The man was Bad. The man was Dangerous. And in the blink of a surgically-altered eye, the man was also History. But Michael Jackson is about to take one last shot at proving that he is indeed Invincible.

His story is legend. But even legends fade with time, and the years have diminished the lustre on the King of Pop’s crown. He burst on the scene in the 1970s and thrilled the world in the 1980s. But increasing reports of his bizarre personal life and scandal doomed his career in the 1990s, and his latest comeback effort carries with it the faint scent of desperation. Now is the final chance to prove that the Gloved One is still the loved one in the hearts of the people.

The story of the man begins with the frightened little boy whose lightning-quick dance moves were reputed to stem from his skill at dodging his father’s blows. The seventh of nine children, Michael Joseph Jackson’s incredible charisma and talent were readily apparent even at the tender age of five, when he began singing with his brothers as part of the Jackson Five. After several crowd-pleasing shows, they were signed to Motown in 1969, where they began to turn out hit after hit. “I Want You Back”, “ABC” and “I’ll Be There” are among their many successes on Motown.

Behind the scenes, the successes came at an enormous price. It was the familiar yet sad tale of the father whose zeal for success came at the expense of affection for his children. The stages of the world were the playgrounds of the Jackson youth, the screaming fans the closest thing to true affection. The arrested development of Michael Jackson had begun—a lost boy locked in stasis, searching ever more keenly for the innocence and magic of a childhood that was denied to him.

In his best-selling 1988 autobiography, Moonwalk, Jackson acknowledged his regret, saying

I was so lonely that I used to walk through my neighborhood hoping I’d run into somebody I could talk to and perhaps become friends with. I wanted to meet people who didn’t know who I was. I wanted to run into somebody who would be my friend because they liked me and needed a friend too, not because I was who I am.

Perhaps that is the motivation behind the man, that simple longing to be loved. From that basic desire has stemmed some of the most fascinating and over-the-top spectacles the world has ever seen. Jackson’s insecurities have spawned one mega-excess after another, all in a bid to (re)capture the love and attention he has craved since childhood. And it is within this context that his life and his career must be placed. With his comeback album, Invincible, he presents the world with idiosyncratic larger-than-life presentation.

No doubt Michael Jackson fans the world over (and there are many, to be sure) eagerly anticipate the release of the King’s forthcoming album as they would the birth of their own child. But the support of those die-hard fans is assured. It is the imaginations and hearts (and pocketbooks) of the new generation that Jackson needs to conquer. The dilemma lies in assuring the world that Michael Jackson is still as relevant today as he was 20 years ago.

The world has changed; Jackson’s single white glove and moonwalk are relevant no more, long since replaced by new fads and fancies. Staying power need not be an impossible feat, however. Madonna and Sting, both rockers of the 1980s, have stayed fresh and hip well into the new millennium. But they never had to contend with life as a child performer, with racism, with scandal, or with what is perhaps the most insurmountable obstacle of all: a little album known as Thriller.

Thriller is Jackson’s blessing and his curse, the best-selling album of all time that catapulted him into the rarefied heights of supersuperstardom and rendered all his past great work almost unimportant by comparison. The fame brought by Thriller, and its record sales (over 51 million copies sold worldwide) set an impossible standard for Jackson. As he recorded in Moonwalk,

There was a lot of tension because we felt we were competing with ourselves. It’s very hard....because no matter how you look at it, people are always going to compare...to Thriller. You can always say, “Aw, forget Thriller.” But no one ever will.

No one ever has. The fabled 14-minute film that accompanied the single “Thriller” is considered the best and most important clip in music video history. Accolades were heaped upon Jackson by the truckload for the album, including an unmatched seven American Music Awards and eight Grammy Awards in 1984. The album had six memorable Top Ten singles, including the classics “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and of course, “Thriller.”

The sophomore jinx laid to rest (Jackson had feared sales of Thriller would fail to eclipse that of his debut effort, Off The Wall), Jackson went immediately to work on a follow-up. After five years of pain-staking work, the world was once again mesmerized by the master. With the largest advance orders for any album ever, Bad solidified Jackson’s success and ignited Michael-mania once again. The album spawned single after single, becoming the second-largest musical success story after Thriller and earning the young musician the coveted title of the King of Pop. Songs like “The Way You Make Me Feel” and “Man in the Mirror” still hold up well after so many years, still as hauntingly lyrical and arresting as they were way back when.

But all good things must come to an end, and when the 1980s finally gave way to a newer decade, the tide of public favor had noticeably turned against the King of Pop. The little boy had never truly grown up, still craving attention in the strangest ways. Gobs of makeup and plastic surgery transformed the onetime teen idol into a ghoulish spectacle, and many found it ironic that the singer would preach “it don’t matter if you’re black or white” while looking increasingly caucasian. The pristine image of Michael Jackson was cracking and fading; he had spoken of his perception once before in Moonwalk, writing “I think I have a goody-goody image in the press, and I hate that.” But as much as the sensitive performer may have hated that, he would definitely grow to hate his new image even more.

The tabloids were rife with speculation on Jackson’s eccentric behavior, using his oddities as a springboard for their own wild imaginings. In response, Jackson withdrew further from the world, retreating to his private Neverland ranch/park near Los Angeles. The release of 1991’s Dangerous proved to be the harbinger of Jackson’s impending career downturn. Sales were lukewarm by his standards, and his desire for attention evoked negative reactions. A nightmare-like sequence at the end of his video for the first single, “Black or White,” in which he repeatedly grabbed his crotch and smashed the windows of parked cars, provoked a strong backlash. As a result, the video was edited for content before being rebroadcast. Despite big budgets and famous Hollywood stars, Jackson’s cutting-edge videos were no longer the events they had once been. Although Dangerous bought forth several No. 1 singles, the album failed to perform as well as its predecessors, leading many critics to predict that his career was on the ebb. His new appearance won him little sympathy, while the children of the 1980s had mostly grown up and moved on. Jackson was in fact a cliché whose time was coming to an end, aided and abetted by his strange habits—his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, the private shrine to Elizabeth Taylor reputedly kept in his quarters, and perhaps most importantly of all, his predilection for hanging out exclusively with children.