r/Invincible • u/mwthecool Omni-Mod • Mar 28 '24

Invincible [Episode Discussion] - S02E07 - I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE EPISODE DISCUSSION

Episode 7 - I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE

As Mark attempts to salvage his personal life, a new villain arrives, presenting Invincible with his greatest challenge yet. Donald grapples with his past.

Full cast, crew and characters

Join the r/Invincible Discord server!

Please act appropriately and follow our rules. We ask you to report any comments that are uncivil/malicious or don't belong in the non-comic spoiler thread.

DO NOT post comic book spoilers in this thread - use [the comic spoiler discussion thread](LINK HERE) for discussion using comic book context

Please report comments discussing comic book spoilers in this thread.

1.5k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

99% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

174

u/greatness101 Mar 28 '24

All this time he's been planning for a what-if scenario of Nolan returning to Earth, and he has literally nothing to show for it to stop a single Viltrimite?

156

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 28 '24

Cecil expected Nolan. It's mentioned in the episode that Anissa is beyond Nolan's demonstrated strength. We know Mark can hold his own and defeat a single Viltrumite (Thula) in combat. We don't know how big the gap is between Mark and Nolan, just that Nolan is still stronger than Mark by a good margin. It will take time for Mark to catch up. Cecil mentions taking measures to beef Mark up in this episode.

Likewise, the Reanimen were still in progress. He can't instantly make all these measures happen.

107

u/SeriousMasterpiece17 Mar 28 '24

don't

I personally think Nolan was holding back too, still pulling his punches with Mark.

56

u/everything_is_gone Mar 28 '24

I agree but there is no way for Cecil to gauge that gap

18

u/BigOhHo Mar 29 '24

Nolan could barely take down a kaiju, Anissa immediately did

41

u/GodNonon Mar 29 '24

To be fair, Cecil pumped that kaiju with a shitload of super steroids specifically so it'd be able to fight against Omni-Man

30

u/Zemahem Mar 29 '24

Yeah, and I think this person's forgetting that Nolan beat Hail Mary before Cecil got a hold of it.

Only after it got roided up did it start messing up both Mark and Nolan at the same time.

4

u/BigOhHo Mar 31 '24

Yeah I rewatched the scene. Cecil also removed its pain receptors. But my point was Nolan struggled against Hail Mary the first time, that’s the whole reason they put it on ice and named it “Hail Mary.” Anissa didn’t struggle against this kaiju at all. But Hail Mary might have been much stronger than the random cruise ship one

21

u/Cloudhwk Mar 29 '24

The viltrumites do have a bit of a point, earth made Nolan soft

56

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

They say she's faster than nolan, not stronger or a greater threat. That isnt the issue here. They have nothing to stop a single viltrumite.

43

u/Imightwantkarma Mar 28 '24

No where was it shown Anissa is stronger than Nolan. Even Anissa speaks about Nolan’s strength like it’s legendary

They said she was faster, she is clearly more of a speed fighter than strength one.

We 100% know Nolan leagues stronger than mark and most viltrumites. We saw that on the throxan planet.

Also mark didn’t try to kill Anissa like he did for a moment in the other fight. He was still pulling his punches unlike how Nolan tells him to make every punch a killing punch. You can tell from his leverage

14

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 28 '24

beyond Nolan's demonstrated strength.

As I said in another comment, the more likely thing is that Nolan was pulling punches on Earth. Nolan can 2v1 standard Viltrumites. Mark can 1v1 a standard Viltrumite. Mark only had an 18% chance of survival against Anissa.

Second, Viltrumites describe flight like a muscle. If she's faster than Nolan, she's probably also stronger than Nolan... but again, this is only relative to what Nolan demonstrated on Earth. We don't have a reason to believe Anissa is stronger than current Nolan or even beyond Nolan's actual strength at that time.

That is why "demonstrated" is the operative word.

This is Mark's first encounter with a Viltrumite ON EARTH SPECIFICALLY that isn't holding back, and she dumpsters him. Then she tells him that someone even stronger is coming. It's a Raditz type of story beat.

21

u/Imightwantkarma Mar 28 '24

Mark cant 1v1 a standard viltrumite in his current state, he would need to fight like his father which he doesn’t

Why is her being faster mean she is also stronger? They never say this, red rush is faster than Nolan doesn’t mean he is stronger. No one said she was stronger at any point and she never demonstrated and strength remotely close to Nolan and again she spoke about Nolan like he was stronger than her

It’s well established Nolan is one of the stronger viltrumites and from his stories he was given the most dangerous missions because of this.

-2

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 28 '24

Red Rush is a human.

I don't think you're trying to examine this critically if your lead statement is "Mark can't 1v1 a standard Viltrumite." Viltrumites don't have a power triangle like speed > strength > technique. The primary story beat is that they're all surprised by her and encouraged Mark to just give up because she was so much stronger than him.

This was not a part of the plan. They are well aware of what Anissa could do and decided making her leave was the only actual option left.

Anissa is a show of strength and upped stakes in the same way that Raditz was to Piccolo. One threat is now obsolete because the hero can't deal with the new threat, and now ANOTHER guy even stronger is coming! Oh no, the stakes have been upped.

2

u/ssdrootkit Apr 18 '24

Anissa is not stronger than Nolan.

4

u/Anjunabeast Mar 29 '24

Different muscles do different things

1

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 29 '24

Yes.

And if she is able to flex a muscle harder than Nolan can, that muscle is...?

2

u/Anjunabeast Mar 29 '24

Idk what muscle viltrumites flex to fly

7

u/The_McTasty Mar 29 '24

Probably related to the kegals or something.

3

u/ThatChapThere Mar 29 '24

"It's like peeing yourself on purpose"

1

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 29 '24

If you can flex and use your arm harder than I can flex and use my arm, your arm is stronger. If you can flex and use your legs harder than I can flex and use your legs, your legs are stronger. If you can flex and use your flight muscle harder than I can flex and use my flight muscle, your flight muscle is stronger.

We have no indication anywhere in the series to suggest that speed and strength are different factors for Viltrumites, especially in the show.

I won't post comic spoilers here for obvious reasons, but I believe there are a few indications in the comics that speed and strength are often linked together directly.

As far as the show goes, the only evidence we have of the two being separate come from Viltrumites being compared to humans (Mark vs. Immortal, Red Rush vs. Nolan), which is like comparing the engine of a 2024 Ferrari to the engine of a 1997 Sedan. Yeah, there are similarities, but the two cars are built differently.

5

u/king__cloudy Mar 31 '24

Funny comment. Do you think olympic sprinters have the strongest legs in the world?

A lot off factors go into "speed" in real life. It isn't as straight forward as you're saying.

0

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 31 '24

in real life

This isn't real life. It's a comic/cartoon.

If you can point to a fight in Invincible (comics or show) where two fighting Viltrumites show a difference in speed that is not also accompanied by a difference in strength, I'll stand corrected and obviously edit my comment. As far as I'm aware Viltrumites follow Dragon Ball rules: if a Viltrumite is stronger, they are also usually faster than the other Viltrumite.

As far as I remember, they don't show a differential between Viltrumite strength and speed. Mark is stronger than X Viltrumite, he is also faster than X Viltrumite. Mark is weaker than Y Viltrumite, he demonstrably cannot catch Y Viltrumite.

Happy to edit if you can share something. Feel free to hit my DMs up since I can't recall if spoilers are allowed in this thread.

→ More replies (0)

11

u/2ndaccountbecausobvs Mar 28 '24

As far as I know Nolan is one of the top viltrumites? Huge gap between him and the very strongest, but still.

I was suprised she was so strong considering she looks so young, but maybe I mistead her age. Besides, Mark was able to beat Thula and she looked far older than even Nolan, so maybe the age thing varies significantly. I mean Mark is obviously going to become stronger than Viltrumites that are older than him at some point in the story, so ig the lore has to accomodate for that?

Kind of like Danaerys' dragons growing freakishly fast ig.

23

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 28 '24

The way I took it was that Nolan wasn't demonstrating everything he had on Earth. Maybe he was a bit when he beat the brakes off Mark, but it didn't seem like he had to try much there either. Nolan is probably still much much stronger than Anissa (we may get a taste of this very soon), but Anissa was showing more power than Nolan did on Earth because she's not there to protect it.

3

u/2ndaccountbecausobvs Apr 01 '24

Yeah that was my interpretation too!

10

u/NUCLEARGAMER1103 Mar 28 '24

Iirc, it's battle experience that counts towards their strength, not just age.

5

u/Anjunabeast Mar 29 '24

I think it has to do with their genes. Which is why they had that culling/purge. Some viltrumites are just built different

4

u/Quivex Mar 29 '24

I haven't read the comics so can't directly confirm, but I read from another comic reader that the 'older=stronger' thing for Viltrumites is just mass head canon and it's never actually stated anywhere at all. People just take the wrong implication from the ideas that the older they are the more time they have to train and the more experience they have fighting, so the 'stronger' they are, but it's not like.. an inherent physical trait of Viltrumites where if you're 1000 years old it automatically makes you way more powerful than if you're 500 years old.

So I don't think there needs to be lore to accommodate specifically the fact that Mark is younger than Viltrumites he's going to beat because age doesn't directly factor in, it's more the indirect ideas that only the stronger Viltrumites survive over a long enough time frame, and more training and experience etc. etc. So in that sense it's easier to imagine a world where Mark is genetically gifted and can also speed up his own training to quickly catch up.

8

u/PresentationKey9568 Mar 29 '24

She was faster than Nolan, I'm not sure she's stronger, but she's way stronger than every other super powered person on earth and even Invincible.

2

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 29 '24

Yeah. That's what I'd say has to be the most important thing here. Even if she's weaker than Nolan, she's strong enough to tenderize whoever joins the fight AND fast enough to dodge any standard countermeasures.

7

u/Anjunabeast Mar 29 '24

They said she’s faster than Nolan not stronger

6

u/IAP-23I Mar 29 '24

Not once did they mention Anissa demonstrated strength beyond Nolan. He said faster, not stronger

-3

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 29 '24

Not once in the show continuity has it been implied that Viltrumites who are faster than other Viltrumites would for any reason also be weaker than that Viltrumite.

Nolan being slower than Red Rush for example has no bearing on whether or not Mark is faster or slower than Thula. We know that if Mark is weaker than another Viltrumite, he is typically also slower than that Viltrumite.

7

u/Thrallov Mar 29 '24

speed, by Cecil Anissa is faster than Nolan who always holded back on earth, they got no real data on his actual top performance

1

u/GNSasakiHaise Mar 29 '24

Yep. That is my thought too.

4

u/PsionicCauaslity Mar 29 '24

It's mentioned in the episode that Anissa is beyond Nolan's demonstrated strength

Did it though? I thought it specifically said that she was faster than him, not stronger.

3

u/WillyTheHatefulGoat Comic Fan Mar 31 '24

Anissa is not stronger than Omniman but she is faster which threw every one of cecils calculations out the window.

Nolan can probably hit harder than her and can take more hits than her but she is able to dodge more hits and get blows in faster.

The fact she's so much faster changed all of Cecil's calculations as he'd been planning for a prolonged drag out fight with Nolan not rapid tactical strikes

1

u/80SW08 Mar 31 '24

It’s stated Anissa is beyond Nolan’s speed, not strength. I think they’re going to keep Nolan as the strongest character until either Allen gets stronger or they introduce the inevitable “big bad” Viltrumite.

1

u/Sternjunk Apr 02 '24

Anissa wasn’t stronger than Nolan she was just faster

1

u/GNSasakiHaise Apr 02 '24

I'm not saying that Anissa is stronger than Nolan. I am saying Anissa is stronger than Nolan showed Cecil.

0

u/kabbajabbadabba Apr 03 '24

Anissa is beyond Nolan's demonstrated strength

no it's not, stop being dumb. They said she's faster, not stronger.

0

u/GNSasakiHaise Apr 03 '24

Read my fifty other replies to this same comment before calling me dumb.

0

u/kabbajabbadabba Apr 03 '24

i did, that's why I called you dumb

20

u/Yrcrazypa Mar 28 '24

It's been what, a year? The problem is Nolan was already leagues more powerful than anything Earth had to offer, and now here's someone even stronger than him coming. They couldn't stop Nolan with years of searching and planning, there's no hope (as far as we know) of stopping more of them.

5

u/greatness101 Mar 28 '24

I get that, but he had nothing concrete and complete to throw at him. Not even the Reanimen were ready, and he didn't even have the knowledge if they were field ready or not. He just seemed woefully unprepared after the worst attack in history with Nolan a year or so earlier.

16

u/Murky_Blueberry2617 Omni-Man Mar 28 '24

He probably expected Mark was enough

15

u/obsessed_doomer Mar 28 '24

You have to understand that all super hero things have moments like this, but to be honest I do wish Cecil and Mark at least acknowledged that they knew this day would come, instead of just being like "whoa, viltrumites are back! Shocker!"

4

u/lilgrogu Mar 28 '24

Just like the Unopans

2

u/Freezinghero Mar 29 '24

Well we saw Sinclair building more Reanimen, who were able to swarm Mark earlier, they just weren't ready because he has no timeline of when the Viltrumites would return. I think him telling Mark "your days off are gone" is his way of accepting they NEED to prepare for Viltrumite attack, and right now the ONLY option is Mark.

1

u/vadergeek Mar 29 '24

It's been, what, six months, maybe? Not a lot of time to invent the most powerful weapon in existence.