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.
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.
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u/MNight_Slam Cecil Stedman Mar 26 '21 edited Mar 26 '21
Made an account just to talk about this here, since nobody I know seems to be familiar with the comic or show. Liking how they've adapted it overall, definitely has some budget constraints on animation but nothing your average anime doesn't grapple with and I like how well they're working within it so far.
Loved the change to the Guardians fight. I think it makes a whole lot more sense in terms of the series' eventual power scaling that the Guardians actually give Omni-Man a run for his money. Like out of all the heroes on Earth these guys are supposed to be the cream of the crop, and we never really see a character on Nolan's power level truly job multiple high-tier heroes effortlessly like that again. Plus, both that fight and the earlier Guardians one are a great showcase for their coordinated teamwork, something that clearly elevates them as a team over the sum of their parts (as with any good superhero team). Sure, there's slightly less of an "oh fuck" shock value quality to it, but I think it's one of several examples where the writers are aiming to set things up more consistently with later developments, with the benefit of hindsight as opposed to the original comics.
Other examples include the development for characters like Rex and Kate, who started off as sketches in the comic but accumulated a lot more sympathy and nuance later on. Eve's confrontation with them helped to establish both as more than background characters from the jump, especially Kate who's relatively innocent this time as opposed to the man-eater nympho she was sort of broadly defined as in the comic. They're really playing up Rex as a belligerent douchebag too, but I'm totally fine with that. Playing it up should help to make his growth more satisfying. Also making William out and gay from the start is probably an improvement. That came kinda out of the blue in the comic, and if they're setting things up for a romance with Rick from the start rather than being "good buddies" that could really add some additional stakes to the whole reaniman storyline.
One character whose adaptation I didn't care for was Doc Seismic. He comes across as a bizarre parody of a "woke" type. I'm not entirely keen on the occasional "woke speak" that pops up in the show - where a character will suddenly interrupt what they or someone else is saying to clarify some potentially ignorant-sounding detail in long-winded woke terms, you know the type of dialogue I'm talking about. But that wasn't really more than a tiny issue until Seismic, whose whole "woke educated villain" shtick just felt utterly out-of-place. I hope we don't see too many more characters given this sort of heavy-handed treatment. The show does a perfectly fine job jumping to 2021 with details like the more diverse cast, fashion sense, and just quietly polishing up some of the minor, slightly dated aspects of the comic. They really don't need to go overboard convincing the audience they're "with it".
On the topic of the diverse cast - it's actually curious that they cast a high-profile actress like Zazie Beetz in a role like Amber Bennett. The character really did just fall completely to the wayside in the comic. Beetz's casting suggests Kirkman might have bigger plans for the character - that, or a simple one-season character arc without making her overstay her welcome in a thankless and constantly-diminishing part (a lot of Mark's waffling between Amber and Eve felt like Kirkman himself waffling between sticking with the romance he'd been developing from the start but hit a dead end with, and the obvious choice for Mark's ongoing romantic partner). Again, it's clear that Kirkman is taking advantage of hindsight with a lot of these characters to lay a clearer foundation for some of their eventual arcs, but he might have some tricks up his sleeve to tighten up and improve some of the looser arcs as well.