r/Invincible • u/SeacattleMoohawks Séance Mod • Mar 26 '21

Invincible [Comic SPOILERS Discussion] - S01E01-03 - It's About Time, Here Goes Nothing, Who You Calling Ugly? COMIC SPOILERS

This post is for Comic Spoiler Discussion, if you'd like to discuss the new series with comic book context please use this thread. If you don't want to be spoiled use the other thread.

Official Trailer

Episode 1 - It's About Time

When Mark Grayson finally inherits powers from his superhero father, it's a dream come true. But there's more to being a hero than just choosing a name and costume.

Episode 2 - Here Goes Nothing

With his father out of action, Mark struggles to defend the city against an interdimensional invasion, joining forces with a team of teenage superheroes.

Episode 3 - Who You Calling Ugly?

Mark has to cut a study date short to help save Mount Rushmore from a crazed scientist. Robot deals with Action - Comic as he assembles a new team of world-saving superheroes.

Full cast, crew and characters

387 Upvotes

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189

u/Hashbrown4 Comic Fan Mar 26 '21

That guardians of the globe scene was 100x harder to watch than in the comic.

My god... the setup for it... I’m legit feeling depressed

109

u/bigluki1 Comic Fan Mar 26 '21

It was gloriously brutal too

70

u/Hashbrown4 Comic Fan Mar 26 '21

Truly, any thought that this show might not hit the type of gore we got in the comics has been thrown out the window.

44

u/bigluki1 Comic Fan Mar 26 '21

Honestly, its even gone above what I thought it would be. PLEASANTLY surprised!

23

u/J3wFro8332 Mar 26 '21

I saw the gore coming when he pulverized Red Rush's head and it still got me in my seat going "Holy shit!" lmao

21

u/Pyrocantha Mar 27 '21

They really kept it PG up until ominiman popped red rushes head, which helped underscore the brutality of that whole fight.

23

u/RandomJPG6 Mar 26 '21

I loved how they took away the music in that scene.

8

u/Zip_a_dee_lad Ro-Mod Mar 27 '21

Really gave it the weight it needed. Loving absolutely everything about this show so far!

2

u/Strix182 Mar 29 '21

Y'know, I'm really not into gory violence, I get squeamish. I had to avert my eyes a few times during that scene. The fact that I picked up Invincible back in high school and kept reading it despite the liberal use of blood, guts, broken bones, etc speaks to how friggin awesome this series is, and the fact that I feel that same "oh that's gross, but now I gotta watch more" feeling from the series really speaks to what great adaptation this show is.

2

u/joncash Apr 01 '21

I think it was important for viewers like me. I didn't know what invincible was, but I really liked the boys so I said why not give it a chance. And most of the first episode was oh god this is like an adolescent's rip off of the justice league. And then omniman goes off and I'm like oh, oh this is much more interesting...

55

u/LaverniusTucker Mar 26 '21

They're either massively nerfing Omniman's powers or the Guardians were a way more incredible force in this version of the story. It's going to create a weird disconnect if they continue the story to the point when other viltrumites can just completely wreck all of Earth's combined forces.

116

u/Hashbrown4 Comic Fan Mar 26 '21 edited Mar 26 '21

I think the guardians were buffed. And it makes sense. Omni man took them out because they were a credible threat to a viltrum takeover. If they get swept aside with ease it kinda doesn’t make sense why Omni man needed to take them out.

If you’re the strongest superheroes in the world you should at least give a single viltrumite a run for their money. Also I feel like Omni man held back. When he got serious. He got serious

44

u/Cheekywanquer Tech Jacket Mar 26 '21

Exactly. Otherwise he wouldn’t even bother taking them out.

39

u/TorturousOwl Mar 26 '21

You also have to consider that he actually knew them. Psychologically he may have cut back (even though it didn’t look like it)

10

u/Talavisor Mar 31 '21

I just read the comics and there's a scene in the chapter where Mark goes back in time. Nolan admits that he knew he had to kill the guardians fast or else he would be at war with himself. He says that he considered them his friends, and that he was afraid he wouldn't be able to make himself kill them. In some ways, he may have subconsciously been trying to give them a chance.

10

u/notrealtea Mar 26 '21

If they were buffed then why did they take so long to beat the Mauler Twins? The Maulers aren’t that big of a threat

32

u/TheAquaman Mar 27 '21

The Mauler Twins were buffed and also, most of the fight was the Guardians protecting civilians.

15

u/suss2it Mar 28 '21

Yeah we literally see them switch gears and quickly put down the Mauler Twins once all the civilians are out of the way.

26

u/OwlsParliament Mar 27 '21

The Mauler Twins were taken out fairly quickly once all the civilians were saved.

9

u/Hashbrown4 Comic Fan Mar 26 '21

Mauler twins buffed?

10

u/DrRadon Comic Fan Mar 27 '21

Took longer because They were saving people.

4

u/Tellesus Monster Girl Mar 27 '21

The Maulers have a long history of punching above their weight class.*

*Until that one time that they didn't.

1

u/matthieuC Apr 02 '21

Only a clone would understimate the awesome intellect of the Maulers twin

5

u/JaffasJeffs Apr 01 '21

I think the guardians were buffed to show that the team that replaces them are no where near as up to the task as they were. Which also increases invincible's importance.

3

u/No_Plantain_7197 Mar 28 '21

As a non-comic book reader this is essentially the feeling I got. If you write your comic book villains are too powerful then they can only be beaten by deus ex machina or ret-conning. Or in this case everyone else is completely irrelevant, excepting if they have some real specialty powers, excluding Mark.

And I'm assuming that his race is here for breeding purposes, and if more come then only the stupid or the inane (we engineered a virus) can save the day.

Of course, a race of Kryptonians that actually want to conquer things or have their own selfish desires is interesting, but the conflict can only be satisfying in a short 1 or two 'season' series because the gap between the conflicting groups is too wide, that any solution offered has to be total.

31

u/TexasSmash10 Mar 26 '21

Yeah I was wondering about that. Nolan steam rolls all of them and takes no damage in the Comic. I thought he was basically invulnerable to pretty much anything except his own Species and a select few others in the Galaxy.

50

u/Deathsroke Mar 26 '21

In the comic he also ambushes them and goes for the kill before anyone even knows he is there. When they do fight in Reboot the battle is much more even.

27

u/Pathogen188 Comic Fan Mar 27 '21

He's also approached the fight a lot better in the comic. He immediately took out Red Rush in the comic fight, while in the show he went for the Immortal even though Red Rush proved to be way more troublesome.

24

u/ManeatingRaptora Mar 28 '21

It makes sense! Something these episodes made me realize is that although Viltrumites can move fast they don't actually think any faster than a regular human.

It means Rush was honestly super crucial for that fight, in a support role. If he'd just kept running interference instead of trying to land punches, they might have had a chance. It's telling that his death is the turning of the tide.

3

u/Pathogen188 Comic Fan Mar 28 '21

Something these episodes made me realize is that although Viltrumites can move fast they don't actually think any faster than a regular human.

Nah they just have Superman syndrome where even though outside of combat they demonstrate superhuman reaction times, they don’t really fight at superspeed because if they did, they’d be even more broken than they already are.

I mean, even in the show, Nolan catches Red Rush’s punch at super speed, but then never really demonstrates that level of speed again.

Even if we assume that Red Rush is a poor martial artist and he was lazy and slowed down the return of his fist, that’s still way too fast for a normal person to catch.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

He went faster then red rush ever could when he was on flaxan

2

u/5-On-A-Toboggan Mar 28 '21

They do think faster. Nolan types entire books super quickly.

22

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '21

Also maybe he took the hits to keep the suspicion off of him

29

u/Deathsroke Mar 26 '21

Fighting "fair" and in the open they are a threat to him. This is clearly shown in Reboot where they plus early!Mark are enough to stomp Nolan into paste.

The problem with Viltrumutes is that the GG were la crem de la crem, the best Earth had to offer... And it amounted to one (admittedly on the strong side) Viltrumute. As long as you have one Nolan level Viltrumute plus one slightly weaker one you are already facing a losing proposition. Dozens of them? No chance, just having them act in pairs would.be enough to overwhelm most of Earth's heros.

17

u/AspirationalChoker The Viltrumites Mar 27 '21

Personally I think we also have to take into consideration its for a bigger general audience to add more action and drama to capute a wider audience, one thing casuals tend to hate is boring OP characters like I know that's part of the point but it's why people still to this day think Superman is boring or Goku etc yet us geeks who look into it more know otherwise.

I feel like ep2 showed Omniman will still be very OP plus if they go the route of them growing in power after battles or near death experiences then well likely see the same growths as the comics anyway.

12

u/GiltPeacock Angstrom Levy Mar 28 '21

That's a good point. Aside from this being a very canon-consistent depiction of essentially the reboot fight (basically replacing mark's foreknowledge with Red Rush actually using his super speed) I think the more salient point is that they turned a throwaway scene into a really engaging and memorable fight. It even handled the violence perfectly - absurdly excessive gore, but always used with intention rather than for the sake of pure spectacle. Watching the episode with someone who knew nothing about the show, I could see they were sold as soon as Red Rush's head popped.

2

u/Fantasy_Connect Invincidrip Mar 27 '21

I mean. Goku remains the most boring character in setting.

OP characters are great when they're more than cardboard cutouts, is all I'll say.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '21

Expanding it into a full fight was an interesting choice. The comic shows it as a quick, stealth assassination. He catches them off guard to the point that they don't know what hit them until it's over. Here he has a full fight with them so it makes them look weak for not being able to take him on 6 or 7 to one. That could help further the point that he can overpower any of them, but it took him a weirdly long amount of time to take them out? I dunno. It was a choice.

2

u/DrRadon Comic Fan Mar 27 '21

I feel like it made a lot more sense. He has to take them out by surprise because they are a thread. I did not mind him just disposing them in the comic, but the way the show did it made a lot more sense and actually build him more as a villain and a powerhouse because you saw more of them fighting back and their surprise and confusion.

2

u/ClarkWayneBruceKent Mar 30 '21

Are people forgetting that the gaurdians took him out in the reboot story arc?

1

u/Tellesus Monster Girl Mar 27 '21

People keep saying this but in the comic he fought them one on one. We never saw them working together against him in that original scenario.

22

u/alanamablamaspama Allen the Alien Mar 26 '21

The comics didn’t even do all the little backstories for them, right? I don’t remember that.

46

u/Thrown_Right_Out Comic Fan Mar 26 '21

They did, but they were much shorter and simpler. Except Aquarus, lol, his was the same.

22

u/geekymat Omni-Man Mar 27 '21

Made me a little sad that they cut showing War Woman as a lesbian though.

13

u/bladedoodle Mar 27 '21

She was clearly in a relationship of some kind while in civilian wear?

16

u/geekymat Omni-Man Mar 28 '21

Seemed like an employee. In the comic she was in bed ;)

5

u/XanXic Mar 31 '21

I read the comic after the show and yeah I did not get that was her gf, seemed like her assistant. It's a strange change for a show that's showing a lot of diversity.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

With William no longer being hinted at gay and instead fully Out, it seems like they're recognizing that some things have changed since the comic series first ran. They're not trying not to beat us over the head with these things. I like it. You don't have to show women in bed for them to be Lesbians. Maybe it's just part of her identity that we don't get to know about in the glimpses we have seen.

Alternately, maybe they wanted to draw away comparisons from Queen Maeve in The Boys.

4

u/XanXic Mar 31 '21

Ah yeah your last point may be spot on. If it's supposed to be subtext that's her GF she's being pretty rude to her, that was not their dynamic in the 3 panels in the comic lol

William being gay at the start is great. I already find him hilarious and now we can avoid that whole Eve+William part that kind of was pointless and the comic seemed to want to ignore afterwards. Mark was practically ruthless with how there was never even a conversation about dating William's ex. I think it sets up better for E+W's future friendship too.

3

u/Negan1995 Comic Fan Mar 29 '21

Aquarus' is the best. Laughed out loud at his. Forgot it was the exact same as the comic

10

u/Neurotic_Marauder Allen the Alien Mar 27 '21

Red Rush's was basically identical, but the rest were much shorter in the comics.

1

u/SolidlyClothedSnake Comic Fan Mar 27 '21

I much prefer how the comic plays out, with everyone getting killed in single panels and then Omni-Man stepping out of the shadows, drenched in their blood. The timing is just so much better than the drawn out fight we got.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

Imagine the Conquest fight