One of my favorite hobbies, other than reading and reviewing comics, is playing Dungeons & Dragons. A large part of what makes D&D sessions so fun is the fact that you can create unique characters and flesh out their backstory as you go, meaning you can add some surprising depth. Invincible Universe: Battle Beast #5 takes its own approach to this, spending half the issue focused on the alien prince Salaka, whom Battle Beast saved all the way in the first issue.
Turns out that Salaka was your typical royal, more interested in flaunting power and hooking up with a seemingly endless string of conquests. That all changed the day the Juggernaut and Colossus (no relation to the X-Men powerhouses) attacked his world, carving a path of slaughter and destruction. This caused Salaka to have a massive change of heart. Battle Beast #5 even explains how he survived being chewed in half while still in Colossus’s stomach.
Salaka isn’t the only character that Robert Kirkman is interested in developing. When pressed by Salaka and his ship’s computer on why he’s so hell-bent on battle, Battle Beast completely explodes; he wants to die, if only to quell the endless bloodlust that drives him to find new opponents. It’s this tragic edge that made Invincible such a great comic, as hero and villain alike was capable of surprising depths, and I’m glad that Kirkman is using that for Battle Beast.
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Both the emotional and the action-packed moments within Invincible Universe: Battle Beast #1 take on a new life thanks to Ryan Ottley. We finally get to see what Salaka’s planet looked like before the Colossus and the Juggernaut took it over, and it was a shining paradise full of towering buildings and golden skies – a far cry from the sprawling mass of vegetation and wild animals that Battle Beast and his crew descended upon. It also let Ottley continue to blend sci-fi and fantasy elements in a way that resembles Star Wars more than the traditional superhero universe Invincible started out as, yet it fits Battle Beast.
It’s all rendered in stunning color courtesy of Annalisa Leoni, who is proving to be Skybound’s secret weapon when it comes to making their new titles pop. Leoni manages to separate past and present sections thanks to the intensity of her colors; while the past sections are awash in golden light, the present sections take on a darker hue, especially when the Juggernaut enters the scene. Scattered throughout is the usual bursts of blood red that accompany the traditional Invincible gore, with a frequency that’ll burn itself into readers’ brains.
Invincible Universe: Battle Beast #5 offers more depth to its titular warrior and his unlikely band of companions, while also setting the stakes for another high-octane battle. To bring the Dungeons & Dragons comparison full circle, this is the moment in the campaign where the party has their ultimate boss battle. It might have taken a while to get here, but the character development is well worth the wait.
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