Ryan Ottley Completes Work on 'Invincible'

Invincible's end is really coming, as fans saw today when longtime artist Ryan Ottley shared a [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Invincible's end is really coming, as fans saw today when longtime artist Ryan Ottley shared a photo of his final art page from the long-running Image Comics superhero series.

It has been over a year since writer Robert Kirkman announced the end of the series, which will come in Invincible #144.

The announcement, made in August of 2016, was not a huge surprise to longtime readers, as the series has been plagued by lateness for quite a while, but when pressed on the issue, Kirkman has typically said that the joy of working on Invincible was its own reward and that he intended for it to outlive him and become a book where future generations of creators could pick it up.

Part of the reason for the shift in philosophy was in part because Ottley was a star on the rise, and tying him to a single book indefinitely seemed unfair in Kirkman's eyes. Still, the writer did not want to go on without Ottley.

"If most superhero comics continue forever with no end in sight and over their runs do not, in any way, tell a cohesive story that holds together to form a singular narrative... shouldn't Invincible do the exact opposite?" asked Kirkman at the time. "It's been many years now that Ryan Ottley and myself, with occasional help from co-creator Cory Walker (issue 130 in stores soon!) have been chronicling the adventures of Mark Grayson and the many characters that orbit his life. As I began plotting out the issues that lay ahead of us over this next year, I started to realize I was reaching a... conclusion....In talking it over with Ryan I learned, much to my surprise, that the idea of drawing something other than Invincible someday...and not being stuck in this monthly grind we've been in for well over a decade...appealed to him. So it was clear, I was writing to a conclusion and Ryan was also drawing to one."

Now, the conclusion is drawn -- literally -- and even Ottley is a little surprised.

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