r/Invincible • u/Nat_Libertarian • Aug 11 '21
My explanation for Omni-man's power scaling THEORY
I think we have all noticed the problem- sometimes Omni-Man can tank massive explosions, a space laser, air-to-air missiles and can use his body as a wmd by flying through an alien city like a MAC projectile, but other times he gets hurt from a punch to the face or a tiny little cherrybomb. I came up with a theory to help explain this.
In the first episode he explains to Mark thay Viltrumites can manipulate their position and move freely in space, allowing them to fly, and also how they can use this to make their own leverage for punches. It might be a leap here, but I think this is how they appear to be nearly invincible at times as well.
Later in the episode when Mark confronts the bully he looks hurt from the first punch, then gradually takes them until at the last one he looks like a brick wall, as if his durability is something that he has to conciously control and he is just learning how it works.
I think this is true with Omni-Man as well. Every time we see one of his extreme feats of invincibility he is focused specifically on taking it, not flinching in the face of terrible force. On the other hand, when he is caught off-guard or while facing multiple opponents in hand-to-hand combat he cannot focus on defense as much, and thus he can be hurt or even potentially killed by far weaker opponents than himself, to the point where even just mechanically-assisted human corpses could rough him up.
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u/Infinity0044 Aug 11 '21
I think it’s definitely a focus thing and explains why he had to take on the GOTG by surprise
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u/AlabasterNutSack Brit Aug 11 '21
In the comic Omni man bodied the original GOTG even worse than the show. It was to the point there was no contest, and he just flew away.
No hospital, just quick kill and done.
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u/YellowCentaur Invincidrip Aug 12 '21
What comics are you reading?? In the comics they knocked his penis anus and pancreas the fuck out.
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u/JusticeBeak Aug 12 '21
I haven't read the comic (and don't want to learn much about it due to spoilers) but I find this really funny
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u/AlabasterNutSack Brit Aug 12 '21
Guess I need to re-read it then. It has been a while. I just remember watching it in the show and thinking: “Huh, guess they made Omni-man not as strong in this..”
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u/YARGLE_IS_MY_DAD Aug 12 '21
The guys a troll. You're right. In the comics he bodies them like children. It's not even a contest.
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u/AlabasterNutSack Brit Aug 12 '21
I guess I’m having a hard time processing why someone would lie about something so stupid and small..
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u/KGx666 Sep 21 '21
Wait a second, aren’t you the guy that said people that don’t like Anime are racists?
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u/Trias84 Aug 12 '21
I'm still not sure why he called a meeting to kill them all at once. Surely he could have picked them off one at a time while moving incredibly fast to the next target and wiped them out in a few hours tops anyway.
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u/of_kilter Aug 12 '21
Red rush could’ve easily gotten away and warned the other hero’s/cecil.
Thats not something nolan wanted and a big group fight would’ve made him running away much less likely
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u/Hellbeast1 Aug 12 '21
Better to get them all at once
Leaves less chances of them doing their own thing or noticing something’s up
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u/-ImOnTheReddit- Aug 11 '21
Gotg?
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u/xlwerner Aug 11 '21
Guardians of the Globe - aka the Immortal and company
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u/-ImOnTheReddit- Aug 11 '21
Makes sense, was thinking gaurdians of the galaxy had a crossover I wasn’t aware of
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u/CRGBRN Aug 11 '21
I think you're onto something here. I'd also mix in the fact that he INTENTIONALLY reduces the power he uses as to not tip any Earthlings off to what he's actually capable of. Which is why Cecil has no fucking clue what might work on him or not (although he learns pretty quickly through episode 7).
So, getting caught off guard as well as intentionally not using his power can leave him vulnerable but he's willing to take the hits to not give up any semblance of what's coming. This way Earth couldn't possibly prepare properly.
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u/koenigsaurus Rex Splode Aug 12 '21
This also tracks with why what he did on the Flaxan home world was so shocking at the time. We had a baseline of how powerful he seemed to be, but away from Earth he was able to let loose his full strength.
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Aug 12 '21
It's basically the Superman scenario. He's holding back to a fraction of his power basically every waking moment by conscious choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl_5UwS57X8
cc /u/CRGBRN
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u/CRGBRN Aug 12 '21
Damnnnn how could I have forgotten about this? Man, they really took that concept (which is already a little scary to begin with) and applied it to Nolan’s warped, twisted ass view on other life forms. So insidious.
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u/rafter613 Aug 15 '21
Man, there were like a ton of fragile civilian bystanders there, huh?
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u/HavelsRockHardCock May 06 '22
“Always taking care not to break something, break someone.”
Immediately levels 5 skyscrapers and essentially mini-nukes a busy street
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u/CRGBRN Aug 12 '21
Fully agree. Even after the events of season 1….literally no one on Earth has any fucking clue that he can do that. And we, the audience, don’t even know if there’s more.
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Aug 11 '21 edited Aug 12 '21
Kind of like Houdini flexing his abs to take any punch then someone catching him off guard.
EDIT: removing “assistant” for factual correction. See link below
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u/JusticeBeak Aug 12 '21
I thought it was a random guy in a bar that dealt the punch that killed him
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u/earqus Aug 12 '21
Wait he died from a punch? I thought it was from a more elaborate escape type performance?
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u/JusticeBeak Aug 12 '21
Upon looking it up, I found that it was initially thought to be several consecutive abdominal punches that killed him (albeit from a student in his dressing room, not a guy in a bar), but some historians suspect foul play instead. To this day, the exact cause of the apparent appendicitis that killed him is unknown.
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Aug 12 '21
If you are interested in Houdini, the museum in Pennsylvania is small but worth a stop if you’re in the area
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u/Washboard-Parker Aug 11 '21
Sneak attacks new meta for taking on viltrumites confirmed
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u/xXSelf-ImmolateXx Aug 11 '21
Good luck with that bud 🍀
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u/Tdog754 Aug 11 '21
Yeah this is the sort of hand-wave explanation that works in a lot of shows, albeit the Viltrumite power set helps it make a bit more sense.
It’s like the DBZ scene where Krillin throws a rock at an unsuspecting/relaxed Goku and injures him really badly. Or, as others have pointed out in real life, sucker-punching an otherwise skilled boxer and dropping them.
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u/2punornot2pun Aug 11 '21
yeah, for Goku / Dragon Ball universe, they can "power up" or down their chi. This chi level increases all stats across the board. Durability, speed, strength, etc.
It certainly makes sense they need to focus their chi where they want to protect themselves.
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u/treetopkingdom The Elephant Aug 11 '21
This theory makes a lot of sense and I think their is definitely some truth to it simply because he was able to punch through the immortal without hurting himself. But I don’t think he’s actually lowering his base durability. I mean mark isn’t paying that villain at the beginning of episode 5 any attention and he isn’t feeling anything. And when Donald sets off that house bomb Nolan shouldn’t be anymore focused in that situation then when he had to fight all the guardians And Nolan takes that explosion without feeling anything. So they should have some level of extreme durability like I don’t think you could shoot mark in the back of the head when he isn’t focused and kill him and I don’t think setting off a small bomb in his house would kill a unfocused mark either. But other than that solid theory.
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u/UnnbearableMeddler Aug 11 '21
So they have a form of base durability , which can be altered through their concentration ? Like , getting full-berserker drop defense but allow you to boost that punch , while getting into a defense position would weaken them ? Sort of make sens I guess
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u/treetopkingdom The Elephant Aug 11 '21
No. I’m saying their durability doesn’t drop at all. It only increases from base.
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u/UnnbearableMeddler Aug 11 '21
So , Oobleck then ? The more you punch it , the harder it get
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u/treetopkingdom The Elephant Aug 11 '21
I’m not sure what that is. But I’m thinking more like a Kamehameha from dragonball z. Their durability increases the harder they punch so they won’t break their hands.
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u/UnnbearableMeddler Aug 11 '21
I’m not sure what that is
That's a liquid that gradually harden when you apply pressure to it. Which roughly mean , the more you punch it , the harder it get
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u/treetopkingdom The Elephant Aug 11 '21
Ok. So yeah kinda like that but strictly for their own attacks. Like their durability doesn’t fluctuate when being hit by other people’s attacks. What I’m saying is, if you could break omnimans nose with a punch I think you could do it whether he was prepared to take the hit or not.
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u/JackThePollo Aug 11 '21
i think in the comics his power scaling is much more consistent so whe can also use that as a scale
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u/Dongofdueprocess Allen the Alien Aug 11 '21
Great explanation I remember seeing a video somewhere where omni man was actually careful of Darkwings “batarangs” because they had a chance to detonate or something like that.
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u/heynowjesse Aug 12 '21
here we have a classic case of overthinking. it’s just the way comics are; power levels change all the time and most of the time, it’s within margins that aren’t immersion breaking. like this show.
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u/Republicandoanything Aug 12 '21
Wasn’t he surprised by the laser though? I like the theory but shouldn’t that have done more damage if he was surprised?
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u/TSM- Aug 11 '21
That explanation makes sense, but I'd like to also mention, all of his "super invulnerable" stuff is against inanimate objects, like lasers, bombs, building structures. When paired against another superhero, their weapons scale accordingly.
Surely Invincible could break Battle Beast's metal club, but because of how strong Battle Beast is, his attacks and weapon scales accordingly.
The same would arguably apply to how Omni-Man was seemingly a bit hurt by Darwking's throwing weapons and had to dodge them, but yet just sat there as the Flaxans shot their weapons at him, or was mildly annoyed by the missiles from those jets.
It's about the relative power level of the one shooting their weapon rather than the weapon itself. It is not realistic, but it doesn't have to be. The point is, this seems like to be how the internal logic works.
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Aug 11 '21
Or alternatively viltrimites get more durable with watch punch they take, which would explain mark being turned into tomatoes soul the first few episodes then progressively kicks ass
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u/boogers19 Burger Mart Aug 12 '21
I think you’re trying way too hard. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that)
It super simple: that 1st fight against the Guardians doesn’t count.
He had to take enough damage to convince Cecil he’d been attacked too.
That’s it. He let them get a bunch of hits in. He was just toying with them.
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u/NMega Aug 12 '21
I’d love for this to be the case but the fact that Donald self-destructs the house while Omni-Man’s like mid sentence — so he clearly doesn’t know it’s about to blow up — and he doesn’t at least get a bruise or even knocked down clearly shows the power scaling is a product of what the writers decide would make a scene entertaining, rather than being fixed on the reasoning given here.
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u/hahaInsecurities Aug 12 '21
Probably the same thing when Goku gets hurt by a regular bullet from a random thugs handgun while he tanks solar system destroying attacks like bug bites. Chalk it up to plot convenience and don't think too hard about it, at least that's what I do.
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Aug 12 '21
You're on to something, in the comics there is a part where mark is distracted and a giant monster is able to hit him and it looks like it does some real damage.
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u/18cmOfGreatness Aug 12 '21
Things are different in the comics, though. No one had hurt Omni-man in the "first season", i.e. before he kicked his son's ass and then flied away. Omni-man getting his ass kicked by Copy-Guardians, cyborgs and Cthulhu is TV-series exclusive. They decided to nerf him hard to increase tension.
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u/BloodFanger Invincidrip Aug 12 '21
This is actually a great explination but it also works in mysterious ways such as in most fights couldn't he just do that the whole time? Like when mark fought vs machine head's group? And tank on defense? Or when fighting the ciju (sorry for misspelling) also they're still resistant even when not paying attention. Like in the scene where mark is texting Amber and getting hit over the head. He's not elly focused even in the fight. Just sorta frozen. And when Omni man got shot at by Cecil when he was flying to mark and eve. He didn't really even get knocked back just surprised by it and went to him
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u/Crimson_Marksman Aug 12 '21
That makes sense. They've got force fields on their bodies that get stronger through training and concentration. But then, how strong are they normally?
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u/PMJackolanternNudes Aug 11 '21
You're reaching for an explanation that doesn't need to exist. There are a few differences you're ignoring.
1) knowing a punch is coming is way different than being caught by surprise
2) Letting punch knock you back is gonna hurt way less than taking it like a brick wall would
3) The potency of an attack usually has very little to do with how pretty it looks
And 4) Most of the time the animators and writers are 0 concerned about consistent power levels
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u/Groundbreaking-Hand3 Aug 12 '21
Still doesn’t explain why when he’s flying at high speed a little laser blast from cecils shitty handheld laser gun is enough to make him recoil
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u/Rogar_Rabalivax Aug 12 '21
Tv series wise might make sense, they kinda nerfed viltrumites so far and battle beast.
Comic wise there was nothing on earth that could even scratch omniman, let alone injuring him for real like on the tv series where he received a beatdown on episode 1. The thing is on the tv series they are making nolan this big bad final boss who everyone needs to destroy, hell even cecil had weapons ready to deploy, while on the comics cecil and omniman were friends at odds and no one suspected a thing about nolan. The league were pretty much destroyed without even knowing who killes them except the inmortal who died last.
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u/Wolv90 Aug 11 '21
So viltrumites are like Marvel's Gladiator from the Shi'ar? He's got similar powers but they are based on his self image, so when he doubts himself he's more vulnerable.
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u/Budgieman90 Cecil Stedman Aug 12 '21
I feel like the same thing applies to superman a lot of the time.
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u/-Mortlock- Aug 12 '21
This would explain how the viltrumites were slaughtering eachover so easily in omnimans' flashback to their civil war thing. Iirc most ever kill happened while they weren't paying attention.
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u/poundtownpirates Aug 12 '21
That’s a great theory! Kind of like armament haki in One Piece, where they basically form an energy shield over themselves.
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u/EndNefric Aug 12 '21
This also explains why one viltrumite could just straight up rip another of their kind in half. One is enhancing their durability and the other is caught off guard and isn't doing so.
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u/Fufflewaffle Aug 12 '21
This is my headcanon for how Dragon Ball characters work aswell. I always thought their invulnerability was a power they control, like manipulating their energy. Makes sense as to how Goku gets almost killed by a small laser beam in the Cooler movie, he was paying attention and thus couldn't protect his body. Might just be like how if we get punched in the gut unaware, it hurts. But we can engage our core to absorb most of the energy.
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Aug 12 '21
clearly, you've never watched any dragonball. /s jk! but i do find this concept very similar to dragonball z, super, etc... don't let your opponent know your real power. fighting at their level is a game of wits.
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u/schebobo180 Aug 12 '21
I think you are greatly underestimating the physical strength of the other Supes like the Guardians that actually hurt Omniman. Immortal can punch through a lot of things similar to but not as strongly as Omni man, so it only stands to reason that a full punch from him could hurt Omni man.
The reanimen are the only weekspot in the series in terms of their power scaling. In the series they beat the ever loving shit out of mark while in the comics Mark took them out relatively comfortably when they met in the same place.
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u/superduperfish Adam Wilkens Aug 13 '21
The one counter I have to this somebody may have mentioned is the explosion by Donald. It's powerful enough to blow a house to pieces amd vaporize Donald, but Omni Man is completely unfazed, despite the explosion occurring mid sentence when he clearly didn't know what Donald was doing. Meanwhile earlier in the scene Donald leaps behind a table and takes Omni Man by surprise with a big gun that knocks his head back a bit.
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Aug 15 '21
I think it's also worth mentioning that his "base" durability is probably still pretty good, Donald took him by surprise with the self-destruct and he was unharmed, Cecil's laser gun only stopped him while he was flying, etc.
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u/happyfoam Aug 15 '21
The simpler the power, the more powerful it generally is. It would make sense that they weren't just simply durable, but that their real power is to freely move their bodies through physical space. The more concentrated they are on their actions, the more space they can displace. It makes a ton of sense. Thanks for the new head canon, OP.
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u/Ribbles78 Aug 11 '21
This, weirdly, makes sense. I didn’t expect it to