Invincible Season 4 Episode 1,2 and 3: The point of no return.

You know I guess I was going to start this blog by going on a let's praise invincible rant, but As soon as I looked through the frames to find the perfect still to put as cover image of this post.

I realized something that I have been in denial of ever since the last season.

I felt a little bit of it when I was trying to cover Invincible vs Conquest but still I mostly moved past it.

But now that I am here and I saw it again first hand, there is no denying it anymore.

Tell me, when Invincible turns this guys head into aerosol for better or for worse, what would you expect that frame to look like?

Cool? Spectacular? Gory as hell?

No? Yeah well let me tell you what I wouldn't expect it to look like.

Whatever the fuck this shit is.

I.. I mean if I am going to tell one good thing about this frame then I guess I can say I can definitely see why Eve would want to go for mark.

Man has got some serious ass.

But seriously, what the fuck is this frame?

I mean I don't know whether its the weird proportions on marks body, the strange framing, the utter lack of shading and lighting or the fact that the blood spray looks like an old coffee stain.

But this is a serious case of the animation took me out of the fucking story.

I mean okay I am being a little dishonest in the frame by frame analysis.

If I was really just looking for like a single frame just to make this post look good I could have chosen this one.

But like seriously, even this isn't that great, and like who the fuck watches frame by frame?

All any normal viewer will be seeing is Mark punch through Rus Livingston and then the screen has a very faint orange juice spray for like five seconds.

Amazing.

Or is it Tomato Juice?

Hmm. IDK.

But moving on from the "animation is shit sometimes" train.

The first episode begins mostly like in the last season Invincible going around feeling super guilty along with the weight of the judgement everyone surely places on him, that was the master stroke by Angstrom Levy, bringing in the darker alternate versions of Mark to cause destruction in this world.

Even if everyone knows what really happened...

Yeah did you know I like Lucifer? I might have forgotten to mention it.

He still has a robotic cast on both his arms and left leg after the battle with Conquest, indicating that on the whole, my man is still healing.

Both Mentally and Physically.

There are three main threats in episode one, Universa, the energy collector, Dinosaurus the eco terrorist, and the Starro knock off of the Image comics, the Sequids.

Before all of that though Mark must face the biggest boss-fight of them all, dealing with his bratty teenage brother.

Who in spite of all his brattiness is actually doing quite a good job of being a good hero.

And does make a good point when Mark asks him to help with 'Furnace'.

I bring this up because it is actually quite strange how the tables have completely flipped as to who is playing which role in their relationship.

Previously, the line of "let someone else do it" was said by Mark to Amber, her boyfriend, Eve, William and his boyfriend during the Powerplex attack.

Mark was also the one who was stopping Oliver from simply jumping into heroics while Oliver just couldn't get enough of it.

Now Oliver has taken Mark's advice and just become a chill dude of a superhero who drinks coffee from a bystander whereas Mark has become totally serious.

And by the end of the third episode, Mark is the one who is about to straight up kill a dude, and Oliver is the one who stops him.

Just like when Mark meets Dinosaurus and sees all the damage he is capable of doing and still plans to do...

Ultimately Mark lets go, but this is the beginning of a much more dangerous trend that by the end of the episode finally results in by the end him killing Rus to end the Sequid threat, here he says I'm sorry, but in the comics, he straight up admits that he deliberately got him away from everyone in order to do it himself.

One way or the other, Mark is a Hypocrite because in the middle of these two threats lies Universa attacking a power plant that called Invincible through their business Invincible Inc.

Universa wields the staff of leadership and is collecting energy to save her people.

The staff is a weapon that collects and releases energy and like Mjolnir has some form of worthiness enchantment preventing mark from wielding it, because he is not, 'chosen' whatever that means.

But not helping the fact is that eve's powers are now acting up, and anything she makes just turns into a form of atomic sludge.

The first indication of this to us was at the end of season 3 when she recreated Invincible's clothes and they began to dissolve, but in this season its her coffee that she makes to cheer Mark up while visiting her parents.

Quite strange then that it is actually Eve who saves the day by knocking Universa out with a Punch.

Eve be like: "STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY BOYFRIEND YOU BITCH!!!".

By the end of the third episode we know what is actually happening to her i.e. she is pregnant, presumably with Mark's child and that grants her some of Invincible's powers.

But the reason Mark is a Hypocrite here is because he tells Universa that her killing these people to save hers doesn't make sense.

But speaking of Hypocrites, let's talk about Brit, the unbreakable, Super Strong, Immortal War Veteran Introduced during the Invincible War sending the extra Troops.

Also returning from that episode are Business Baby and Big Mildew, funny name haha, also I thought they died, but okay.

And somehow the song lyric that got captured with this scene just happens to perfectly describe the writers when they were coming up with this shit.

But Brit.

During the Sequid invasion, they had thought ahead and kept a few back up hosts under the ground in the sewers, Robot/Rudy/Rex detected this and him and Monster Girl plan to go after it in order to deal with any stragglers.

Now if he hadn't done that, Rus would have died for nothing and the Containment dome would have failed.

But Brit still tells him off for not following Orders, which back up Robot and Monster Girl are in the Guardians alongside Brit?

Well Brit is cause he helped during the Invincible War, And Robot and Monster Girl were convinced by Cecil, but Robot is no longer the leader, he has to earn back that trust.

However, come episode three...

But I think this is more character growth than anything, or perhaps he did approve of Robot, he just still wanted assert authority because on the whole it doesn't bode well for Authority to be broken in the field.

Who knows Maybe Brit had his own plan to deal with the ones in the sewers?

But speaking of Character Development, Debbie is Finally okay with Oliver using Omni-man's symbol for himself.

And perhaps she is moving in with Paul, who can I just say... is acting a little sus... like I know I'm not the only one who thinks this is beyond just normal shyness???

But this is a three Episode Premiere, which means my work is really laid out for me.

Episode two begins with someone who looks like a young Mark indoctrinating young children.

I mean I get that you have trauma my dear boy, but there are better ways to deal with it my man.

I mean he nearly crushes a little girl's head like a watermelon for not being able to answer a question.

And then he gets hit by his mother and Father.

Tough shit man.

I say man because this is Omni Man, whom I almost Typoed into Oni Man, which means Demon Man, and now this is cannon.

Omni Boy gets the snot beaten out of him for his "coming of age" and nearly dies but his father steps in and the mother leaves them both for being "pathetic".

You tell the Kween.

Too bad that this Kween probably didn't last for long because right after this when Omni teen is being briefed along side other beaten up teens, they all start bleeding from their eyes and nose and start dying.

That's right people it's scourge Virus Time.

One of the things that I like about Invincible's depiction of Viltrumites is that they are actually quite realistic as to how a strength based authoritarian culture will be.

Think Rome, there wasn't exactly a lot of innovation but because of the places they conquered and whose tech they absorbed, they really did have the best of the best in terms of tech and healthcare and what not, same goes for the British Colonizers towards the end of the previous century and Millenium.

Money and conquering does pay off in the short term.

But when you start asking for efficiency to the point of crushing your kid's skulls if they don't answer correctly, eventually eugenics and racism follow, and on the surface, eugenics does sometimes seem to work in the short term.

Key being short term.

Just like how plantations are easily infected and destroyed all at once due to genetic similarities, the same happens to Eugenic based societies.

Viltrumites are insanely strong, but once a single Virus is able to infect them... it will very likely spread like wildfire, which is why only fifty of them are now alive.

Believe it or not that ring around Viltrum is purely the dead bodies of those who died by the Scourge Virus.

Fifty remaining Viltrumites is a death sentence for the race, any remaining offspring will be inbred and deficient, as if they weren't already...

Regardless, this is the second weakness of the Viltrumites, the first one is that their inner ears are super sensitive to a specific frequency stunning them indefinitely.

But tell me one thing right....

Eleven in Stranger things? Weak to sound.

Invincible? Weak to sound.

What do the MCU DODC use to subdue supers? Sound.

The fuck why it always be sound?

Regardless, the sound of silence shall reach them in droves as Nolan the Viltrumite walks past the guards outside the room of the Great Thaedus, who most definitely isn't a Viltrumite.

And we finally learn who Thaedus is in relation to Viltrum.

There isn't much to say about episode 2 other than seeing Nolan and Allen's friendship grow is genuinely heartwarming.

In the comics Nolan joins the coalition pretty much straight away, but here he hesitates, in fact he pretty much says no to joining them.

The whole point of the society on Viltrum is that the individual only matters if they are strong, and able to contribute to the larger society the young Nolan training the... younglings for lack of a better word, he pretty much tells them to go find shelter and food on their own and come back the next day.

And the Idea of settling down, of having and caring for your family, is pretty much foreign to him.

It's weakness, you must serve the Empire.

And Nolan makes the selfish choice, the choice to care for his connections, the choice to care for his family.

To leave one mission and then immediately join another is... that's not how characters work...

It may be the right thing to do but its still a side in a war, and Nolan said only one thing when he decided to join Allen: "I think...I miss my wife!!"

And so much more than the comics what Nolan said here makes sense.

He agrees to Arm the coalition because of his friendship with Allen...

The episode uses the ship called the Venture in order to go to the places that Nolan Suggests, and as we do we get a first hand view of Viltrumite cruelty, specially when it comes to securing their place as the undisputed conquerors of the universe, and we get a Star Trek Parody.

The Venture is obviously a parody of the Enterprise from Star trek with each member of the crew representing one from Star Trek, even has a bald captain, although this one is much worse in everyway.

For one the captain thought that Omni, Allen and Telia were in a three way relationship and just gave Omni the same room as those two making it impossible for him to sleep.

There are 5 things that Nolan takes them to, A planet of Great beasts that died out as all their water evaporated due to Viltrumites moving their planet closer to the sun, some disgusting beetles that have a compound in their shell that can harm Viltrumites.

Space Racer and his infinity Ray, actually just the ray but Space Racer hadn't died off like Nolan had planned by burying him for a hundred years The Geldarians whose Armor could rival the strength of the Viltrumites.

They were too strong for their reduced numbers and so the Viltrumites Hired the Kresh to kill them, it still didn't work out.

They are unable to help however one warrior remains on Earth, Tech Jacket, who we saw during the Invincible War tackling and Killing an Alternate mark on his own.

The final One was Ragnars who are cold-blooded and the Viltrumites blocked their sun with a solar disk not caring about the other two civilizations.

The Captain of the Enterprise blows it up when asked to move it and as a result Allen and Nolan almost die.

This I feel was the point where their friendship really became solid and Nolan started to come around to maybe joining the cause himself.

Meanwhile unlike the comics Telia takes command of the ship.

They also went to the planet of Battle beast and they were basically told to go look for trouble.

The episode ends with the most important Revelation of all that Optimus Pri...

I mean the Great Thaedus, created the Scourge virus.

He did not know the effect he had had.

And in a moment of Maturity Nolan shows that in spite of everything he cares for his race and yet he understands what he must do.

Because remember, the change he has gone through is from thinking those without strength don't deserve to live to thinking that life in all forms is precious.

The deaths of so many Viltrumites was anyways heartbreaking for him as they didn't die brave warriors deaths.

They fought powerless against an enemy too small to see.

Did it? Did it make you stronger Ya idiot????

This line by their trainer just cements it even more as a Tragedy, I mean yeah you kind of hate the Viltrum Empire for being a plague on this entire Galaxy.

But then you see how they are trained since kids, how they are indoctrinated.

And the fact that this is what convinces Nolan to Finally go and ask help from his son might confuse some viewers.

But I think this emotional complexity in this scene is a form of clever Foreshadowing for what Nolan's eventual plan will be for the Viltrumites.

In the comics this emotional Complexity is completely absent, Nolan coming to terms with the fact that he has changed, that his entire life's philosophy was trash, that his comrades are all indoctrinated in a toxic ideology that he himself believed in.

That they are too strong to be this messed up, that the pain they carry will go on in an unending cycle of violence, a cycle that he actually perpetrated until recently...

And that Invincible still carries with him....

And above all that Omni in his steadfast belief in the ways of his people that he called someone he genuinely loved a pet...

In the comics he just gets over it.

But here he is conflicted, and in his mind he is forming a plan...

And that's when he decides he can no longer hold this off.

He makes Thaedus promise that the Scourge Virus is a Final Resort only and then he leaves...

And now we reach the final episode of the Trio and we see Invincible unable to deal with the choice he just made, the GDA trying to understand what to do about this kid.

Someone who in the words of Cecil is a walking Nuclear bomb, the most powerful thing on this planet and he can't even buy a drink yet...

The problem is the choice was the right one, but it is not the Mark choice.

What's this photo from Ben 10 Ultimate Alien doing here!!!

Making choices that affect lives like this can change you, they have a lasting impact on your psyche, Mark very obviously blames himself for doing what he did.

That's why Cecil asks him to chime in on such decisions so he gets to sleep at night, so that he can Blame Cecil.

Cecil gave up sleeping years ago, literally in fact it seems.

In the Comics he just rests in a Tank of liquid that's meant to keep him together after he had been re constructed from scratch following the skin peeling gas incident.

And we see that Tank in the beginning of this Season.

In the meantime Eve crosses all thresholds of being the most supportive girlfriend ever, as she comes to Mark for asking about her powers not working and while he starts with his problems, she just suggests that they be there for each other.

They go to Rud... I mean Rex to get her scanned, he fixed Monster girl's powers, maybe he could do the same for Eve.

But the scan shows nothing out of the ordinary... strangely...

Because he mentions Hormones and if she's pregnant as we learn by the end of this episode would they not be the first to change?

The pregnancy certainly explains her having Invincible's strength suddenly.

But we do not have time for that however as the Flaxxans who just cannot seem to take an L are back in the picture.

Earlier there is a foreshadowing moment when a Sequid sneaks itself inside Rex and tries to do to him the same thing it did to Rus by coming out and then trying to latch on to him, thankfully Monster Girl saves him, and Rex has a full on mental break down.

And this dealing with Threats permanently thought process is what Invincible is currently struggling with, but it's not wrong exactly.

Luck really isn't something that can be controlled.

Sooner or later they will run out of it.

So when the Flaxxans attack with exo-suits meant to combat Viltrumites a larger time sync emitter placed in their dimension, Taking human prisoners and with the fact that minutes here are years there, this time if they come back, they aren't loosing.

And so Robot and Monster Girl ask the rest of the guardians to come with them to the Flaxxan dimension but the portal closes just before, trapping them there seemingly permanently, as no one on Earth has yet found a way to portal to their Dimension.

I wish this was all, but Mark is taught once again faced with something that questions his world view, as DA Sinclair comes to apologize for what he did.

At a severe risk to his own life.

In the comics he does that because he is asked by Cecil to show Mark the other side, but here he makes the choice himself, he is just told to take a lunch.

He just doesn't listen showing how much he really has changed.

That's ambiguous in the comics.

Cecil isn't perfect however, as this man let Conquest fuck off yet again.

And didn't tell Marky Mark about it.

Conquest makes his way to the first look at the Grand Reagent Thragg also known as murderous Freddy Mercury, and he just tells him he won't reward Failure.

Because death at the hands of someone worthy is what Conquest wants.

Life is his punishment, especially one where his Arm was torn off by a Ragnar, and in his own words, he is so lonely he could cry.

Idk, he actually looks less like Freddy here, I guess that's a conscious design choice.

He actually looks intimidating here though, not like he's gonna break into piano and song, nothing again Freddy, bros a legend, he's also not a warmongering dictator, it's part of the reason I am such a big fan of him.

True story.

But that's not all Invincible is gonna face this season, we also have, Titan the family man, who took control of the city's underworld from Machine head and now mister head wants to get him to join his order so in a sense he's in power again.

To manipulate him to do that, he manipulates Mister Liu, who surprisingly survive being shot in the head by Machine head.

Actually maybe that was Deliberate on Machine's part I mean we didn't actually see the shot did we?

I mean Liu's guard the Great Wall also survived falling from higher than Spiderman in the beginning of Amazing Spider-Man 2.

But Mr. Liu is weakened, so something did happen, and that is why he doesn't go after Titan himself, he sends Maganattack who looks like a mix between Magneto and the Silver Samurai, which like I wonder why Magneto doesn't carry blades with him now.

Too late though, you threatened Titan's family and in a parallel to Invincible beating him up later Titan kills him.

Okay, It's "don't you ever Fuck with my family" and not "Fuck with my Family" Thanks for the unintentional comedy Amazon Prime Subtitles.

Titan doesn't know Invincible has matured though, so he just calls him through the business again, Marky Mark is busy with the Flaxxans so we get Oliver instead, who decides to help when he realizes Titan is just looking out for his family.

I feel you Titan my man, I feel you.

But the Dragon almost Dragged Invincible's corpse through the fucking mud, and so Oliver like every younger sibling ever, needs big bro to come save his ass.

He does that, but Like I said before Invincible nearly kills Titan, and Oliver needs to step in this time.

No, I have not yet been able to scratch The Office from my watch list lolz.

But in the end both Titan and Liu are forced to get back on the Order.

Because right now, there really is no other way to protect his family.

You sure did Titan, You sure did.