Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man movie is getting some pretty strong critical raves, which is a relief for both us and Paramount after the terrible start to their now-cancelled “Dark Universe” provided by The Mummy. It’s just a super solid, scary, horror flick with great performances and a twist that is both shocking and narratively rewarding. Invisibility has been a popular sci-fi concept since H.G. Wells first floated the idea way back in 1897, and we decided to revisit the trope with some of our favorite characters that you just can’t set your eyes on.
The Invisible Woman
As originally invented by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Susan Storm’s power set was… a little sexist. As opposed to her male cohorts in the Fantastic Four, being able to fade into nothingness wasn’t that dazzling a power compared to, say, being able to fly and catch things on fire or pick up a dump truck. But it didn’t take long for the Invisible Girl to grow into and expand her abilities, extending her invisibility to other objects and people. Eventually, she’d drop the “girl” and become a woman, as well as one of Marvel’s most complex and compelling female characters.
The Spy
The most devious role in Team Fortress 2 gains the ability to fade from view with the aid of a special wristwatch. The French national always dresses for success in a nice suit and form-fitting face mask, but it’s the timepiece that brings the whole outfit together. With a turn of the dial, the Spy becomes invisible for a short period of time, allowing him to infiltrate enemy lines. Once there, he uses his disguise skills to pose as a member of the other team for even more chaos. The alternate watches the Spy can equip tinker with his invisibility in interesting ways – one lets him stay cloaked forever as long as he doesn’t move, while another drops a decoy of his dead body.
Simon Bellamy
When a mysterious thunderstorm passes over south London, people caught in it find their lives changed by gaining bizarre and sometimes unwanted powers in the British TV show Misifits. Simon is one of five delinquents who make up the series’ first cast, and gains the power to fade from sight. He’s already a bit of an introvert, so being able to completely vanish from view just lets him nurture his worst personality traits until a time-traveling version of himself from the future shows up to demonstrate how much of a badass he could actually be. The show sort of got messy as it went on, but the first three seasons are aces and Simon is super dope.
Miles Morales
The second Ultimate Spider-Man had to differentiate himself from the original, and the first power he manifested after his spider bite certainly helped. After Miles Morales gained his abilities in Into The Spider-Verse, he started to fade from view whenever he felt bummed out or afraid. This is very loosely based on some real spiders, who have patterns that serve as camouflage or cover themselves with debris to hide themselves. We’re pretty glad that no actual spiders can just straight up turn invisible, though. That would be awful.
Guenael Lee
Invisibility is a popular power for villains, who carry out their vile deeds cloaked from view. Short-lived Bleach villain Guenael Lee, also known as the Vanishing Point, has one of the more devious invisibility powers on this list. He can not only vanish from view, but also vanish from your consciousness – so if you’re fighting him, he can disappear and you won’t even remember he was there. He uses this trait for some pretty sadistic purposes, tormenting his foes as they’re cut to pieces by an opponent that they don’t even remember existing.
The Predator
Camouflage is essential when you’re hunting the most dangerous game, and the alien Predator from the 1987 film of the same name exploits the hell out of it. This critter brings an arsenal of nasty weapons to the Central American jungle as it hunts “Dutch” Schaefer and his mercenary posse, but the most valuable tool he has is a little device that enables him to actively camouflage himself, bending light around his form to grant him near-invisibility. There’s a telltale visual effect, but when you’re fighting for your life who has time to pay that much attention?
Toru Hagakure
In the world of My Hero Academia, people are gifted with “Quirks” that grant them a variety of abilities. For high school student Toru Hagakure, her quirk has made her life a total pain in the ass. Since the moment she was born, Toru has been completely invisible to the naked eye. Unfortunately for her career as a hero, she can’t extend that invisibility to her clothes, so she has to strip nude in order to really use her powers effectively. She’s also a little shy about it, despite the fact that nobody can see anything.
Invisible Stan
We’ve long argued that professional wrestling deserves a spot in every geek’s life, and the existence – or lack thereof – of Invisible Stan bears that out. At an event called Joey Janela’s Spring Break, audiences were treated to one of the most surreal spectacles of all time, as the see-through hero Invisible Man faced off with his equally unseeable nemesis Invisible Stan. The only visible person in the ring was referee Bryce Remsburg, who managed to keep the contest above board until Stan was thrown through a table. It was a master class in suspension of disbelief.
Gray Fox
Solid Snake spends so much time in the Metal Gear series hiding from foes, often using nothing more than a humble cardboard box to do so. It must have come as quite the insult for him to meet his former ally Gray Fox, saved from death and rebuilt as a cyborg ninja, in Metal Gear Solid and find that he could just… turn invisible. Employing light-bending optical camouflage, Gray Fox infiltrated Shadow Moses and battled Snake before helping him in the final battle against his clone, Liquid Snake. Of course, because Kojima there’s tons of backstory too but let’s just say that being an invisible ninja is the only thing cooler than being a regular ninja.
Shizuka Joestar
Many of the characters in the epic manga Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure are accompanied by Stands, supernatural companions that grant them unique powers. When protagonist Joesph Joestar finds a baby by the side of the road, she just happens to have a Stand of her own. As is the case with much of the series, it has a pop music-derived name, Achtung Baby, and the ability to render Shizuka completely invisible to the naked eye when she gets upset. If her mood becomes even worse, that effect can extend in a sphere around her, with objects and even people vanishing until she calms down.
The Hood
When ambitious street thug Parker Robbins stumbles into a demon summoning ritual while he’s trying to rob a warehouse, he gets ridiculously lucky and makes off with the eldritch creature’s cloak and boots. The boots let him levitate, but the cloak is the real get – it allows him to become completely invisible and undetectable for as long as he can hold his breath. Sure, that’s a bit of a drawback, but he’s a smart guy and manages to leverage these small gifts into some pretty big scores. The Hood got a few power boosts over the years in the Marvel universe, but we still stan those early, scrappy days.
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