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

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302

u/mmcintoshmerc_88 Battle Beast Mar 26 '21

I love how they subtly show Nolan realising he's got to start the takeover now mark has powers like him being slow to congratulate Mark and him lashing out at Debbie.

76

u/Ren_Davis0531 Comic Fan Mar 26 '21

I loved his conversation with Mark about the conflict between what you want to do and what you have to do.

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u/hesokayiguess Mar 26 '21

It's so subtle, I hope the rest of my family don't catch on to what's really happening until they get their mind blown. That first episode ending was fun to watch my brother's expression. I don't remember that much of a struggle in the comic so it was a bit surprising to me too even though I knew he decimates the team

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u/Ren_Davis0531 Comic Fan Mar 26 '21

That entire fight, I was like “Why is this so hard for Nolan? He should be demolishing all of them with ease.” It does serve to make the Guardians seem like an actual threat, but I was thinking about what does this mean for future Viltrumite fights. I hope it’s a case of upping the Guardians’ power level vs. nerfing Viltrumite power levels. The power difference between Viltrumites and everyone else makes them much more terrifying.

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u/hesokayiguess Mar 27 '21

I think maybe since there was no clear alibi for Nolan in the comic, the creators of the animated series wanted to show that Nolan only became damaged to look like somebody else did it to him to get Cecil and the government off of his back.

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u/Ren_Davis0531 Comic Fan Mar 27 '21 edited Mar 27 '21

But I remember that Nolan wasn’t a much of a suspect since he wasn’t on the scene. Since he didn’t have to exert any effort he could easily just leave the scene. I think they just wanted to make the Guardians seem like a good super team by lasting so long against Omni-Man and putting him in a coma.

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u/hesokayiguess Mar 27 '21

The logic doesn't make sense though, if I remember that demon detective wasn't a thing in the comic or at least the start of it am I wrong? If he didn't exist, why didn't anybody inspect what happened?

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u/Ren_Davis0531 Comic Fan Mar 27 '21

The detective is in the comic, but he is played up more as a joke. People do try to investigate, but they don’t have a lot of leads. Nolan left little to no evidence of his involvement since he quickly killed them and he left. Hard to avoid making connections when Nolan is left in a coma after being beaten and bruised while laying next to all of the Guardians’ corpses.

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u/hesokayiguess Mar 27 '21

They're making the detective more important then, I wonder what it'll lead to. Other than to hook non comicbook readers of the show, why else would they have Nolan fighting them in detail? Making it difficult not to make connections, especially with a detective blood crime seeing demon man. It's oddly specific so what gives about that character? Must be important, so I doubt he's just gonna lay down and die

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u/XanXic Mar 31 '21

They did some re-arranging, for the better imo, but I could still see Demon Detective being a long joke like in the comic.

The punchline in the comic being he's reporting to Cecil he ran out of leads AFTER Omni-Man's admission was leaked publicly and get's laughed out of his office.

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u/Jrs6500 Comic Fan Mar 28 '21

I think the opening scene established their power enough and was a good addition rather than solely relying on the justice League shorthand but i do wish nolan ahad beat them with ease purely to set him up as such an insurmountable threat. Also feel like they made immortal seem a bit more naive?

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u/HostileErectile Mar 30 '21

It just makes much more sense that the literal greatest heroes of the planet are strong.

I always felt I was very, very dumb how weak they were in the comics and felt the show did it much better to actually set up some proper stakes.

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u/XanXic Mar 31 '21 edited Mar 31 '21

They were barely in the comics outside of Immortal. You see them flying in one panel, assemble, and dead from O.

I like they built them up, having read the comics after these 3 episodes it really mislead me about their importance. Like the whole opening and extended summoning scene giving you back story about all of them did a huge job convincing me they wouldn't die during that fight. I kept expecting Omni-man to stop and be like "I was testing you"

But to your other point I think it may just be they want to bring the base "power level" down now that they know where the comic has been and where the show will go. That way they can plan their power creep. Mark and Nolan get repeatedly fucked up and gored in the comics. Since the show will have to deal with the idea of Superman I think they wanted to make them seem a bit more vulnerable right off the bat so later fights have somewhere to go. If Omniman just shredded them with no effort like in the comic, he seems less impressive in his feats. DC has this issue with Superman all the time and I think kind of lowering the audience expectation of their durability now will be healthier in the long run.

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u/HostileErectile Mar 30 '21

I honestly found it much better in the show than in the comic. Having the literal best superhero team on the planet be as trivial as they were in the comic made the whole point of Nolan’s action nonsensical. I love the comic, but I always felt it was dumb how weak they were in comparisons to Vitrumites.

The show handled it MUCH better IMO.

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u/here_for_the_lulz_12 Comic Fan Mar 30 '21

I think this thread is full of speculation so I'm going to throw my own. I don't think the Guardians are more powerful in the show nor I think Viltrumites have been nerfed, and I also don't think that Nolan was holding back.
I think the key difference between the show and the books is Red Rush reaction and saving Immortal and others so they had time to pose some resistance. In the books, Omni-man pretty much one-shots everyone, starting with Red Rush and War Woman. After that is over. I think they made the change for the show to give us that amazing fight and also to put Nolan as a prime suspect.

3

u/ThinkEggplant8 Mar 27 '21

Either he's getting a power up after he spends years in that alien dimension or he's eliminating threats without trying to raise suspicion. He's trying to covert Mark at this point, so if he kills all heroes, it's going to be a hard sell.

3

u/Ren_Davis0531 Comic Fan Mar 27 '21 edited Mar 28 '21

I’m not saying he should kill all heroes. Just wondering how this affects the overall threat level that Viltrumites pose. Like will Conquest or Anissa be as terrifying if it’s possible for Earth’s heroes to physically beat them down if there are enough heroes. I have faith that the show will properly handle the power dynamics. The Viltrumites have to be massively terrifying.

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u/Tellesus Monster Girl Mar 27 '21

Think back to the comic, Mark gets hurt more than once by threats on Earth. Earth has always been capable of producing threats to Viltrumites, that's part of what makes it such a valuable place to make new ones.

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u/Ren_Davis0531 Comic Fan Mar 28 '21 edited Mar 28 '21

Mark takes less and less damage from Earth threats as his powers grow stronger and stronger. Compare his early encounters with Titan where he has to apply some effort to later encounters where a single slap when Mark is holding back as much as he can makes Titan bleed. Only people with certain powersets (like Powerplex with his electricity) or people said to be very powerful can hurt Mark. Most Earth villains in the series with physical attacks don’t affect Mark as he gets stronger. Also keep in mind that Mark himself wipes the floor with The Immortal during the Invincible/Wolf-Man crossover after Mark’s powers have developed even further.

1

u/HostileErectile Mar 30 '21

That how it should be... what’s even the point of superhero’s if they can’t do anything ?

2

u/Ren_Davis0531 Comic Fan Mar 30 '21

Superheroes shouldn’t just be able to fight anything simply because they’re heroes. Some people are just more powerful than them. If all it takes to fight back against a Viltrumite are a few supers then that massively drops their threat level, which makes the Viltrumite Empire seem less of a problem. If the Guardians had a few more supers on the team Nolan could have been injured worse or killed. Imagine Conquest being in a situation like this. Mark’s fight would have much less impact. And figuring out new ways to fight Viltrumites would also mean less since it was already possible before. I think the only way to salvage it is just by saying Red Rush, Immortal, and War Woman are more powerful in the show.

2

u/Tellesus Monster Girl Mar 27 '21

In the comic he hunts them down individually and doesn't fight them as a team. Together, they were almost able to take him down. It actually shows why he had to kill them, they were a real threat to him.

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u/Ren_Davis0531 Comic Fan Mar 28 '21

It’s the same scene in the comic. Nolan calls them all to the base and he kills them all easily. The only difference here is that they fight back because Red Rush is fast enough to perceive Nolan’s attack.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '21

He has also been pulling his punches for 18+ years, you could even say it's like he "has to pee his pants on purpose." The moments when he is crushing Red Rush's head is when he is working to overcome that mental block. I think he is also subconsciously fighting against the evil of his actions. He had hoped to take them out suddenly and quietly, but when that fails he has to come face-to-face with murdering his former allies. Letting loose on the Flaxans is him exercising the destructive power he had suppressed for so long.

2

u/XanXic Mar 31 '21

I think the show wanted to lower Viltrumites down at the start so they have somewhere to go later. Power creep making the audience indifferent is always a big issue with this genre. Like I love DBZ/DBS but they are fighting literal gods of the universe because the power levels have to go ever upward and they started with "Destroying a planet is impossible" at the start of DBZ and by the third boss it was no effort, then they constantly had to hold back or drastically scale up.

Invincible gets the ENORMOUS benefit of a completed story, I just read the whole series over the weekend and one big through line that translates incredibly poorly in the comic is getting stronger. Like Mark has a few issues of just trying to fly faster and lift more, which in comics is him on a blue background saying "I can fly faster now! :D" In the show you'll have animate that. I think by going towards them being weaker now they can get to the strength they are at the end of the run with an actual noticeable difference. Like if Omniman just shredded them in the show you wouldn't have a good sense of his power, just that he's strongest on Earth, and so when more V's show up later who are stronger than the guy before there's an actual power curve there, that can be animated more importantly.

1

u/thatguamguy Mar 27 '21

I haven't watched the episode yet, but I heard about this change and thought it sounded a bit strange for the reasons you say. I have a feeling that part of the decision might have been that the creative team wanted to show the audience just how violent the story actually gets early on in the first episode, rather than holding it for what I assume is going to be the first season finale.

1

u/Jrs6500 Comic Fan Mar 28 '21

I totally agree i am worried that they may have gone for spectacle over putting over just how powerful nolan and by extension every vultrimite is.

1

u/Youve_been_Loganated Apr 02 '21

I know nothing of this series and it was quite a shocker for me. I pegged this series as the dad dying early and the son having to navigate against a antagonist that practically killed superman. Boy was that a nice surprise. It's from Robert Kirkman so I knew it wouldn't be too generic, can't wait too see how this plays out!