* BaseBreakingCharacter: Division X is either a cool homage to Department S or a bunch of Scrappy [[FlatCharacter Flat Characters]] who side-track you from the titular characters and you can't remember half their names. The fact that they take half volume 3 doesn't help.
* CompleteMonster:
** [[PsychoForHire Orlando]] is a demonic assassin from the dark realms of Mictlan dispatched to deal with King Mob and his allies. Not satisfied with targeting the Invisibles, Orlando is a savage sadist who [[FlayingAlive skins]] innocent people to [[GenuineHumanHide wear them]], before murdering their entire families. Orlando goes on a killing spree, torturing and killing innocent people, children included, before trying to torture Jack Frost after cutting off his finger. When he returns later, Orlando tries to assist the [[EldritchAbomination Archons]], [[OrderIsNotGood all-powerful demons of absolute order]], and goes on another killing spree, even preparing to slaughter a group of children as a sacrifice.
** Colonel Friday is an influential US Air Force officer who moonlights as a member of the [[ConspiracyKitchenSink Outer Church]], a secret society that schemes to bring the Archons to Earth. In charge of the Church's operations in the United States, Friday masterminds numerous schemes to eradicate all except absolute conformity in humans, in accordance with his masters' dogma. He participates in an attempted [[FinalSolution genocide of the LGBT community]] by means of germ warfare, even WithholdingTheCure for AIDS from the population in his base; has experimented to create misshapen, agonized human-animal hybrids; invented a [[MindRape psychological torture]] machine that projects its victims' worst fear; and has imprisoned and tortured mysterious godlike being who pain causes disasters among humanity. Friday is also entirely aware of [[HellOnEarth exactly what his masters attempt to do to humanity]], and gleefully aids them nonetheless.
* CrossesTheLineTwice: Kirk Morrison's "Gideon Stargrave" stories are [[StylisticSuck ridiculously]] [[TestosteronePoisoning over the top]], but special mention goes to his "zen-obsessed extradimensional psychic tulpa" choosing to evade his persecutors [[BlackComedySuicide by driving off a cliff and escaping "via reincarnation".]] While having another passanger. Who is more worried that he'll reincarnate as a white man. And they've run over a sacred cow.
* EnsembleDarkHorse:
** Lord Fanny is one to Vertigo as a whole, for being a positive representation of transgender/transvestites in comic books and [[BadassAdorable ridiculously powerful]]. [[MsFanservice The fact the artists made her look the most attractive of all characters certainly helps.]]
** Pretty much any character from another cell from the Invisible College aside of the one we follow, but more specifically:
*** Jim Crow, for his badass CrazyIsCool attitude and adverting HollywoodVoodoo.
*** Jolly Roger for being a pirate-like BadassBiker with who carries a BFG and a [[DeadpanSnarker dry sense of humour]].
** Orlando only has an important role during the first arc, after which he dies. However, his [[EvilIsCool sheer spookiness]] has made him one of the series' most memorable villain, so he later cameos during the "She-Man" arc and even appears during the finale!
* EpilepticTrees: Loads and loads of it, considering how surreal it all is. As noted in SpiritualAntithesis, a frequent theory is that [[ComicBook/TheFilth the Hand]] and the Outer Church are different branches of an even higher organisation devoted to the StatusQuoIsGod philosophy.
* FairForItsDay: The way the text handles Lord Fanny often [[TransEqualsGay refers to her as a transvestite]], when it is made very clear throughout the series that she is in fact a trans woman, not a gay crossdresser. At the time of publication (1994-1999) this was actually very progressive as representation of either group was nearly non existent in comics.
* GeniusBonus: The work runs on this. If you're well read in Asian religions, occultism, conspiracy theories, 60s psychaedelia, classical literature, ''Series/{{The Prisoner|1967}}'', ''[[Literature/{{Illuminatus}} the Illuminatus trilogy]]'', the books of Creator/PhilipKDick, ''Franchise/TheCthulhuMythos'', counterculture history, anarchist theory, revolutions, French situationism and punk culture you'll have no problem through this. If you don't... well, [[{{Understatement}} you might have some difficulties through this.]]
* HarsherInHindsight: In Volume 2, Issue 2, Jolly Roger tells Mob, Robin, and Boy that mind-control nanotech was put in polio vaccines. If Morrison really thinks they were casting a spell, did they intend to magically spur the anti-vaccination movement and the [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/20/polio-resurgence-global-eradication resurgence of polio in several countries?]]
* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments:
** Fanny and Dane bonding through the book. Dane begins the story as a [[PoliticallyIncorrectHero transphobic jerkass]] against her, but slowly begins to warm to her. During the third volum they're travelling together and even have a dance-off against [[ItMakesSenseInContext some gods]].
** King Mob accompanies Edith during her last days, and gently brings her to the Ganges river to die.
** On a similar note, Fanny refusing to let King Mob die after he has been tortured to near death in "Entropy on the UK". She is willing to die by his side.
** Before the final battle during the finale, KM, Fanny, Dane and Jolly Roger have one finale supper together, where they express what an honour it has been fighting together. It concludes with King Mob summing their mission perfectly:
--> '''King Mob''': '' * Raising his glass *'' To chaos.
* MagnificentBastard: John-a-Dreams is the story's biggest WildCard, periodically appearing and disappearing and alternately aiding both the Invisibles and Outer Church for mysterious purposes. Once TheAce among the Invisible movement, he vanishes without a trace during an investigation into a dark ritual, only to return years later as a high-ranking emissary of the Outer Church and close confidant of the Archons themselves. He assists Sir Miles and his henchmen in supervising the Moonchild ritual, but once the final battle begins takes no side at all, [[MysteriousWatcher merely observing]]. As the Outer Church executives begin to fall, John affably greets his old friend Lord Fanny, revealing that he had attained transcendental knowledge of the best possible ending to the Outer Church crisis: Jack Frost achieving his destiny as the new Messiah. Never truly betraying the Invisibles after all, John [[DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent skillfully maneuvered the major players of both sides]] into the positions they needed to be in for Jack to accomplish that goal.
* NightmareFuel: [[NightmareFuel/TheInvisibles Now has its own page.]]
* OlderThanTheyThink:
** Despite several thematic similarities to ''Film/TheMatrix'', ''The Invisibles'' got there first on quite a few things.
** Ironically, Creator/MichaelMoorcock developed his own longstanding grudge against Morrison because he feels that King Mob/Gideon Stargrave is a flat ripoff of [[Literature/TheCorneliusChronicles Jerry Cornelius]] and that he wasn't given the proper credit from Morrison unlike other writers who've taken from his ideas.
** The idea of drugs that turn their consumers into mindless zombies via voodoo magic had already been used by Jon Ostrander in his run of ''ComicBook/SuicideSquad''.
** ''ComicBook/KidEternity'' by Ann Nocenty stars young teen with powers who is destined to bring about the Apocalypse and fights against surreal threats related to esoterism. It was published a year before ''The Invisibles'' saw print. To be fair, some of its themes first appeared in Grant's reinvention of the character in the 1991 mini.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To Morrison's own run on ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'', featuring similar themes of chaos vs. order and gender politics. Hell, Ragged Robin is an {{Expy}} of Crazy Jane, while Barbelith is one of Danny the Street. [[spoiler: The series also ends with the end of our world and the beginning of a new one.]]
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: King Mob blowing up Mason Lang's house is portrayed as him freeing Lang of his restraints and making him change for the better. Problem is, Mason is a very NiceGuy who is financing the Invisibles and hasn't been portrayed as anything but supportive or helpful, so this seems like a KickTheDog moment.
* ValuesResonance: Plenty. Themes like the government's secrets, oversurveillance, gender politics and the balance between freedom and safety are equally important today as they were when Morrison wrote them.