Month: October 2026

Invincible: The Hero-Building Game Season 2. Oh, Right! I Love This Game!

Welcome back to Cooperative Comic Book month! We’ve seen the DC Comic Book Universe! We’ve seen the Marvel DC Universe! We’ve seen some crazy space Comic Book universe! And this week, we venture into the Image Comic Book Universe!

I pre-ordered Invincible: The Hero-Building Game Season 2 a while ago from GameNerdz, and it just arrived late September 2026. That’s right! I had forgotten I ordered this! What perfect timing! It came during Cooperative Comic Book month!

This is an expansion for the Invincible: The Hero-Building Game. NOTE! This is not a standalone product! You need the original game to play!

You might remember that we discussed the original Invincible: The Hero-Building Game a while ago (see review here), and we basically loved it! This solo and cooperative bag-building push-your-luck game went over so well that it made our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024!

Will we like the expansion? Let’s check it out!

Unboxing and Discussion

This is a relatively thin box compared to the original.

Luckily, it’s the same width and height as the original game so you can store them on top of each other.

This is an expansion! It comes with four new characters from the Invincible Cinematic Universe: Black Samson, Monster Girl, Dupli-Kate and Shrinking Rae. See above! Each of these characters plays quite different than the original characters from the base box.

Mostly, there’s just a bunch of new cards that give more Super Powers, more Ultimate Powers, more Events, more Challenges, more Helpers, more Episodes, more Villains and more starting Powers! More cards!!! It’s just more stuff to expand your base game!

Of course, there’s a bunch of new punchouts (the new heroes especially), but most of the new punchouts are tokens for specific Episodes in the game!

There’s two “new” big things in the game. The first is “falter” cubes. These “green” (?) cubes get added to your bag (usually as bad news), and if you draw them, they cause the biggest bad guy (in your area) to get a free shot! The worst part of these “falter” cubes is the color … I can distinguish them from the blue cubes, but I can see a lot of people not being able to.

The other new thing is “fuel” tokens, which you can use in place of cubes. They don’t go into your bag like cubes, but you can use these like cubes to power your powers!

The new stuff is all covered in the (smallish) Rulebook. There are also 6 new episodes in the Episode Guide: It’s basically a new campaign!

Overall. this is just more “stuff” for the Invincible: The Hero-Building Game! It looks like the original game, so the art and graphic design is consistent between them.

I Forgot!

I forgot how to play Invincible: The Hero-Building Game! I remembered “most” of the basics, but realized I couldn’t just jump in without reminding myself how to play the game! To give the expansion a fair shake, I wanted to make sure I was up on the original game! In fact, I had to play the first two Episodes in the original game (so you see ALL the mechanisms on the game) to remind myself of everything!

I forgot how much I love this game! I tend to eschew “weird” solo modes, so I just played Invincible and Atom Eve two-handed solo (with no weird solo exceptions) … just like I did back in the original review! I typically do this because solo games can get messy with extra rules, but if you just played as if it were a 2-player game, then you only have to worry about normal rules!

Oh ya, this is a great game. Even if this expansion completely sucks, it made me play the base game again and remember how much I love it!

New Heroes!

The best part of this new expansion is the new Heroes. Over a bunch of solo and cooperative games, I got to know and (mostly) love these new characters!

Dupli-Kate is probably my favorite! She’s so interesting and different as she can split into three, and you can choose which Kate will perform an action! She is great for keeping the minions under control as she spreads across the world!! She is a little fragile, as each Kate only has 4 points, but she resets if a Kate is killed (and that Kate can come back)! She was SO interesting!

Monster Girl was a close second favorite! Remember those new “falter” cubes? The “falter” cubes still gives a bad guy a free shot, but Monster Girl can use them and treat them as a wild cube! So, you kind of “want” Monster Girl to get “falter” cubes, as she can really use them! And it’s kind of okay if she gets KO’d (she takes a LOT of damage), because she’s so powerful! I think every game that I used her, she got KO’d at least once … and that’s okay!

Shrinking Rae was also great and a close third. She reminds me VERY much of Ant-Man from Marvel Champions (see review here): when she changes to big mode, she spackos a bad guy! And her powers are a little different if she is in big or small mode (and she even had minis for both modes). It makes sense to switch modes a lot if you are Rae!

Black Samson was probably my least favorite; he uses fuel a lot more than other heroes. He tends to embrace the use of fuel! I had trouble getting going with him. He wasn’t bad, and he was interesting with his power suit but I tended to prefer all the other characters more.

Solo

Over the course of at least 6 solo games, I got a good sense of the new heroes and the new powers! I, of course, played solo as two-handed solo (there is NO notion of true solo in this game: everything is balanced for 2, 3, and 4-Player games). I was pleased that I won Episode 1! It was a challenge though!

I lost Episode 2 when using Shrinking Rae and Black Samson! Basically, I couldn’t save enough people! (You have to have at least 2 people per zone “saved” as well as taking out the bad guy!) The Powers I got just didn’t have enough “saves” in them.

In a second game of Episode 2 with Monster Girl and DupliKate, I WAS able to save enough people and win! It seems like Monster Girl and Kate are a “little bit better” at saving the bystanders. Some of this was a function of the powers that Samson and Rae drew (not enough “saves”), but I think some of this was not paying enough attention to saving, and also Samson has NO SAVES on his front side! It was interesting to see that your approach does have to change depending on what you need to do!

Just a lot of fun to play with the new characters: they are all different and interesting, and the solo mode works great.

Cooperative

So, how do the new characters work together? Honestly, the game still flows the same for the most part; there’s no real change in flow.

Players still play “at their own pace”, drawing from the bag and playing cubes simultaneously. The more I think about it, the more this reminds me of how the game flowed with Slay The Spire (the board game: see review here): players kind of “do their own thing” simultaneously, keeping the game flowing, but every so often slowing down and synchronizing with their teammates.

“I need some help with this bad guy! Can you help if you have a chance?”
“I need to save a few people then I’ll be right over!”

Honestly, this “play when you want” works so well in this game! You cam imagine super heroes having the agency to do good stuff on their turn, but still working together as needed! This is the perfect blend of player agency and cooperation!

To be clear, all the new rules (which there aren’t THAT many) don’t really change the flow of the cooperative game. This is the best kind of expansion: give me some more variety, but keep all the great stuff from the original game! This expansion keeps the original flow from the original game … which is so awesome!

Mixing This Up

So, you CAN play the game using ONLY the new Heroes, only the new Super Powers, only the new Ultimates, and only the new Enemies! In other words, if you DO NOT wish to mix all the new stuff back into the box, you can just play the new stuff. You still need a lot of tokens and save dice and all that from the base game, but you can play with “only” the new stuff.

If you look at my set-up above, you can see that I kept all the expansion stuff on the left (far) side of the table and all the base stuff on the right (near) side of the table. I wanted to make sure I kept everything separate so I can put everything back in their respective boxes.

At first I wasn’t worried, because I noticed the Super Power cards are notated with a 2 in lower right corner (see above).

But nothing else is! The Ultimate powers DO NOT have a 2!!

The Villains don’t! have a 2!! The Challenges and Helpers don’t!!! The Events don’t!!!!What the heck!!!??? Why would they mark the Super Power cards AND NOTHING ELSE???? THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME!

So, for all my games with the Expansion, I ONLY used the cards from the expansion, because I was afraid I’d never be able to separate the sets!

To help people, like me, who want to know what cards are in here, I have a section at the end of this review where I have pictures all of the cards that aren’t labelled so you can always separate them … if you want. Maybe this is just a me thing, but I am VERY annoyed that only one set of cards are annotated with the 2!!!!

Conclusion

The best expansions remind you how much you love the base game! If this expansion completely sucked, I’d still be happy that it reminded me to play the base game again and rediscover how much I loved Invincible: The Hero-Building Game! In the end, though, this expansion was great: it added 4 new heroes, a new campaign (with 6 episodes), and just a “few” new mechanisms … plus a whole bunch of new cards! It adds a lot to the game without making it much more complicated! I feel like (and did) I could show off the new expansion to a bunch of new gamers without missing a beat!

I am annoyed that the cards are not all marked with a “2” to show they are from Season 2. It’s weird they only marked the Super Powers and nothing else? If you are like me and want to be able to separate things, see the Appendix (below) for pictures of all the cards!

I am less annoyed that the “falter” cubes are SO CLOSE in color to the blue cubes, but I am still annoyed. I was able to distinguish them without problem, but I do worry that others will have issues.

Other than the lack of markings and weird coloring on “falter” cubes, I loved this expansion! I heartily recommend it with an 8.5/10 or 9/10. It’s easy to jump into, doesn’t make the base game much more complicated, but still gives you a lot more content! This is the best kind of expansion: it preserves the flow of the original game, but just gives you more stuff.

Appendix: The Season 2 Cards that ARE NOT MARKED

These are pictures of all Season 2 cards that are UNMARKED. All Super Power cards are marked with a 2 in the lower right corner.

The base powers and starting powers (granted, these probably don’t HAVE to be marked, because it’s clear which hero they belong to).

Season 2 Challenge cards (6 total).

Season 2 Helper cards (6 total).

Season 2 Level 3 Villains (8 total).

Season 2 Level 2 Villains (8 total).

Season 2 Level 1 Villains (3 total).

All Season 2 Villain Cards (20 total … includes Angstrom Levy).

All Season 2 Ultimate Power cards (17 total).

Season 2 Event Cards (9 total).

Escape Comics: The Alien Ship. Review (No Spoilers) after Full Playthrough!

Welcome back to Cooperative Comics month! Earlier this month, we looked at a cooperative Spider-man miniatures games! Last week, we looked at a cooperative racing game in the DC universe! This month we look at something unique and different in the cooperative comic book sphere!

Escape Comics: The Alien Ship is a cooperative Escape Room game that was on Kickstarter back in April 2026. It’s an Escape Room in a comic book!! What does that mean??

This promised delivery in November 2026, and it arrived at my house in late September 2026! What??? A Kickstarter that’s months early? Holy cow!

We paid $83 for the Captains’ Pledge (with some digital content). I think if you see this in retail, it will be cheaper (like $49?)

What on Earth is this strange thing? Well, it turns out you aren’t on Earth … Let’s take a look!

Unboxing and Gameplay

This is an Escape Room game! The game presents puzzles that players must solve to advance! And I feel like I can’t show too much of the game! Part of the fun of an Escape Room game is the newness and cool stuff! I can show a little: see the box opened up with a can of coke for scale.

We will show a few components (below and beyond) so you can get a sense of the game, but no real spoilers. If you want to be COMPLETELY surprised and just see what we thought of the game, scroll down to the Conclusion section. If you prefer to see just a little bit (with no real spoilers), continue with us!

The very first thing you see is a “how to play” sheet on top of the box explaining how the game unfolds.

All puzzles in the game will be solved using the Clair computer (the puzzle wheel) above. After aligning symbols, the wheel gives you a number, which you look up on an answer card. This system reminded me a lot of the Exit games. That’s a good thing, as those are great Escape Room games!

At the end of the day, the most important thing in the game is the comic book. See above! The comic book presents the story and puzzles unfold along the way. “Usually” you can’t turn the page until you have solved the puzzle on that set of pages!

Below of a quick snapshot of the comic: it gives a sense of the art in the comic book and the sense of the game. There’s no real spoilers on the pages below, but if you want to be completely surprised, scroll by quickly.

It’s a comic book! The storytelling tropes of comics are all there! ZZZAP! KABLAM! Over the top little vignettes! It’s a comic book story, interspersed with puzzles.

The puzzles are presented in envelopes: you have to open the envelope to see the components of the puzzles. Each puzzle is very different!

The components for this game, without showing too much, are pretty awesome. The puzzle envelopes have some great stuff inside. And the comic book was a comic book! It revealed a story (with comic book art) while also forcing players to solve puzzles along the way!

It was exactly what it promised: a comic book Escape Room game!

Playthrough

We ended up with a 3-Player game playing through this. I think the game will play four players, but more people will make this harder … because it’s physically more difficult for everyone to see the comic!! For a 3-Player game, we had to squish together around the comic book (on one side of the table) so we could all read it together! I think four people might have been too much: you’d probably have to pass the book around to four players? As it was, we three players all squished together and it worked for us; this may or may not work with your playgroups.

The Kickstarter showed the playtime at 4-8 hours (see above). We ended up playing the whole thing in one night in 3 hours.

The thing is, I think Escape Room games are easier with more people because more brains can work on the puzzles! A solo or 2-Player game might take 4-8 hours because you have fewer a-ha moments with fewer brains! A 4-Player game, even with more brains, still has to contend with passing the comic book around so everyone can see it, so that will slow the game. I think we had an optimal experience at 3-Players and squishing around one side of the table. Your mileage may vary.

Hints

There is a hint system. We did not use it? It looked liked it worked, but we kind of preferred to solve things ourselves, even if we had to bang our heads against the table!

It is VERY important for an Escape Room game to have a Hint system. We have been sitting on a review here at CO-OP Gestalt because we got stuck in a game … and there’s no hint system. So, that other game sits in Limbo.

Luckily, there is a hint system for Escape Comics: The Alien Ship: If you get stuck, you can still move forward.

Puzzles

I was surprised how much I liked the puzzles in this game! They weren’t too hard, and they weren’t too easy! We made it through all nine? ten? puzzles (depending on how you count them)! Sure, we had to play with components and think and talk along the way, but that’s what you do in Escape Room game!

The puzzles were interesting and had high-quality components associated with them. The hardest puzzle was the last one .. as it should be!

Reset?

The game is completely resettable. After you are all done, you can reset the puzzles (put them back in their envelope), and reset the game. Then, you can pass this along to your friends, or keep it for three years after you’ve forgotten everything and replay it!

Adult?

There’s a couple of moments in the game that are a little graphic and perhaps a touch adult. So, just be aware this isn’t necessarily kid friendly, even though it’s a comic book. I don’t want to show anything, but the 13+ on here might be a little more applicable than other games.

Conclusion

Escape Comics: The Alien Ship was the funnest experience I have had with an Escape Room game in quite some time! The puzzles were just challenging enough to be interesting, but not too easy! The components of the puzzles were also pretty high quality. The only complaint might be that the puzzles had to be solved in linear order, but to be fair, that’s the way they came out in the comic book!

The comic book vibe of this game is totally on point! The game really uses the comic book well! Like, really well! I can’t say much more, because it might spoil some things, but the immersion and use of the media was done extremely well. I was initially bummed I couldn’t show the comic book on a video screen, but I think you NEED to be immersed in the physical book itself to get the full experience! You need to embrace this as a comic book you touch and feel!

To that end, I think the game is best at two or three players. Solo will work, but it can be easier to get stuck on puzzles because you only have one brain; luckily, the hint system looks good. Four players might be too much, because it’s harder for everyone to squeeze around the comic book and read it? You can always pass the book around with four players, but I think the strength of this game is reading and experiencing the story (and puzzles) together.

After the very disappointing Abyss Echo from a few weeks ago, it was great to see a real Escape Room game with real puzzles and a real story! The comic book system totally works in this game! 8.5 / 10.

Breakout Arkham Asylum: Adding a Solo and Cooperative Mode! (Sigh. And Also a Semi-Cooperative Mode)

Welcome back to Cooperative Comics Month! We saw Marvel Crisis Protocol: Alliances last week in the Spiderverse! This week, we head to the DC Universe and take a look at a game that is a racing game? Cooperative racing game are incredibly rare, but using the special rules below, Breakout Arham Asylum can become a fully cooperative and solo (and semi-cooperative) game!

Last Dice Tower West 2025, I finally got to play Magical Athlete! See above!! It’s a silly silly competitive race game with roll-and-move! And it’s very quick!! Usually, roll-and-move is a mechanism that doesn’t work well, but this game is over so quickly and it’s so silly and funny, you don’t care! It’s got some take-that elements which I usually don’t like … but here’s the thing … I liked playing Magical Athlete! It was Stupid Fun! Magical Athlete was very divisive in that group: Kurt and I both loved it, but Dan didn’t like it … it was too random for him … but that’s the point!?

Fast forward a few months, and I heard about a game very similar to Magical Athlete called Breakout Arkham Asylum! This is the same kind of game as Magical Athlete, but it has villains from the Batman Rogue’s Gallery trying to escape the Arkham Asylum! A super-villain game in the DC universe!??!! I love that theme!

Breakout Arkham Asylum is very similar to Magical Athlete! It’s roll-and-move, but you get to choose the Villains you play! And these villains all have powers! And you choose a villain pair to play, so you can choose two powers that may combo well together! Honestly, given a choice between Magical Athlete and Breakout Arkham Asylum, I would choose Breakout Arkham Asylum because of the theme and the dual powers! At the end of the day, it’s a quick, silly, stupid game that’s over quickly as players roll dice and race towards the end!

Here’s the thing, you can’t play Breakout Arkham Asylum solo or cooperatively. I guess you could play it two-handed solo against yourself, but it’s take-that against yourself? That’s not really fun. Maybe playing it cooperatively would make a stupid roll-and-move game a little more fun and less take-that?

I think it’s pretty obvious what you need to make this cooperative and solo … you need Batman!

Cooperative Mode: Needs More Batman!

The cooperative mode introduces Batman to the game! My Batman figurine came from DC United: Hush, but you can use Batman from Gotham City Chronicles as well! You can also just use Man-Bat from the game if you have no other Batman figure…

Batman has heard that the villains are escaping Arkham Asylum, but he only needs to capture a single villain pair to find out their plan and stop them! So, in order to win, the Villains must ALL escape without getting captured by Batman! Batman starts the game above the fray … see above!

If Batman ever ends up on a space with a single villain pair, he captures those villains, grills them, and discovers the Master Plan! GAME OVER! See above as Batman captures Calendar Man (one side of the villain pair)!

If, however, Batman is ever on a space with two or more villain pairs, then they overwhelm him! If Batman is overwhelmed, he flees and he escapes back to the top of the Asylum! See above!!

The cooperative version of Breakout Arkham Asylum plays very similarly to the basic competitive game: villains all need to escape Arkham Asylum by rolling and moving! The difference is that the villains are working together to keep out of Batman’s way! They tend to stay together to keep from being captured: there’s safety in numbers!

All powers work exactly the same*, which might seem a weird thing at first, because the Villain powers typically hinder other players! But here’s the thing; sometimes a Villain Pair WANTS to be hindered so they don’t go barreling headlong into Batman! “Batman is three spaces away? GULP! Someone please help me lose a turn!” See above as Deathstroke can make that happen!

It’s a different way to look at the world: those Villain powers can actually HELP each other by hurting each other!

Solo Mode: Two-Handed Solo

The solo mode is simple: set-up as a 2-Player cooperative game (with two hands and two sets of Villain Pairs). The solo player then alternates between the two Villain Pairs as if it were a 2-Player cooperative game. See set-up above!

Discussion

One thing that DOES change in the cooperative game: players are allowed to talk about the hand of 5 Villains they were dealt at the start of the game! This extra bit of talking and strategizing can help the players find the right combo of powers to stay out of Batman’s way!

This way, players can, as a group, strategize to find the right combo of powers!

Rules

The rules originally started on two sheets of paper (see above), but I have transferred them to a PDF. See the full rules PDF below! The current version is 1.2.2. It’s gone through a number of revisions as I try find little tweaks to make the game more fun!

To be clear, this tries very hard to keep the spirit of Magical Athlete and the original Breakout Arkham Asylum! Silly roll-and-move fun, but turn the take-that into help-this!

Note that this new set of rules make a semi-cooperative mode trivial; just continue to play even after Batman captures someone!

Please feel free to comment.

breakoutarkhamasylumsoloandcooperativeorsighsemi-cooperativerulesDownload