The Obligatory Warning: blood, guts, partial nudity, sex, swearing--everything I would love to see in a Golden Girls reunion, but not here.

When Robert Kirkman is original, he has some of the best ideas since Stan Lee. Brit is a great example. An indestructible old man with an even-keel temperament, a super-soldier who seems like an ok guy to have as a drinking buddy or a squash partner. He’s a more interesting Ben Grimm.

When Robert Kirkman does what any writer can do-- violence, sex, exploitation in any of its more-or-less pleasant guises--he’s kind of annoying. Brit is, again, a great example. He’s a strip club owner. He dates a failed law student too gutless to tell her parents she “dances” at Brit’s club.

Brit (both the one-shot and the character) is a crystallization of Kirkman’s good and bad sides, a clever-yet-frustrating forty-eight page Janus. The characters are uniquely defined, there’s a fantastic sense of timing that makes even mundane scenes significant, and, in characteristic Kirkman fashion, the universe that surrounds the protagonist is enigmatic and captivating. At the same time, there’s more violence than the story needs, the strip-club angle is clearly a lame attempt to seem cool, and, in characteristic Kirkman fashion, his flippancy detracts from his impressive wit.

Artist Tony Moore (currently at work on Fear Agent: The Last Goodbye) offers a more impressive performance. He works well with Kirkman, and I wouldn’t be adverse to seeing Moore draw further characters from the Invincible universe. His deft use of black, white and grey (it’s a colorless comic) almost makes the nastier moments of this story work, but there’s only so much any artist can do to make a grody strip joint look appealing.

Worth the money? Sadly, no. Especially since it’s $5.