And so we reach our end. Not of the pile, no, that’s only going to keep growing and consuming all that happens to get near it. Instead, we’ve come to the end of Invisible Kingdom and its sprawling story. But with its end comes something I had hinted at in previous articles that I can finally bring up here and what that can mean for general comic publishing. And so let’s reach the conclusion of this third volume brought to us by G. Willow Wilson, Christian Ward, and Sal Cipriano with Invisible Kingdom: In Other Worlds.

From where we last left off, the crew of the Sundog was on the run from both the company Lux and the church of Renunciation and found themselves on the edge of space, ready to be taken in by a rogue sect of Nones that had renounced the Renunciation. On a planet that may be a ship despite having its own biome, Grix and Vess can’t decide what their future should be. Or, rather, Vess has made her decision to stay with the Siblings of Rebirth on their mobile planet while Grix is free to do what she wishes. And what she wishes is to leave this planet after the Nones there use some kind of power within it to destroy a massive Lux warehouse. More than anything, Grix wants to escape the cycle of violence she finds herself in, even if that means leaving Vess behind.

And while the climax of Invisible Kingdom is the catharsis we’ve been waiting for since the end of the first volume, what’s interesting here is how this volume was released. The first two arcs had comes out as ten separate issues over the months, much in the same way any comic would. But then there was a delay for the final five-issue arc. And then there was a change in plans. Instead of releasing those issues each month and then the final volume later, the final volume was released on its own. While I can’t be certain if this is the first series to release in this way, the idea does have some legs with a series like November, albeit with some degree of risk. Trade paperbacks do sell quite well, especially for anyone who doesn’t have that local comic shop to pick up their monthlies, but with how the comic publishing goes, there’s a chance a story can just remain unfinished in this form.

Hybrid comics seem promising for stories, but for now, Invisible Kingdom feels like one of the only series that was able to do it successfully. This is off the strength of the writing and the anticipation that had built up for the series over the course of lockdowns. Comics creators should keep trying.

Get excited. Get different.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, 510, 651, & 674) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.