Tech Jacket vol. 1: Lost and Found

Back in vol. 13 of “Invincible,” when Nolan Grayson and Allen the Alien were scouring the galaxy for resources they could use against the Viltrumite threat, one of the places they visited came with this awesome footnote from writer Robert Kirkman:

“Holy crap!  He’s talking about ‘Tech Jacket!’  You should totally order that trade paperback dude!”

It’s utterly shameless, but it’s brazeness grabbed me in the way that every other such note in comics from Marvel and DC just makes my eyes glaze over.  So as soon as I saw it on sale at Comic-Con, I knew I had to pick it up.

Was it worth it?  At the price I got it for, few things wouldn’t be.  That said, it’s Kirkman’s spin on the old concept of “average boy gets super-suit, saves alien race, becomes super-hero.”  It’s nothing new, but I appreciated the way that a lot of the conflicts are resolved by people acting and thinking rationally.  After all, there’s enough alien invaders to provide all the sci-fi action a fan could want.  Art is from E.J. Su and it’s appealingly detailed in its renderings of the characters, their homeworlds and all the alien tech.  There’s a strong manga influence to his work, and as the introduction notes this collection was formatted to appeal to those fans.  That obviously didn’t happen, but there’s enough potential here to make the idea of a sequel, or ongoing series appealing in theory.