Six is battling to stay upright. And we learn how long he's been undercover and how deep as he sacrifices his Brian Malcolm cover identity.
https://i.imgur.com/eQoVWKS.png

In the other room, King Mob asks Fanny to hit Miss Dwyer with a sigil to make her drop her armour, and Sir Miles realises too late (isn't he a telepath?!) what's happening. Fanny hits her hard, and King Mob gets the space he needs to inject her with the Key 17.

Miss Dwyer starts to say an outer church 'prayer' meant to strike them both down with "pure sonic cancer", but King Mob uses the last of his strength to whack her upside with the rifle. And screams desperately for Fanny to write something, anything. And, panicking, Fanny is struck with inspiration.

https://i.imgur.com/wpGRatg.png
Whose mug is that anyway? Frankland's or just one of the random ones you have knocking around office kitchens? I hope the latter.

Jack is with the King-of-all-Tears and he's not afraid to leave the circle, because he knows the truth he needs to win. He knows the King-of-all-Tears's real name. This is a potent power in any manner of fairy tales, from Rumplestiltskin to

Jack's stupefied face reminds me of when they time travel back to revolutionary France and surprise the Invisible there, and King Mob says "somehow it's always a shock when it works, isn't it?"

The King-of-all-Tears withdrawing dismantles the reality he brought with him, and things start to change back. Only one question. "Who is telling this and to whom?"

Jim finds King Mob and Fanny. King Mob is rapidly bleeding out, but Jim only has eyes for Miss Dwyer. "Only one for death today."

Some of this imagery comes back when Colonel Friday takes Quimper to the Outer Church. It's all pretty horrific and this and Miss Dwyer's reconstruction/armour mskes it clear how much the process of modification demands from a person.

Jack comes up to the group in the hall, and his experience with Barbelith has changed him. He knows what to do to save King Mob.

I really enjoy how awed everyone is and then Jack telling them to shut the fuck up, lol.

"Come on! Get off your arse and help us here!" And King Mob lives.

King Mob is gloating about tearing Sir Miles's aura off so much that he doesn't notice Jack going and putting it back. Sir Miles is shocked, and Jack tells him "Nobody knows what I am."

Jim says he'll get them out of the country and their story continues in Vol 2! As for Vol 1, we have Division X next (my faves) and I'll do that one tomorrow I think.

Andrew, I'll respond to you then later.

And here's me thinking I might catch up. Nice one on getting it back on schedule!

Everyone looks glam on this cover, ngl.

Yeah, but denim and a nipple ring?

KM on this cover reminds me of the interview with Steve Yeowell in Anarchy for the Masses for issue 4, where they were asking him "how do you feel about others drawing your designs?" and he basically said well that's the job, but also he was a little disappointed that King Mob lost the slight East-Asian caste that he'd given him - but that maybe that hadn't actually come across in the art.

The Mary Brown scene is pretty grim - rereading I realise that I'm not sure that when it says 'before SHE hatches with them' whether it means Mary or Miss Dwyer? I don't think the second one makes sense with the second 'SHE'?

You can get pretty far with voodoo, but you can get further with voodoo and the secret voodoo boot!

There's a figure that keep recurring in the just-outside backgrounds - page 12 panel 4, page 6 panel 3 maybe page 7 panel 1 - and I can't tell if it's supposed to be meaningful, or Steve Yeowell just likes drawing people with short hair.

I've always really liked this panel; the lack of colour and the tiny scale makes it look as unreal and meaningless as the normal world now is to Dane.

Yeah, but it also reminds me of a framed photo - whatever about her (very justifiably!) freaking out just before, this is the bit that he'll carry with him.

I'm fond of the massively distorted moustache of Mister Six in Page 23 panel 2.

The letter column starts 'GRANT MORRISON IS DEAD' because it's by Mark Millar, roped in to do it because Grant Morrison is very unwell, with a punctured lung, pneumonia, and a fungal parasite. He (Millar) has a lot of fun with it: a letter that just reads 'Grant, you are just fucking brilliant' gets a response that reads 'I wish I got letters like this', and one that provides a multiple choice question on who Gideon Stargrave is gets 'Gideon Stargrave is Grant Morrison with a girlfriend, cool clothes and no stammer'. I have a lot of time for this-period Mark Millar - he was writing the second best run of Swamp Thing at the same time.

The Boy issue is a weird one, partly because in the context of the Invisibles, Boy stands out as the 'normal' one - she has no magic / sufficiently advanced technology - and so neither does her origin story. In the framework from the last few standalones, there's a lot that happens here because it's assumed that everyone already speaks the language of US cop show.

I say there's no magic but there's still the same questions about backstory and twists - how long is "all this time we've been partners", is it just co-incidence that it's the invisibling of his partner that's the upshot of all of this? See also: how long had Mister Six been Big Malkie?

And "is it just coincidence?" is the eternal question of the conspiracy theorist (or rather "no" is the eternal answer) - one angle hinted at here is that for decades conspiracy theory belief was higher in African Americans than the rest of the population, partly because a lot of conspiracy theory-ish stuff did happen - there was a Black Wall Street, and the government did bomb it. I'm just guessing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the racial pendulum has swung back in the last 4-5 years. There's a passage from Grant Morrison in the letter column of #18 bigging up Paradox Press's Big Book of Conspiracy Theories, which I wish I still had a copy of.

I hadn't intended this to be topical, but I see that the idea of anything to see in Pat Finucane's death is also now a conspiracy theory.

I mean, show Michael Gove a button marked 'memory hole this immediately"... But yeah, it was a tenuous link.

Invisibles Live

This is what it’s like living in Windsor. You go for a walk in the morning and find grown men parading down the high street in fancy dress pic.twitter.com/zBt0Up35XJ

— Chris Morris (@thatqueerchris) December 14, 2020

Anyway, on to the last two regular issues, and I'm delighted but not surprised that they're as good as I remember - the only real criticism is that for a "bringing the whole team back together" story, Robin and Boy don't actually do anything? The same page that Robin turns on her nanomachine bracelet, Jim lets her know that he doesn't need it. They're exposition sponges mostly - but on the plus side I do love hearing GM's exposition gabble.

The framing device in 2012 Liverpool has an establishing shot of the Liver Building - I can confirm that it and its imaginary birds, Bertie and Bella, survived until at least then.

"It's like something out of a film, like a computer simulation, you look at it and it's just so unreal you have to accept it" - this has a resonance for me that it didn't have at the time. Just over 3 years ago now, me and Jen came back to mine, turned the electric blanket on to warm it up, and five minutes later it caught fire. We were in a different room, so it was only when the smoke alarm went that I went to open the bedroom door, and at the corner of the bed where the lead from the socket was, there were three tall narrow flames, straight up. They looked completely unreal - but it turns out it doesn't matter, you still react as you would to 'real' fire.

Completely otm on the link between Crystal being the outlet for Dane's love and the second issue.

I fucking love 'I knew the third word on page fourteen of "The Cat in the Hat" and I knew that it was "fear"'

That's Fanny on the cover triptych twice (though the er sun seems a lot brighter on the last one?)

The line on how the resealed abscess would result in "an anomaly, a haunting, a cold spot" reminds me a lot of Sapphire and Steel.

"Nobody knows what I am" stuck with me a lot.

blows dust off this thing

Hello! Never meant to go so long until updates, but well, life.

Today I'm finishing off volume 1 & will resume with Vol 2's first two issues tomorrow.

Week 11, vol 1, issue 25: 6 and a Half Dozen of the Others

https://i.imgur.com/uKUaisS.jpg

Division X, Division X, Division X! I love the Division X lads A LOT, and none more so than Six.

https://i.imgur.com/LWCGeEm.png
we open with some fairly arresting imagery. The fly on the roulette wheel, which foreshadows the reveal about this woman later (the roulette ball, whuch is moved by someone outside the wheel, is watched over by the disgusting figure of the fly). And yet, we need flies, don't we? They perform an important role in processing waste and all manner of detritus.

Jack is trying to sort out his TV's reception while he talks to George about Father Ted, and how it reminds him of The Third Policeman. George doesn't know either O'Brien or Father Ted, but he does have an anecdote about shooting a one-armed IRA bloke. I really enjoy the rapport between the Division X crew.

Pretty amused by George crediting his youthful looks to Eva Fraser's facial workouts. That concession to modernity aside, our lads have attitudes as embedded in the past as their clothes (and the characters from various 70s police drama they were lifted from).

"I swear by it, I'm shagging birds half my age."
"You always were, you dirty sod."

They chat about Six for a bit, he gets called the third policeman (which I love even more, having read it since the last time I read this series), and just like always happens, Six corrects Flint with one hell of a technicolour entrance.

"The third policeman, eh? Bloody Six..."
"That's 'Mister' to you, Jack."
https://i.imgur.com/NIBFQsG.jpg

George has been throwing darts, but not at a board, and he finishes what he's doing as Six opens some champagne to toast the return of Division X. George "joins the dots", by marking the words formed by his darts. The message is simple: CROWN IT.

Jack curses the evident royal connection that the message seems to imply while George drives, glass of champagne in hand.

They meet their boss, Paddy Crowley ("rhymes with foully") in the joke shop where everything's gone down with Miss Dwyer and the King-of-All-Tears. The normal specislists can't hack it, so Division X have been taken out of storage.

The joke shop looks even more sinister in the light of day; grotesque pig masks, tarantula figures and what looks like a Ku Klux Klan hood in the background.

Crowley has a mysterious jar that has been appropriated from the Prime Minister. The substance in the jar scans and imitates thoughts. Six sees a naked woman, Crowley sees rabbits. Magic or Watership Down?

Cut to a glass-lampshaded room and a group of old women huddled over a ouija board.

The planchette starts moving, to the horror of the scam magician running it, and spells out "you're nicked, my son." As Six says, style never goes out of fashion.

In the bathroom, Flint is engaging in an old-school water-based interrogation. First the shower, then the toilet. The toilet works; Flint starts to get answers. Benny has been asked to help with a shoggoth, and starts gasping out "tekeli-li!" between dunks. Satisfied, Flint leaves after learning the identity of the van driver, but not before telling the old women at the ouija board "Gerald says will you stop bothering him, you grasping old cow. He spent the money on drugs."

Next, the gang confront the van's driver, a National Front psychic who's taken a Masonic oath. A little pressure applied from Flint and Eddie the Wigan Wanker opens up like a face smashed into a wall. Eddie leads them to Quimper, which is where the issue starts. But why, Division X wonder, is there such secrecy around the mirror he was paid to drive down from Scotland?

While waiting for Quimper, they talk about the Invisibles. Again, Six has the best line:
https://i.imgur.com/7zuSgJe.png

George is approached by the woman (Denise) from the start of the issue, who quickly tells him that "they're making the girls do it with aliens...Tracy from in here was half-mad when they found her..." but before she can say much more she's interrupted by Flint and Six returning from questioning Quimper. However, George has a tape Denise has slipped him.
https://i.imgur.com/wjrQJMW.png

Soon, however, they're held at gunpoint for the tape and Flint hands it over, to George's horror. Some quick work by Flint and Six gets them out of there alive, but without the tape.

Back at Division X HQ, Jack reveals he slipped them his Father Ted tape, and he's still got George's.

The tape shows a vampy-looking woman with sharp fingernails having sex with a woman "got up to look like Princess Di," however, the truth is soon revealed, and the woman is revealed as a shoggoth. This loops in to later strands of plot, mainly volume 3.

They return to the club, but Quimper has physically left the premises, leaving only Denise for him to speak through.
https://i.imgur.com/kwUWmTd.png

The envelope reveals the name of Sir Miles Delacourt, our old friend.

"Christ, we've had it. He's untouchable. This goes right to the top," Flint says, with dismay.
"Then, gentlemen, so must we. So must we," Six replies.

On first reading, you're like, how do these guys fit in with everyone else? But on later rereads there's lots revealed earlier than you think or left to simmer for vol 3.

Resuming with vol 2 tomorrow, will reply to previous posts as well!

Thanks for this!

I... don't love the Division X lads? I don't know if it's being male or just a half-generation older, I feel that generation of TV shows as a more solid and malign presence.

That said, while I draw the lines at their social attitudes, I do like a bit of police brutality if it's funny. And I love the idea that a big lad who's into all of the drama of the masons and the NF would also be into other drama in ways unacceptable to that lot.

I love Mark Buckingham, but I swear I saw one of the faces at the séance in Miracleman as well.

the woman is revealed as a shoggoth - I've been reading this as the twist is that she is Diana, and this is the attempt mentioned in #11 to breed a 'better' moon-child.

Two nice catches from Anarchy for the Masses - Quimper is dressed like John-A-Dreams, and the jar with the mysterious green substance appears to be similar to the ones in Harmony House. Also the statue of Churchill that they careen past in their commitment to drunk driving looks like Quimper in profile.

Lads, I'm so fucking bad at this and I can only apologise. The only thing that makes me feel less bad about it is the fact that, with the exception of Andrew F, you are too.

Volume 2!

Week 12, vol 2, issue 1: Black Science, Part One: Bangin' and issue 2: Kickin' (Black Science Part Two)

https://i.imgur.com/s2v9BQC.jpg

This full page reminder of what it's all about is overwhelingly text-heavy to the point I look at it with my 2021, stuck-inside-all-the-time eyes and think "Dr Bronner".
https://i.imgur.com/vWt8GPj.png

I love that the volume opens with Jolly Roger in midair firing both guns. I love Roger a LOT and I will talk more about this as the volume goes on. Volume 2 is the patchiest of the three, but it's got some of my favourite parts, and Roger is a big part of that.

We go to the live context: Roger is fighting for her life in Dulce, New Mexico. If you're a conspiracy type that place already has meaning to you: it's the site of a conspiracy theory about the US government holding aliens and conducting top secret - it's Roswell in the desert basically.

As Boy says later this volume "She's good, that Jolly Roger." And she is. She's carving through the base's soldiers without sweating.

But like all hard women, Roger has a vulnerability and it's her cell, who get shot and captured right in front of her. We see Roger fight through to gaze at something as yet unidentified and murmur "It's real. It's fucking real."

Here's the title, and King Mob's dive seems to sync with Roger's leap at the beginning - not a coincidence. We see he's training, but there's fun in it too; he shoots a single balloon as he splashes into a pool. Robin asks him about "Nice and Smooth" as King Mob climbs out dripping. Robin's wearing a tshirt, knickers and a pair of boots and there's this easy intimacy between them that underlines, along with the guns, exactly how different this volume's going to be. Big budget bangs, guns, sex, glamour!

The rest of the cell has been apart from them for a year, and they are soon to reunite. In the meantime, "I think I've lost one of my fillings," is a fucking hilarious thing to say during a sex scene. Robin's wordless speech bubble suggests she thought it was worth it. Also, KM's head in her lap echoes the mannequin's head deja vu back in vol 1.

Here's our host/benefactor/patron??? Mason Lang. Big Bruce Wayne vibe off him.
https://i.imgur.com/fDcF82J.png

Mason gives us the backstory: he experienced an alien abduction as a child and has since been obsessed with the secrets of things. Luckily unlike the rest of us he's a billionaire, and can pursue his passions.

The liquid software reminds me of the Matrix downloading knowledge to people. Or vice versa, rather.

And then Roger shows up! And King Mob knows her! Now he gives us the backstory: she trained with him in North Africa and she leads a leabian cell called the Poison Pussies. I don't think our cell has a name, does it?

Robin is looking at a polaroid of a big fluffy cloud, but won't explain it. I appreciated this bit of sauciness:

https://i.imgur.com/SKHXjrf.png

Out in the garden, KM and Roger are practicing shooting and catching up. They have this great exchange about Jack.

Roger: This the kid everyone's talking about? Some people are starting to say he's the Maitreya, the future Buddha.
King Mob: I suppose if the Buddha grew up poor in Liverpool and swore a lot, he might be a bit like Jack.

The year is for the cell to rest and recuperate from the trauma at the hands of Sir Miles. Yet as KM admits earlier in the issue, the single day has scarred him.

Everyone else arrives! While Jack is flopping on Mason's chaise and talking about wanting to live on top of the Chyrysler building, Boy instantly picks up on the changed vibe between Robin and King Mob.
https://i.imgur.com/we6HkiO.png
Fanny, as usual, gets the best line.

Roger and Fanny eye each other suspiciously and the temperature drops about fifty degrees. Celsius.

Roger tells them then about the botched base invasion we saw at the beginning of the issue - and that the enemy has a cure for Aids. She then says that the virus itself was engineered. This is where I went off to Wikipedia and found this highly depressing fact about Aids conspiracy theories:

According to Phil Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles, conspiracy theories are becoming a barrier to the prevention of AIDS since people start to believe that no matter what measures they take, they can still be prone to contracting this disease. This makes them less careful when engaging in practices that put them at risk because they believe there is no point. "Nearly half of the 500 African Americans surveyed said that HIV is man-made. More than one-quarter said they believed that AIDS was produced in a government laboratory, and 12 percent believed it was created and spread by the CIA... At the same time, 75 percent said they believe medical and public health agencies are working to stop the spread of AIDS in black communities."

Horrible.

Back in Dulce, Colobel Friday enters the picture, talking about fucking with remote viewers who project into the base looking for aliens. And we have Quimper! Who quickly reveals he has a mole in the Invisibles' camp. Well.

Back with the crew, Mason is talking about one of his favourite things - film theories. Speed is about evolution, he says. Everyone listens hsalf-interested but they're really more interested in the food - particularly Jack, who tears through a whole portion of tortillas for sharing. And King Mob is upset by the gussied-up bowl of cornflakes he's served.

While Mason goes on about Invisibles coding in films, Fanny goes to the bathroom. The men's bathroom. Where she upsets a local hick.

The guy follows Fanny back to their table for a fight but underestimates King Mob, who's in no mood for this shit and he hasn't even had his breakfast dammit. I'd be cranky too.

https://i.imgur.com/FlKOKfz.png

After Fanny tells the guy he does have a lovely dick, he's had it, but KM knocks him on his arse without too much fuss and then they get the fuck out of town. Alas this happy ending has a stinger - Quimper is controlling Roger somehow. Great!

Issue 2 later this week, and hopefully 2 more on Sunday. AF, I will reply to you this week!

Lads, I'm so fucking bad at this and I can only apologise. The only thing that makes me feel less bad about it is the fact that, with the exception of Andrew F, you are too.

I'm still reading and enjoying Gyac, but haven't made the time for a reread myself, so don't have much to contribute! But keep it up...

I do remember finding the first arc of Vol 2 completely thrilling.

There's a pandemic on, neither of you should beat yourself up.

As promised (for once), here's issue 2.

https://i.imgur.com/6F3l8Zy.jpg

Kickin' (Black Science Part Two)

Where were we? Oh yes, on the big shiny enamel train to getting fucked, thanks to Quimper.

We open up with Oppenheimer solemnly intoning "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds." Mason's quote is actually slightly wrong, but never mind. Wikipedia says At an assembly at Los Alamos on August 6 (the evening of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima), Oppenheimer took to the stage and clasped his hands together "like a prize-winning boxer" while the crowd cheered. He noted his regret the weapon had not been available in time to use against Nazi Germany. However, he and many of the project staff were very upset about the bombing of Nagasaki, as they did not feel the second bomb was necessary from a military point of view.

Boo fucking hoo, you made your choice, and at least you got to live with it. Mason's arm outstretched towards the sun's rays recalls the flag of Imperial Japan; this and the Oppenheimer quote are our first serious indicators that his morals are a bit...flexible.

The crew is in New Mexico; the men are off their faces on top of a mountain, the women are down below fighting and planning. (Where is Fanny? With neither camp, hmmm.)

Boy and Robin both agree they don't trust Roger.

Back on the mesa, some of the chat when they're tripping is funny the way things are funny when you're off your face:
https://i.imgur.com/87hQxK5.png

The way they descend the hill is how I go down stairs when I've been drinking. Fully validate it.
https://i.imgur.com/IVNyjo3.png

We hear more about the structure of Invisibles cells for the first time since Edith talked to KM about it in Paris way back in volume 1:
https://i.imgur.com/cjWURk0.png

Quimper and Colonel Friday are talking at the base and Quimper demonstrates his "total control" over his puppets, by means of a certain code phrase.

Robin is waiting on the roof of a house for something. She won't tell King Mob (listening to Kula Shaker ffs) and he says he won't pry. He goes and she waits. We see what's drawn her attention: a little girl getting out of a car nearby. We see then that the girl is past Robin, in this universe, and that Robin remembers every word said at this seemingly meaningless encounter. This factors into her writing the story later - she comes across like an author lingering over a favourite line.

Anyway! Turns out Robin drew Air, which makes her the leader and she's got to dress the part. In flashes we see everyone else's draws: Fanny gets Fire and Boy is Spirit. That's important.

Lol @ Fanny:
https://i.imgur.com/u1bIM0m.png

The gang breaking in - King Mob, Robin, Roger, Boy - get in without much trouble, but King Mob is distracted by a cage containing a gleaming, formless substance. At the same time we see the porcelain train gliding by.

The backup team in the hotel room - everyone else - are listening to Mason theorise about Independence Day and then a ghostly form that resembles Quimper appears in the wall and hisses "fuck you all!"

Back in the base, King Mob can't tear his eyes away, Robin and Boy are freaking, and Roger gets hijacked. Shit's fucked basically, Boy otm.
https://i.imgur.com/LR0Keug.png

I've forgotten a lot of Volume 2, I have a vague memory that it's my least favourite, but we'll how that goes.

I definitely wasn't expecting it to get off to so much of a bang - into a Secret Government Base twice in two issues!

her cell, who get shot and captured right in front of her

She mentions later that two of them get out - it might just be Bobby that's gone.

The T-shirt that Robin's wearing is basically painted on - I understand Jill Thompson was pretty pissed off about what happens with Robin's sexiness in this volume.

I think the "small dining room" line is actually nicked from Batman-the-film!

It's an interesting bit of operational security that King Mob just says "A friend" got them over to the US when we know that it's Jim Crow.

King Mob: I suppose if the Buddha grew up poor in Liverpool and swore a lot, he might be a bit like Jack.

Yeah, this reminded me of Fanny's "What are we looking for, darling? A little lump of smouldering charcoal that says 'Fuck' every five minutes?"

It's worth noting that the year-long gap papers over the business of Jack (dressed here more or less as Keith Flint) and the rest of them actually becoming friends and team-mates - he's less of a standoffish figure than at the end of Vol. 1

It'll surprise absolutely no-one that Phil Jimenez was given tapes of Grant and his mates chatting shit while on LSD to write up.

Nothing more late-90s than film-student level enthusiasm for "my theories about films" including something from Tarantino, followed by lampshade-hanging it as like something from Tarantino.

(Except maybe the line "Drag Queens and Dykes hardly ever get along")

I wanted to go along with the re-read but my damn Invisibles trades have vanished. A year later and going through I think pretty much my entire collection and they are just GONE...

Makes you think. ;000

🐦[The Queen will be taking it easy for the rest of the year. https://t.co/lOBm0inhBx🕸
— Glasgow Live (@Glasgow_Live) November 15, 2021🕸]🐦

_Lads, I'm so fucking bad at this and I can only apologise. The only thing that makes me feel less bad about it is the fact that, with the exception of Andrew F, you are too._

I'm still reading and enjoying Gyac, but haven't made the time for a reread myself, so don't have much to contribute! But keep it up...