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Rating: 
Summary: a botched ending to what should have been a great series
Review: at its outset, "the invisibles" looked to be powerful. and, no doubt, the first 25 issues were hypnotic. the next 25 less so, but still great. then came Volume 3 ...
despite the fact that it took morrison nearly two years to publish the last twelve issues of the monthly series, they still seem rushed. i've heard that DC/Vertigo cut the final volume from 25 issues to just 12, so perhaps morrison's hand was forced. or he just found himself against a wall -- after all, at the time he was writing about a half-dozen other monthly comics.
anyway ...
with this last volume, morrison simply tosses out various plot lines that were painstakingly built up in the previous volumes, permanently and inexplicably writing off two key characters. the comic then begins to suffer from "x-men syndrome" in which new (redundant) team members materialize out of nowhere and minor characters are brought to the forefront.
to make matters worse, the series' climax is rendered incomprehensible by a terrible, terrible lapse in grant's judgment: having six or seven different artists of dubious qualification contribute to the final three-issue arc.
adding insult to injury, the very last issue -- in which the veil was to have been torn from our eyes; in which life, the universe, EVERYTHING were to have been explained -- is instead a ridiculous jumble of new-age psychobabble and pseudo-science that, four years after the series' conclusion, today makes me wonder what i ever saw in the series to begin with. and i think about something johnny rotten once said: "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
perhaps it's too much to ask that a writer as bold and as high-concept-minded as grant morrison be expected to adhere standards of coherent storytelling. but if you want innovation AND a tightly-crafted story AND a satisfying read that stands the test of time, skip this "the invisibles" and pick up neil gaiman's "the sandman" collections.
Rating: 
Summary: It's not a comic, it's an experience.
Review: Don't listen to naysayers. The Invisibles ends with a logical progression from the rest of the series. One of the theories in the comic is that time speeds up as we approach the end of the world, so the hectic pace of this collection fits. You get bombarded with information and concepts and strange, messed up things. It demands multiple readings. Well I suggest reading the whole series again anyway. It's always different and you always see something you never saw before.
Rating:
Summary: A Goose In a Bottle...It's all just words
Review: I bought 'Say You Want a Revolution' for a dollar at a used bookstore just for the hell of it, after which feeling as though a Roman might have if a bird landed on his shoulder. I was confused, amazed, mystified, and overjoyed. I've accumulated all of the editions since and feel immensely satisfied with the world. These books mind you are not for people who need a quick fix; they require both time and intense introspection. This final book answered most of my questions and those that it didn't I'm delighted to answer on my own, happy they were posed to me. The book is read best as the Book of Changes is, with personal meaning and associations. If you try to read it in a linear style, you'll fail. As for criticism, I have no pertinent ones. The artwork is spectacular, appropriate for the stories. I try not to associate the story with authors that influenced Morrison for I read into their frailties rather than enjoying the book in a pure form. I cannot describe the book, nor it's meaning without betraying the message in it, so if you have an open mind buy it, steal it, photocopy it...whatever. All the people that say that the books could change your life are quite right. As a final warning: Don't read them with preconceived notions. They have absolutely no place here, nor will you be able to find them when you're done.
Rating: 
Summary: The Kingdom Is Upon The Earth, But People Do Not See It
Review: Neither significantly worse nor better than the other books in the series, this seventh and concluding volume of THE INVISIBLES is of a piece with the work as a whole. Throughout the series, Morrison's references to -- and excursions into -- Gnosticism, Aliester Crowleyian occultism, William Burroughs-type language viruses, general pop culture, '60's psychedelia, drugs, chaos magic, Mexican mysticism, and your odd British politician threaten to weigh the story down through sheer preposterousness, like a really long novel by Thomas Pynchon or Robert Anton Wilson. But invariably the narrative pulls through and proceeds to get entertaining. Fortunately, Morrison parcels the obfuscating seven-volume meta-story out to readers in digestible chunks, usually in four-chapter story snippets. INVISIBLE KINGDOM contains three such snippets, and a final chapter that shows the characters decades in the future (albeit in typically hallucinatory fashion). My favorite stories from the series include the first 4 chapters of SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION (where Jack Frost is initiated into the Barbelo), the single-chapter story "Royal Monster" from APOCALIPSTICK (where the guy has to feed that creature behind the mirror), Lord Fanny's biography tale (also from APOCALIPSTICK), and the 3-part title sequence from ENTROPY IN THE U.K (which deals with King Mob's interrogation). Several colorful characters, particularly King Mob, Lord Fanny, Jack Frost, foxy Ragged Robin, and repugnant little Mister Quimper, kept me reading through even the most annoyingly byzantine passages of the series. However, I could have done without the wearisome Marquis de Sade altogether. Also, I don't think the time travel aspect was necessary to the story: I would think the idea of Ragged Robin writing herself into a piece of fiction could have been handled without the time-warping aspects, which only added to the confusion. And I wasn't completely clear on the significance of Jack Frost's Messianic status, which is hinted at throughout the series but not resolved to my satisfaction in the final volume. Also, I've completely lost track of the significance of that green hand. Of course, I can recommend this last volume only to those readers who have read the previous six; you really don't want to pick this story up at the end. I can certainly recommend the whole series, however. This sort of thing has been done in books before (Pynchon, R.A. Wilson, and Philip K. Dick being examples) but not, I think, in comics.
Rating:
Summary: The truth dazzles gradually, else the world would go blind..
Review: This seventh and final collection unites nearly all the past characters and story archs into a grand unified theory of metaphysics (an explanation of the nature of the world- and what lies beyond it.) In fact, it ties together some loose story threads that I had given up on entirely. It reads like a teflon-coated bullet; what isn't action packed is shocking, what isn't shocking is arousing, and what isn't arousing is an intellectual roller coaster. If you read it through in one sitting like I did, you are going to need a bottle of aspirin.... There is some pretty deep philosophical stuff imbedded in here. I recognised concepts on the true nature of time that could have come right out of Ouspensky. In fact, that's what the whole grand opera seems to be leading up to here- Morrison is trying to shake us out of our complacent sleep walking and open us up to looking behind the accepted "reality" of things. This can lead to either individual transcendence, or, as Morrison seems to speculate, it can lead to a leap in evolution for the entire species. You see, all the strange and unexplainable stuff that is breaking into our world these days are just the growing pains of an expanded consciousness. Larval man is about to break through the veil, enmass. What is terrifying to us now will later be seen as aspects of reality that were only temporarily frightening because of their newness and strangeness. Even opposites unite at the next higher level. My only criticism is with the unevenness of the artwork. With so many pencillers and inkers working on the project you lose consistency. You can go from an almost photographic level of draftsmanship in one section, to cartoonish caricature in the next. That can distract from the smooth flow of the story line. Oh yes, and if you get to Benares- don't drink the water....
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