Allen the Alien
| Allen the Alien | |
|---|---|
|
cover to Invincible #23 (June 2005) by Ryan Ottley. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Image Comics |
| First appearance | Invincible #2 |
| Created by |
Robert Kirkman Cory Walker |
| In-story information | |
| Team affiliations | Coalition of Planets |
| Abilities | Super-strength, invulnerability, spaceflight, telepathy, Reactive adaptation |
Allen the Alien is an Image Comics character who first appeared in the Invincible series.
Fictional character biography
An apparent alien aggressor, who Invincible's father, Omni-Man had fought several times in the past, all without talking with Allen. One on such incursion, Omni-Man ordered Invincible to fight Allen. Invincible, not seeing a point to the fight, decided to talk with Allen, and they realized that Allen had made a mistake. He was supposed to go to the planet Urath and test its champion, not to Earth.
He is a Champion Evaluation Officer who works for the Coalition of Planets. He travels on a tight schedule and tests the skills of various powered heroes on each planet in order to determine if there is a suitable "champion" to defend that planet. He and Mark have formed a mutual friendship. Allen starred in issue 23, which was styled after a Silver Age comic, complete with complicated footnotes and florid prose.
Allen's race lost their homeworld after the Viltrumites invaded. The survivors managed to maintain their race in space until they found a new homeworld, breeding artificially until the very concept of natural procreation is offensive to most of Allen's people. This hampers Allen's relationship with his girlfriend, who is a lusty sort of female. Allen's people also conducted genetic experiments to create warriors capable of fighting the Viltrumite Empire, failing and losing all test subjects except for Allen (similar in origin to the Super-Skrull).
After Allen was literally ripped apart in Invincible 23 by a trio of Viltrumites looking for information on Mark, the Coalition retrieved him and healed his body. One curious aspect of Allen's physiology is that he appears to improve physically after each traumatic assault on his body, similar in nature to Superman's killer Doomsday, or the Saiyans of Dragon Ball.
In Future Shock (a comic distributed on Free Comic Book Day), it was revealed that Allen is now either at or nearly at Viltrumite levels of strength and invulnerability. This was told to him by Thaedus, leader of the Coalition of Planets, and a rebel Viltrumite, who founded the Coalition to defend against the Empire's desires. It was also mentioned that Allen could possibly surpass the super-race in power before too long.
In Invincible #45, when Allen faces off against a Viltrumite female designated to coerce Invincible into initiating a hostile takeover of Earth. After combat, in which the Viltrumite woman openly acknowledges Allen's incredible strength, he pretends to have been defeated in order to sneak aboard a Viltrumite cruiser ship to find Omni-Man.
His plan is set in motion with Omni-Man's execution. Showing a huge increase in his physical prowess, and now unable to be killed or executed by any means, he effortlessly tears away the bonds restraining him and staging a jailbreak to cover his tracks, frees Omni-Man from his prison, killing at least one of his jailers. The pair starts a two-man campaign to eradicate Viltrumite's supremacy from the galaxy.[1]
In the wake of the Viltrumite War and the death of Thaedus, Allen is made leader of the Coalition of Planets.[2]
Other appearances
Allen has appeared in Scott Kurtz's sketch days on his PVP webcomic, and on June 18, 2006 a character called Albert similar in design (thought more rotund) appeared in the strip along with a reference to how his brother Allen was doing.