The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps SlappyWorld #9: Revenge of the Invisible Boy

It's time for yet another trip into SlappyWorld. Invisibility is one of Stine's favorite go-tos. With two notable takes on the concept in the original 62, and a return to the idea in SlappyWorld. In fact, this  book's title was technically mentioned in the Goosebumps movie. However, our book isn't based on the invisible boy of the movie and has no link to the movies. But I guess the idea was too good to pass up. It's time to look through Revenge of the Invisible Boy.

This cover is really good. It actually feels like a Jacobus-era cover with the garish colors and the warping background. But what really sells it is the design of our invisible boy. How his clothing look filled, but no sign of the boy inside them. The addition of the frowning graffiti face is a cool touch as is the handprint on the locker. Interesting note is that this one of few Dorman books where concept art exists and there was a bunch taking the concept in multiple different angles. If you want to see them, check out the Goosebumps Wiki on this book. But as for the cover, high marks yet again.

Frankie Miller (intentional reference?) really doesn't like Ari Goodwyn. See, Frankie is a magician (oh god, another magician kid?). Or at least he's a part of the magic club. The magic club consists of Frankie and his friends Melody Richmond and Eduardo Martinez. Ari's in the club too, though unlike the more focused trio he's more of a goofball that makes things worse. But with their magic club being held in Ari's basement they have no say in the matter. 

We then cut to Frankie performing his magic in the auditorium of... Han Solo Middle School? Okay, this is Butt-Head Memorial Auditorium level silly. Frankie's trick is to levitate off the ground. Pretty simple slight of hand where Frankie's attached to a rope that gets pulled up by Ari on the catwalk. It all goes well until the cord loosens and Frankie crashes to the floor below. Ari's hand slipped off the winch... or he did it on purpose. Though, Frankie doesn't get laughed at for it, just boos and mostly silence. I think he'd rather the laughs at least. Make him look less like a loser. Melody and Frankie think that Ari's been making them look bad on purpose, but Eduardo doesn't quite believe that.

At the magic club, Melody tries to do a magic trick where you put a pitcher of water into a hat and not get it wet. The hat being Frankie's Yankee's cap. Unfortunately for Frankie, Ari's dog Buster leaps at them, making a mess. Ari's been getting a good laugh over everything, including how the kids actually are mocking Frankie's fall. He then tells Frankie to use his dad's chin-up bar, which like an idiot Frankie does, giving Ari a chance to pants him, revealing his Spongebob boxers. Okay, Ari's a dick, but Frankie's kind of stupid for falling for that. But Frankie's convinced that now he really needs to get Ari back.

The next week at the magic club, the trio are excited because famous magician Mystical Marvin is coming to town. Meanwhile Ari doesn't quite see what the fuss is about. He's just another magician. Frankie and the others tell him that supposedly all of Mystical Marvin's magic tricks are real, not slight of hand stuff. The kids head to Mystical Marvin's show and it's pretty impressive as Marvin seems to be able to do all his tricks with ease. Though Ari is the wet fart of the group, constantly saying that it's all a work. Marvin does tricks like levitating, going into a picture, then staying underwater for a long time. Frankie gets picked to go onstage with Mystical Marvin, doing a spell that may make him disappear forever. But not Frankie, himself. Marvin drinks from a bottle and sure enough, he disappears. 

After the show, Melody wants to know how Mystical Marvin disappeared like that, so she sneaks backstage with Frankie following. Sure enough they find Mystical Marvin who eventually tells them how he does his disappearing act. It involves a yellow formula made of animal saliva. He learned it from a dying sorcerer. As he's about to show them, he leaves to take a phone call, giving Frankie enough time to steal the bottle, realizing that he just found a way to get his revenge on Ari.

Frankie's plan is to make Ari disappear with the formula. Given that Mystical Marvin came back after a few minutes, it'll be a simple enough scare. At the next meeting, Frankie pours the liquid into Ari's lemonade when he isn't looking. But turns out that Ari manages to switch glasses with Frankie, so Frankie starts to turn invisible. But Frankie doesn't stay too freaked for long, he manages to use his newfound invisibility to screw with Ari a bit, pouring the lemonade on his head then slaps his hat on top. But Melody then tells Frankie that maybe this isn't a positive given he doesn't even know if he can go back to normal. But Frankie's in too much of a power high to care right now, especially if he can use his invisibility to scare people.

Frankie rides his bike, which freaks people out given nobody looks to be riding it, then steals a middle school kid's soccer ball, then screws with some kids playing basketball by stealing it and dribbling the ball. He then grabs a frisbee that two girls are throwing and plays with that, scaring them as well. Thankfully we're past the "we can use it to go into the girl's locker room" notion from Let's Get Invisible! and it's more kooky antics. Frankie's having a good time, but Melody reminds him that he's still invisible. Worse yet, how can he explain this to his parents? They can't see him like this, as in literally they can't see him at all. But they have enough of an alibi to have Frankie stay at Eduardo's for the night.

Ari then reminds Frankie of the whole, you know, trying to turn him invisible thing, which is true, even if Ari's been a jerk. Frankie then attacks him, still mad about everything. After Ari manages to get away, laughing hard about everything, Frankie then learns that the next day is picture day, so he's even more screwed. The next idea is maybe to see Mystical Marvin and see if he can get them an antidote of some sort. Problem with that is when they get there, they see that Marvin's show's been canceled. When they sneak into the theater, they at least see Marvin's stuff, but no Marvin. The janitor shows up to give some exposition. Turns out that Marvin's been missing since the show.

So, Frankie ends up at Eduardo's. His older cousin Natalie is mostly on her phone, while his younger sister Veronica is whining about not getting a happy meal. Frankie grabs some McNuggets which freaks out Veronica. Frankie has a dream about being Mystical Marvin, doing a trick to turn him back to normal. But when he wakes up, no luck there. The next day, Eduardo suggests they go to the local magic shop Abracadabra N Stuff, run by some guy named Jerome who may have some answers. But it's class photo day, so they go to school first. Eduardo gives Frankie a cap and a jacket, hoping that they'll at least work to get some of him in the picture. This gives Frankie a chance to get back at Ari a little. He pushes some of the kids, which gets Ari blamed.

Frankie and Eduardo head to Abracadabra N Stuff, but now it's a broth store, so no luck there. Frankie gets home and manages to get his parents to discover that he's invisible. We don't even get a because Goosebumps parents moment, they actually notice his invisibility and panic. Mrs. Miller suggests they go see Uncle Siggy. Who's Uncle Siggy? Why a scientist of course. A brilliant scientist. After some tests, Siggy tells Frankie that the only way to end the invisibility is to break down the molecules with acid. Frankie panics, but Uncle Siggy assures him that this will be totally safe. He pours the acid on Frankie's hand which causes it to burn, but not bring it back to visibility. Frankie and Mr. Miller are a bit concerned, but Mrs. Miller is sure that Siggy is a brilliant scientist. As the parents argue, Frankie sneaks out.

He returns to the theater hoping to find Mystical Marvin again. Still no sign. He then searches through Mystical Marvin's things and finds what appears to be an "appearing liquid". He drinks it, only to then see the bottle says "DISappearing liquid". Okay, that was kind of funny if just for how dumb it is. Suddenly, Frankie gets grabbed by someone. It's Mystical Marvin, who is also invisible. Marvin tells Frankie that he can't actually help him. The effects of the formula could be permanent. 

Frankie goes to school the next day and already sees that his friends are planning to replace him in the magic club. Ari even cops to deliberately dropping him during the levitation trick. So now we have not just an invisible boy, but an angry invisible boy. He sneaks into the magic club meeting and puts some of the invisibility potion in their drinks, when suddenly Buster the dog starts licking him, and somehow that's enough to pop Frankie back into visibility. 

Everyone celebrates with a toast to Buster. Frankie then realizes his mistake and tries to warn Eduardo, Melody and Ari who drink their lemonade and disappear. I mean, that would be a scary ending if we didn't know what cured it. 

Revenge of the Invisible Boy is okay. Nothing in it really makes it amazing, but nothing makes it a bad book either. It's a very in the middle story. Frankie makes for a decent protagonist, though much of the issues with Ari seem to be his own fault. Either by easily falling for Ari's pranks or trying too hard to get any revenge. Melody and Eduardo are okay side characters, though are also pretty superfluous at times. Ari's an okay enough antagonist, though the book doesn't do too much with him outside of the pranks. Once the book realizes that the horror is more about Frankie's plight as an invisible kid, Ari becomes less of a character overall. Though given Ari's streak of being a prankster, Frankie dodged a bullet in turning him invisible.

The book is paced well. We get enough time to build up to the invisibility, enough time for some antics, and plenty of time trying to find ways to fix it. Including some mad science in the process. Scares are minimal, but the dread of Frankie being stuck this way does work. I will say the dog licking being the conclusion feels like a lazy way to end the story, but also kind of the most logical given they set up Buster the dog earlier in the book. And the twist is just okay, nothing super special. Loses its scare factor if we know it's dog saliva that fixes the spell. So, this book is ultimately a middle ground book like I said. Not something super incredible, but just fine for a quick read. One that will probably vanish a bit too quick from your memory though.

STORY: GGG

SCARES: GG

TWIST: GG

ENJOYMENT: GGG

OVERALL: 2.5 Gs