Two issues into Universal Monsters: The Invisible Man, James Tynion IV, and Dani have peeled back the layers of Jack Griffin’s psyche with surgical precision. What began as a story of scientific obsession in issue #1 and curdled into domestic unease and moral decay in issue #2 now reaches the brink of full-blown horror. He’s slowly worked up his experiments on animals, but now it can only advance if he tests it on a human. Where the previous chapter simmered with tension, this one detonates.
Universal Monsters: The Invisible Man #3 is a haunting escalation, to say the least, taking the psychological horror of previous issues and turning it into a terrible act by Jack. The issue opens with two prostitutes discussing how someone has disappeared, or in their terminology, vanished. Their dialogue helps give the temperature of folks and how Jack’s ongoing work is spilling out and being noticed, even if they still have no idea what he’s up to. Soon, Jack is turning a corner covered from head to toe and walking by the ladies, and Tynion gives us a wrinkle of his lack of morals. It’s after this moment that we learn a human appears to be gagged in an apartment Jack has just entered.
The story then takes us back, a few days or hours, though it doesn’t matter how far back we go, as the narrative is still pushing forward. Check-ins with Jack’s fiancée, his boss, and how he generally spends his nights help carve out his ongoing dysfunction, which is bothering others. When wearing a scarf over his mouth and large, round glasses, it’s as if he’s as unfeeling and cold as Dani draws him when he’s alone and not covered. He’s a very sick and unfeeling man.
Variant cover for issue #3.
Credit: Skybound
Fans of horror will be pleased there’s a kill or two in this issue, but the real feast for horror fans is a teenage boy Jack “hires” for his research. Dani gets to draw some human invisibility, but Jack’s formula isn’t right yet, leaving his muscles for all to see. As the progression of Jack’s research advances on the boy, Tynion keeps us unnerved by Jack’s calculated and unfeeling narration via captions. The closing pages give us quite a cliffhanger I didn’t see coming, which makes the next issue a must-read.
Universal Monsters: The Invisible Man #3 is where the series’ slow burn finally erupts into body horror and moral rot. James Tynion IV and Dani don’t just reinterpret H.G. Wells’ classic; they dissect it, turning scientific ambition into a study of ego, cruelty, and decay. It’s a disturbing, beautifully rendered chapter that cements this series as one of Skybound’s most sophisticated horror reinventions to date.
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