In modern pop culture, the superhero sub-genre has generally been torn between two extremes. Between something bright, idealistic, fantastical, and something darker, more cynical, closer to reality. Invincible is a show that dances on the line between those extremes, and looks good doing it.
My thoughts on Season Two are a bit scattered, so I’ll try my best to organize them.
Graysons
Last season’s finale was a rude awakening for our hero, Mark Grayson/Invincible, as he learned that his awesome superhero dad, Nolan/Omni-Man, was actually a lying murderer on a mission to conquer Earth for his brethren in the Viltrum Empire. Mark is depressed and desperate to make up for the sins of his father, to prove they are not the same. This leads him to work with Cecil and the GDA, but Mark’s teen superhero impetuousness means he often rebels against the very structure with which he seeks to constrain himself.
Though Mark’s angst can get a little repetitive, it makes sense and Steven Yeun sells the emotion of it. I appreciate that his work-life imbalance is written with care. Some people weren’t fans of his relationship with Amber, but I like how they explored those two trying to make things work and slowly realizing that they can’t. Him botching his school career also felt real.
Debbie continues to be a strong character. This season delves into her feelings of grief and guilt after learning the truth about her husband. Her and Mark's stories are about recovery and reclaiming a sense of self-worth in Nolan’s absence, which was handled well. Like Yeun, Sandra Oh nails the voice performance.
And the show does come back around to Nolan. In fact, that was one of Season Two’s more powerful developments. As we might have guessed from his last appearance — launching himself out of Earth in tears after beating his son half to death — Nolan undergoes a major identity crisis, first seeking death and then redemption for his actions. Mark definitely gets his guilt complex honestly from both parents.
Nolan and Mark’s experiences with the Thraxans, an alien race of insectoid people, was fascinating. Thraxans are advanced and harmonious, but they are physically weak and have year-long lifespans. Nolan and Mark are Viltrumites who can live for thousands of years, yet meeting the Thraxans bolsters their respect and appreciation for life. Particularly Nolan, who ends up siring a son with Thraxan and Viltrumite blood.
Heroes
There’s some nice character development for the other good guys too, some of which I found just as, if not more, interesting than what’s going on with Invincible.
Atom-Eve’s journey definitely feels as though it mirrors Mark’s. They’re both powerful young heroes who want to do the right thing, but who also struggle with using their powers responsibly; they both struggle with an antagonistic father, too. The difference is that Eve is no longer officially working with the Guardians of the Globe or Cecil, instead trying her hand at independent hero work.
The Guardians are joined by the team’s resurrected former leader, The Immortal, as well as new members like Bulletproof and Shapesmith.
The writers do a lot to rehab Rex Splode from the obnoxious jerk he seemed to be before. We see more of his affable and heroic side this time around.
There’s even a few oddball romances that build within the group. Rudy/Robot now exists as an adolescent clone of himself (after stealing Rex’s DNA) so he could have an easier time interacting with his crush, Amanda/Monster Girl, whose powers reduce her age. I’m enjoying the complexities of that, even if it is still quite weird. Additionally, Dupli-Kate and Immortal hook up too, mostly because they relate to each other’s unique experiences with PTSD.
Cecil might be my favorite character, but he spends most of this season sending Mark on missions and being frustrated over the various game pieces he’s keeping track of. Way more interesting this time around is Cecil’s number two man, Donald Ferguson. Last season, Donald was one of several GDA agents who got killed by Omni-Man. Now, he’s back at work as if nothing happened. It ends up being another really impactful storyline, as Donald himself slowly uncovers the truth about his revival.
We also get a lot more Allen the Alien, which is always nice. Like Eve, he's basically a secondary protagonist to Invincible. His subplot introduces the Coalition of Planets, an intergalactic organization committed to fighting the Viltrumites.
Villains
The Viltrumite revelation sort of puts all the Earth-bound foes into perspective. Guys like the Mauler Twins and Doc Seismic become almost lovable.
A few more Viltrumites show up this season, and we quickly see that Nolan — the guy who devastated several Earth cities just to make a point — is likely the nicest of his people. The rest we meet are coldblooded, brutish imperialists who want to lord over everyone. The most interesting is Anissa, who is sent to evaluate Invincible... and then beat his ass into the ground when he doesn’t cooperate. The fights in this show were already bloody and brutal, but the Viltrumites significantly raise the bar.
The buildup to a major conflict is handled gracefully. The fact that Mark himself is a Viltrumite evens the odds in Earth’s favor, but also makes things more complex between him and his allies. Still, the other bad guys aren’t a cake walk, either. The Sequid hive mind on Mars is angling to enslave humanity before the Viltrumites. Darkwing II, a regular human with some tricks up his sleeve, nearly bests Invincible. The Lizard League seems pretty campy at first, but they end up raising serious hell in one of the season’s most intense scenarios.
And though the Viltrum Empire is the looming big picture enemy, the main antagonist of this season is Angstrom Levy, who becomes Invincible’s arch-nemesis. Despite starting out as a guy who wanted to save everyone with his genius intellect and power to create portals to other dimensions, he naturally suffers a freak lab accident that merges his mind with the minds of various alternate versions of himself, horrifically enlarging his brain.
It’s through Angstrom we learn one of the more disturbing aspects of this series. Which is that, in most dimensions, Invincible willingly joins Omni-Man in dominating the human race for Viltrumite rule. The Angstrom Levy of our world was spared that, only to go insane after getting an upload of hundreds of split personalities, all of himself, and most of whom have a deeply personal grudge against Invincible. So, now he blames our Invincible — the one who actually became a hero — for all the misery the alternate Marks inflicted. For a dude whose head looks like a giant scrotum, he's a very tragic villain; doesn't hurt that he's voiced by Sterling K. Brown, who really knows how to turn up the malevolence.
Overall
Another bloody awesome run for Invincible. This added a lot more layers while strongly building on what happened last time. The show's got its flaws: There’s an overabundance of subplots. Related to that, it’s another show that has a huge, epic story tightly confined to eight episodes a season. And like Amazon's other hit comic adaptation, the show’s tonal shifts from silly to horrific are sometimes more jarring than the creators intend. And there's some stiff or lackluster animation in parts, but the meta-humor scene in which Mark and a comic book creator talk about animation kind of makes up for that.
This is still a wildly entertaining series, and a lot more emotionally gripping than you might expect. If you're a sci-fi/fantasy fan and can handle the blood and gore, it's definitely worth a look.
Bits and pieces:
* Goofy, on-the-nose names seems to be a running gag. Making it especially funny when any character tries to mock someone else’s name, since the odds are good that that character has a dumb name, too. Rex Splode mocking Bulletproof, for instance.
* Mark, Eve, Amber and William attend Reginald VelJohnson High School, and Reginald VelJohnson is the voice and likeness of the school principal. His character then becomes dean of the college they all attend.
* The voice work on this show really elevates it as much as the stellar animation. A few of the actors are voicing multiple characters. Leads to some funny moments, like when Immortal (voiced by Ross Marquand) steps down as leader of The Guardians and exits Cecil’s office, then Rudy/Robot (also voiced by Marquand) walks in and replaces Immortal as leader.
* The Viltrumites remind me a lot of the Saviors in The Walking Dead. There, the main group of underdogs surviving the zombie apocalypse eventually find themselves at the mercy of a bigger, more powerful group of survivors, the Saviors. They basically function like a mob protection racket in a post-apocalyptic world, offering shelter and defense from the zombies, as long as you submit to their vicious system of control. It’s pretty much the same deal in Invincible. The Viltrum Empire is a race of evil Supermen offering to protect, regulate and greatly improve the worlds who submit to their rule, but meet any resistance with extreme prejudice.
* Angstrom’s portals lead to some fun pop culture references.
* We revisit the random mummy in the final episode. The explorer it tried to possess died, and his daughter (Ella Purnell) and her superhuman friend (Chloe Bennett) get trapped in its tomb next. I guess this is going somewhere, unlike Jon Hamm’s bit character from the first season, whom we don’t see again.
* Music: “Karma Police” by Radiohead; “Avalanche” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; "Headaches" by Raveena Aurora; "When You Want Me" by Spellburg; “Baby Drummer” by Bad Nerves; "Like a Friend" by Pulp; "Final Days" by Michael Kiwanuka.
Quotes:
Alternate-Mark: “Look... I didn’t get it at first, either. But I came around and you will come around, too. And in the long run, you’ll thank us. But you need to remember, the more you resist, the worse this gets. We didn’t destroy your cities. You destroyed them by fighting back. Your new Viltrumite rulers are on the way, and it’s time to join us in welcoming them. And if you still think you can stop us, don’t forget I’m... Invincible.”
Angstrom Levy: “I won’t build my utopia with blood!”
No good deed goes unpunished.
Darkwing II: “You would never...”
Invincible: “Like you said, I’m Omni-Man’s son. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
Invincible: “I can’t let those people die.”
Cecil: “They tried to kill you. They were cheering.”
Invincible: “All they wanted was justice for what my dad did.”
Cecil: “You’re not your father, Mark.”
Invincible: “That’s why I’m going back.”
Mark: “Seance Dog isn’t real. He’s a comic book character.”
Seance Dog/Nuolzot: “In your dimension, yes. But there exist myriad other worlds where dogs and magic are as real as the air you breathe.”
Mark: “We have dogs! Dogs are real.”
Seance Dog/Nuolzot: “Well, then you’re halfway to understanding.”
Mark/Invincible: “Mom’s going through hell back on Earth, and you were getting it on with a grasshopper two seconds after you left.”
Nolan: “It wasn’t like that.”
Atom-Eve: “Shooting, shooting, shooting. I guess when your arm’s a gun, you really only have one trick.”
Killcannon: “It’s a good trick!”
Atom-Eve: “Not tonight, it isn’t.”
Mauler: “Sometimes things are the way they are for a good fucking reason.”
Cecil: “PTSD’s a bitch. We figured you’d be better off without it.”
Donald: “You mean you’d be better off. You had no right.”
Cecil: “What do you want, Donald? Would you rather be dead? You know the world we live in, what the job is. There’s no time for existential angst.”
Amber: (to Mark) “You’re gonna ditch me at Comic-Con, aren’t you?”
Cecil: “The GDA has an entire department dedicated to superhero children.”
Debbie: “Right. Because a top secret government lab is the perfect place to raise a child.”
Cecil: (smirks) “We put clouds on the ceiling.”
Debbie: (on naming Mark’s brother Oliver) “Well, he needed an actual name besides Nolan’s Alien Baby.”
Mark: “Who are you?”
Anissa: “My name is Anissa, and I’m an agent of the Viltrum Empire. And if you think you can cross the space between us before I tear this woman’s head from her body, you’re welcome to try.”
Anissa: “The powerful of the world destroy their own home, strip resources for themselves. Large areas of this planet will soon be uninhabitable due to human greed."
Invincible: “Yeah, I know…”
Anissa: “Yet here you are, hands in fists, worried about stopping me instead of stopping them.”
Invincible: “It’s complicated.”
Anissa: “No, it isn’t.”
Anissa: “Viltrumites do not kill for pleasure, even if they sometimes take pleasure in killing. Dead humans do not benefit us in any way.”
Donald: “They could be a thousand miles away before we even get there.”
Cecil: “One goddamn Viltrumite, all by her lonesome, and we’re fucking useless.”
Cecil: “You really rolled the dice on that one, Mark. And all over a few words.”
Mark/Invincible: “It’s more than just words.”
Angstrom: “You think you’re innocent in all this? In so many other dimensions, you join your husband and son when they slaughter millions and make the Earth burn. You’re a traitor to your own kind. Your family’s legacy is blood.”
Debbie: “No. Not me. I raised the boy who defied his father and saved this planet. From what you say, these worlds are extremely different. I know the son I raised and he’s no killer.”
Angstrom: “You sure about that?”
Nolan: “I think… I miss my wife.”
Four and a half out of five clever title drops.
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