INVISIBLES, THE 315
Following this experience Dane joins King Mob’s cell and works with them to fi ght
the Outer Church, travelling through time, encountering past Invisibles, such as the
Marquis de Sade and the Romantic poets Byron and Shelley, all the while honing his
psychic abilities. Using these powers Dane wins a telepathic battle with Sir Miles, a
member of the British aristocracy and representative of the establishment, who is also
a member of the Outer Church. Th e Outer Church is revealed to be under the control
of alien gods from another dimension who use a mix of occult practices and advanced
technology to dominate humanity.
Th e story moves to America where the Invisibles continue to battle the Outer
Church, which also runs the military and industrial complex. With the help of Mason
Lang, a wealth Invisible struggling to comprehend his own alien abduction experience,
they learn that Colonel Friday and the mysterious Mr. Quimper are in possession of
numerous secrets, such as an AIDS vaccine and a substance known as “Magic Mirror.”
In the ensuing confl icts Mr. Quimper infi ltrates the Invisibles, secretly controlling
Ragged Robin, who has fallen in love with King Mob. Lang reveals that he has been
working to create a time machine, and after defeating Mr. Quimper Ragged Robin
uses it to return to her own time, leaving behind her lover, King Mob. As the story
moves toward its conclusion Dane accepts his role as savior of humanity and King Mob
reconsiders his use of violence to fi ght evil. Dane leads a battle against the forces of the
Outer Church as they try to complete a ritual that will crown a monster as the King
of England, a monster whose body will serve as the host for Rex Mundi, ruler of the
Outer Church. Dane discovers that the Invisible College and the Outer Church are two
sides of the same coin, and in the aftermath of the battle forms his own cell of Invisibles.
With the war over Dane turns to the real role of the Invisibles — saving humanity from
the coming apocalypse, predicted to occur on December 22, 2012. Th e fi nal issue sees
King Mob and Ragged Robin reunited on this date as all time collapses in on itself
and those who know how are able to move freely through it, as easily as someone can
move through space. In the fi nal pages Dane steps outside of the fi ctional reality of the
comic and addresses the reader, a meta-fi ctional move that Morrison employs in several
comics, notably Animal Man. Th e Invisibles concludes with Dane telling the readers that
they are free and that “our sentence is up.”
In Th e Invisibles Morrison argues that we fi nd ourselves trapped in a world that is a
fi ctional construct of our own making. What we call “reality” is generated by language
and by our perceptions, which are slaves to conformity. We are therefore framed and
controlled by the cages we call “personalities.” As in Flex Mentallo , Morrison uses the
story to argue that we have forgotten the essential truth of all being — that we create the
world. Religion, morality, and social institutions are the framework of our obedience,
and the Invisibles, as anarchists, are determined to bring about the next stage of human
evolution, whereby we cast off our preconceptions and ideologies in order to grow up
and to stop being afraid to become free. As Morrison argues, the world as we know it
is essentially an elaborate fi ction, and there is no underlying shared reality—it is all
simulation. At its heart, Th e Invisibles asks a few key questions: What if all the conspiracy
