Story title: "The Invisible Empire, Part 7"
Cover Date: November 1936
By: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
And now, the epic conclusion to the saga of "The Invisible Empire". In which Steve Carson will, hopefully, fight a giant robot.
After the robot found Steve and Co. at the end of the last part, the titular hero leaps onto the ship, leaving his friends alone at the mercy of the robot. Apparently, he "knew" the monster would only pursue him, and luckily, he was right.
The chase continues, and it appears that the robot has inverse eyes (fun fact: "eye" is eye spelled backward!), as in, they emit light instead of absorbing it.
Either that or it's shooting lasers, which would be much cooler.
The robot finally catches Steve's ship and smashes it into the sea, then heads to the city. Now, Steve survived a submarine explosion, but there's no way he survived that right? Right?
He jumped right before the impact... Of course...
Anyway, Steve has obviously played "Shadow of the Colossus" (unlike me), because he starts climbing the robot and enters a door on the back of its head.
Meanwhile, the city is terrified.
Back to Steve, he finds a control room inside the robot, and this doesn't make any sense at all. Why, you ask? Well, let's look at the possibilities.
1- The robot is controlled at a distance / is automatic. Obviously, this is not the case, since there's a control room.
2- The robot is "piloted" from the control room. That would make sense, except Steve doesn't really encounter anyone inside it...
3- The robot is controlled at a distance / is automatic, but there's also a control room that can be accessed by anyone and there's no one inside to guard it. This seems to be the real option...
Back again to the robot, it's terrorizing the city in an amazing panel that covers two-thirds of the page, easily one of the best panels we've seen so far.
This is only part of it.
In the middle of this chaos, Steve manages to take control of the robot and directs it to its home to give them their fair share of destruction. However, the inhabitants of The Invisible Empire still have an ace up their sleeve... or a robot... or two!
An epic battle ensues. Steve, who is just now learning to pilot the robot, is apparently better at it than the other pilots, who are very likely thoroughly trained, so he manages to throw one of his foes onto the other and end the fight a bit too quickly if you ask me.
Then, he goes to the no-so-secret-anymore city and destroys it. Or at least the part that's still standing after three of these beasts came out of it...
That's the end of the Invisible Empire (or at least of this particular branch?), so Steve breaks the controls for the robot, rendering it useless. Kind of a waste, I'm sure he could have used it on his next adventures. Although, if we go back to the type of more generic stories the first entry in the series introduced, it would be a bit overkill to use this giant robot on some poor gangster.
After that, Steve goes back to his headquarters or whatever, gets congratulated and that's how this storyline ends...
Anyhow, the ratings:
Quality/Enjoyment: 4/5
Okay, so I know this is kind of bad, but hear me out... There's a battle between three giant robots!
That's it, that's my whole argument...
Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 1/5
And that's the end of the new longest (and best in my opinion) story in the order so far... It was definitely a ride. Next time, we begin another multi-parter, this time starring The Clock. Until then, thanks for reading, and have a nice rest of your day!
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