Invincible: Season 4

"Let the war begin."

This is Invincible’s biggest, most ambitious outing to date. That being said, my feelings about it are a bit mixed.

Weirdly, one of the things that contributes to this feeling is the way the show has tightened things up. I’ve mentioned before that this story is nested with an almost ridiculous number of subplots, and the way the writers juggle those subplots can be hit or miss. Season Four puts a pin in a lot of that stuff in favor of focusing on the greater scope conflict that’s been building up since we learned the truth about Omni-Man in the first season: The Viltrumites and their super-fascist empire that threatens pretty much the entire universe.

Granted, the first half is mostly subplot focused. We cover Mark’s willingness to kill after his last encounters with Angstrom Levy and Conquest, as well as his low self-esteem and wounded public reputation in the wake of those events. There's also Eve suffering a loss of her powers as she discovers she's pregnant with Mark's baby. Drama! But the main thrust of the season is Nolan and Allen finally returning to enlist Mark (and Oliver) into the coming war.

We spend time with a lot of new characters or ones we’ve only seen a little bit of. Early on, we are briefly introduced to some new antagonists like Dinosaurus and Universa. Along with Mark and Oliver, characters like Tech Jacket, the enigmatic Space Racer and the ever lovable Battle Beast are recruited to help fight the Viltrumites; there’s also the crew of the Venture, who are a cheesy parody of the Enterprise crew in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Besides Nolan, we've only had brief appearances from a few other Viltrumites, and each one gave the viewer a better impression of what this vicious species is like. We see a lot more of them this time. Like Thaedus, who is the leader of the Coalition, Allen the Alien’s mentor, and the first Viltrumite to rebel against his kind prior to Invincible; he's also voiced by Peter Cullen aka Optimus Prime, which is cool. And we finally meet the ruler of the Viltrum Empire, Grand Regent Thragg, who is pretty much the toughest character in the show so far and certainly the most powerful villain; he is to Viltrumites what Viltrumites are to pretty much any other species, overpowered as hell.

While it may not offer quite as much variety in terms of plotting, this season is more focused than the second and third. We’re finally delving deeper into the Viltrum Empire, the Coalition of Planets and others not strictly bound to Earth. The episodes that most intrigued me were the ones featuring Viltrum itself, exploring crucial points in the planet’s history that add context for why its people are the way they are. Nolan revealing that, despite their dreaded power, there are only around fifty of Viltrumites left alive was a good little twist last season. Now we explore how that happened, and it’s one of the most striking sequences in the show so far.

I’ve complained before about the repetitiveness of Mark’s guilt complex and the various scenes of characters who try to make him feel better about himself. It all feels well-earned here, though. We are shown how much trauma and post-traumatic stress a powerful young superhero might experience. Insane levels of pressure, the fate of his own world and many others — on top of realistic pressures, like failing to make time for his girlfriend during a rough period in her life. Between his second, even more gruesome battle with Conquest and his introduction to Thragg, Mark has an awful time of it.

Going intergalactic does highlight how effective the Grayson boys are as superheroes. Especially Nolan, who hasn’t been this prominent of a character since the first season. There’s a lot of good development with him as he strives to redeem himself, which is easier said than done for a former genocidal space tyrant. His interactions with Allen and Oliver this time around do a lot to build on that.

Nolan’s first episode sees him humbling himself and offering apologies to some of the aliens his species has terrorized, and the aliens are surprisingly receptive of his apology. But it just makes it sting worse when he later tries to do the same with people he’s wronged on Earth, like Debbie, Art or Cecil, and receives no easy forgiveness. I like that they’re treating this redemption arc with patience, even though I don’t like how it seems to be hinting at Debbie taking Nolan back; I’ll get into that further below.

Though I have my issues with the pacing and overemphasis on the Viltrumite conflict, I'm glad that it's all still in service to the very good story and characters that have already been established.

The beautifully classical father-son drama between Mark and Nolan is revealed to be something of a microcosm for the insidious culture that spawned them. Nolan — and his quest to do good and atone for his past in the desperate hope of one day going back to being a beloved familyman and superhero — lets us see what the Viltrumites truly are: Bloodthirsty fascists who clearly don't have a whole lot to live for besides their fading image of strength and their ability to lord it over everyone else; even the biggest and baddest of them, like Thragg or Conquest, are pitifully unfulfilled individuals. Meanwhile, Mark's determination to be a just hero despite the considerable obstacles in his way shows us how much good even a single one of them could do if they understood love or compassion.

I'd say that if the conflict last time was about the looming threat of change, this one is about the harsh transitional period when that change finally arrives. For better or worse, the war against Thragg and the Viltrumites ends up changing the status quo of the series in a big way. Like most heroes in fiction that gestures towards realism, the sense of right and wrong that guides Mark ends up being seriously compromised and turned against him. I won't go into how things are left, but it's a set-up that has me even more excited for the fifth season than I was for the fourth.

Bits and pieces:

* Season four is the first I watched live, along with the rest of the fans. I've discovered the Invincible fandom is not to my taste. I lot of pedantic whining over "power-levels" and the logic of superhuman abilities. The two best written episodes of the season — "Hurm," a bottle episode in which Mark must go to Hell and confront his personal demons, and "Don't Leave Me Hanging Here," the somber finale — were extremely divisive just based on the fact that each was more focused on dialogue and character development as opposed to nothing but action and ultraviolence.

* One repeated criticism of the show I will give some credit is the one toward the animation, which often looks stiff and weak outside of the big action setpieces. Pretty lame for a show so popular. I'd like to blame it entirely on Amazon half-assing it wherever possible to avoid paying animators more, but I've been reading a bit more of the Invincible comic series and I can honestly see the same method applied there. While Robert Kirkman doesn't mind exploiting the budget to snag more and more celebrity voice actors, he seems content to cut corners and do more with less as far as the animation goes. I'd feel more strongly about it if the show's writing and voice performances weren't so good.

* Props to the cast: Steven Yeun always gives 110% as Mark, from the vulnerability to the ferocity. J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh and Gillian Jacobs are all excellent as well. And Lee Pace definitely brings the gravitas with every line as Thragg.

* Despite being voiced by Matthew Rhys and Danai Gurira, Dinosaurus and Universa only have about one scene each. It obviously sets them up for more action down the line, but I would have liked it if there had been a little more to either of these loose threads.

* Speaking of which, we finally see some progress with Ka-Hor, the evil mummy who shows up once per season. Still not quite sure where this is going, but it’s an amusing excursion regardless.

* The Flaxans invade again, and Robot and Monster Girl get trapped in their dimension in the course of defeating them. Seems like a pretty convenient way to age up these two romantically linked adult characters in child bodies, since time moves a lot faster in the Flaxan dimension.

* Expanding on the Nolan/Debbie thing, I just feel that it would be a disservice to her character to have them eventually go back to being a cutesy couple after all the work they put into Debbie's story of recovering from Nolan's deception and how well Sandra Oh has played that resentment and clarity in the aftermath.

* I didn’t enjoy Oliver as much this time around. Mostly, because he’s aged into that annoying angsty adolescent phase where he’s moody and reckless all the time. And his moodiness is exacerbated when he and Nolan finally reconnect, of course.

* Music: “If I Get High” by Nothing But Thieves; “Ugly and Vengeful” by Anna von Hauswolff; “Raining Blood” by Slayer; “Under Stars” by Brian Eno; “Fragments from the Decade” by Deathcab for Cutie. Also, a remix of “Tom Tom” by Holy Fuck when the Flaxans return.

Quotes:

Debbie: “You’re both doing so much. Take a night off.”
Mark: “You don’t see the way people look at me out there. So I don’t get to be tired or take a night off. And neither does—” (title drop)

Conquest: “… The boy left me alive? Heheh, how stupid.”
Yeah, definitely not one of Cecil's best moves.

Young Nolan: “That is why the universe is our right and destiny. If we did not deserve it, we could not take it.”
Viltrumite children: “All is ours!”
Young Nolan: “All is ours.”

Grand Regent Thragg: “We are Viltrumites. We are without end.”

Allen the Alien: “Wait a second. Your mission, your real mission, was to bang your way across the galaxy, looking for someone your people could make babies with?"
Nolan: “We didn’t put it like that.”
Allen: “Oh, no? I wonder why.”

Thaedus: “We must all face judgement for the evils of our past if we want any hope to change our future. Let me lead by example.”

Mark/Invincible: “Hey, if there’s a hell, does that mean there’s a heaven, too?”
Damien Darkblood: “No heaven we know of. World doesn’t have balance that humans pretend there is. No one keeping track of good deeds, bad deeds.”
Mark: “Oh.”
Damien: “See this as bad news? Think other way. If world ever brought truly to side of good, no need for balance. Make Earth heaven, instead of imaginary one in sky.”

Satan: “You’re far stronger than any human I’ve met.”
Invincible: “I’m not completely human. My father was a Viltrumite. An alien. From another planet.”
Satan: “Aliens from another world. Who would believe such a thing was possible?”

Debbie Grayson: “Am I still your pet?”
Nolan: “… You never were.”
Debbie: “If I was supposed to change you, I failed. You’re not one of us. You’re not human. You’re not even a bad photocopy. You got to say what you wanted to say. Now get the fuck out of my house.”

Invincible: “You gonna tell me all your deepest feelings again?”
Conquest: “That was in confidence.”

Battle Beast: “You. You promised me more. More battle, more glory, more worthy opponents! MORE!”
Allen: "Oh, it's good to see you too, buddy! Tell me, how do you feel about war?"

Thragg: “You know we only ever did what was necessary to preserve order.”
Nolan: “Like coming after my sons?”
Thragg: “We tested your sons, as we have all been tested.”

Nolan: “You don’t have to be afraid.”
Cecil Stedman: “I will never not be afraid of you.”

Nolan: “I can stay. Help protect Earth in case they come. Make up for my mistakes.”
Cecil: “Earth isn’t your therapy couch, Nolan.”

Thragg: “The universe is strange. In a way, you have become our savior. Willing or not.”

Three and a half out of five evil mustachioed supermen.