MISTER INVINCIBLE

Need ice? Cat up a tree? Giant robot on the attack? There’s no job too large or too small for “the one and only true comic book superhero!”

Masked, caped, chubby, and imperturbable, Mister Invincible earns his moniker here in dozens of mind- and narrative-bending graphic mini-adventures thanks to his unique power to reach or chuck things into neighboring panels above or below. Catch a speedy thief? Mister Invincible nimbly drops into the next row! Foil a mad scientist’s “mega-virus”? Just roll a lawn mower into the adjacent panel’s microscopic world. Being clever as well as able to clobber unsuspecting villains from a later scene, Mister Invincible can even take on adversaries like Old Grandpa Jack, who can hurl words—or, more precisely, dialogue balloons—to damaging effect, and the Jester, a would-be supervillain capable of darting suddenly into view from the subsequent page and vanishing the same way. Jousselin too shows uncommon cleverness, as all these exploits and hijinks require exact, frequently ingenious placement of figures on both the same and neighboring pages to make them work. As Mister Invincible explains to one mystified witness, “It’s just the incredible magic of comics, ma’am.” The episodes in this French import, all drawn cartoon-style (with colors by Croix) in rows of squared-off panels, run one to 15 pages each. Mister Invincible presents White; there is a handful of secondary characters of color.

Chock full of inventive narrative tweaks.