WHAT IS INVINCIBLE? (Main spoilers forward)
Invincible is the 145-issue (#0 to #144) Eisner Award-nominated comedian guide collection by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley. Printed via Picture Comics and Skybound Leisure, the collection impressed toys, video games, and a Primetime Emmys-nominated Amazon collection.
Successfully, the story is ‘What if Superman have been evil and your dad?’ Mark Grayson’s father is Omni-Man, probably the most {powerful} hero on the planet. Nonetheless, when Mark begins to show his powers, he learns the reality, dad didn’t come to avoid wasting Earth however to overcome it. Mark should develop up fast to be able to cease the most-powerful hero there may be and save the world. For extra basis, right here’s a video sharing Invincible’s origin from throughout the primary 22 problems with the collection.
Artwork by Steven Cummings from Rifts Chaos Earth First Responders, Palladium Books copyright Rifts, 2025
WHO ARE THESE COMIC BOOK CREATORS?
Steven Cummings is a contract comedian guide illustrator for Marvel Comics (together with Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Star Wars: Ahsoka, and Champions), DC Comics (Deadshot), and Picture Comics (Wayward comedian guide collection with writer Jim Zub) in addition to tabletop roleplaying video games like Palladium Books’ Rifts® and others. I requested Steven Cummings to share his favourite superhero roleplaying video games:
“Marvel Superheroes was my favourite [superhero roleplaying] recreation. I completely love supers RPGs, and have picked up a number of over time together with DC Heroes and Champions, and I might love the prospect to leap in on any superhero RPG if given the prospect.”
John McGuire authored a number of unbiased collection together with The Crossing and The Gilded Age in addition to In Our Goals Awake of which I’m co-author (the third problem is on Kickstarter now). John has written some 5e zine content material like Love’s Labour’s Liberated and Love’s Labour’s Liabilities. John McGuire’s historical past with superhero RPGs touches on a number of the similar video games as Steven:
“I’ve performed a few video games of Champions at conventions (so perhaps a complete of twice). Method again within the day we’d play the TSR Marvel RPG, most likely a dozen instances plus one further time at Dragon Con this yr. Weirdly, the one I’ve performed probably the most is the Aberrant RPG from White Wolf that was their reply to the superheroes recreation. I GM’d the marketing campaign that most likely lasted round a yr taking part in thrice a month.”
INVINCIBLE’S CREATORS
The Invincible RPG core rulebook and starter set characteristic illustrations by comedian guide collection artists Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley together with graphic design/layouts by MÖRK BORG’s Johan Nohr. Since this can be a comic-centric challenge, I needed to get these two comedian guide creators emotions as to how vital it’s for the collection artist to supply illustrations?
Steven Cummings, skilled comedian guide artist, felt the collection artist is a important ingredient:
“I believe it’s completely vital to have the unique artwork workforce engaged on the principles guide. Regardless of how good the writing is for the comedian guide the artwork is answerable for extra of the texture that the reader picks up and to make a recreation based mostly on that with out that really feel is difficult to think about. An instance of this by the way in which is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles recreation from Palladium which not solely had artwork from the comedian collection as spot artwork in addition they had the unique artists for turtles do a brand new cowl and a brief story comedian guide for the rule guide which solely added to the enjoyable.”
John McGuire needs to see the unique artists and extra visualizing this universe:
“For one thing like Invincible, numerous the character of the comedian comes from these artists’ work. So it solely feels pure that their efforts not solely be included within the guide, however they need to characteristic very prominently. That stated, given the quantity of art work probably wanted for a challenge like this, I believe it could be wonderful to not solely characteristic another artists to get their ‘takes’ on the characters, however have them be capable of put a bit of little bit of a stamp on the universe total.”
THE FIRST OF MANY?
To this point, Free League’s Kickstarter is discovering its viewers. With a constructive response from followers, I requested Steven and John in the event that they wish to see extra, perhaps an Picture Universe TTRPG? Steven Cummings expressed his curiosity:
“Sure, that will be great. Marvel jumped on this just a few years in the past with their present RPG however it could be nice to see extra IPs get became video games. Maybe a united picture world (so to talk) RPG? One thing like that will get my {dollars} and a focus. BUT the one problem is that it could should be a singular system that does not really feel like an extant recreation and with all of the video games already on the market may somebody truly pull that off?”
John McGuire went additional:
“I all the time love seeing what numerous builders attempt to do with their superhero video games. I believe one of many largest obstacles for any of them is all the time the road stage vs. the galaxy-wide heroes and easy methods to stability the 2. I am not utterly satisfied any system has utterly solved that drawback, however I’m additionally an enormous fan of the Yr Zero system within the numerous video games I’ve performed prior to now (Tales from the Loop, Blade Runner, ALIEN), and it appears to work nicely in a number of genres already. So I am extremely serious about seeing what that system permits them to do, how versatile is it, and total… how does the sport run?”
NEXT TIME, THE INVINCIBLE – SUPERHERO ROLEPLAYING QUICKSTART
Within the conclusion to this two-parter, I’ll speak to Steven and John concerning the Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying Quickstart, which is free on DriveThruRPG, and the mechanics of the system. If you wish to see how this recreation runs, try the Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying Quickstart on DriveThruRPG. Then head over to Kickstarter for the Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying from Free League Publishing and Skybound Leisure earlier than it ends on October 16 2025 3:00 PM EDT.
Egg Embry labored with John McGuire and Steven Cummings on totally different comedian guide tasks. Egg participates within the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Video games’ Affiliate Program, Kobold Press Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Affiliate. These applications present promoting charges by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Video games, Kobold Press, and Amazon.
