Invincible Season 2
Hey everyone and welcome, today we will be talking about season 2 of the show Invincible. Fun Fact, there is a zombie universe Mark gets transported to in the finale which pays homage to the Invincible comic creator Robert Kirkman who also created The Walking Dead and also wrote the Marvel Zombies comic. This season came out in 2023 and stars Steven Yeun, Sandra Oh, and Sterling K. Brown and was created by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley. So without further ado let’s get right into it.
Season 2 of Invincible sees the return of Mark Grayson aka Invincible who is dealing with the fallout of realizing that his dad is not the hero he thought he was, going to college and trying to juggle superhero life and school, trying to gain the other superheroes trust back, and manage his relationship with his girlfriend Amber. If that wasn’t enough we see the return of some villains that make his life even more complicated and we even meet a new villain that will further challenge Mark’s values.
Invincible is a superhero show based on a comic book that does not hold back on blood and violence. It has similar vibes to The Boys, Deadpool, or The Legend of Vox Machina.
I watched Invincible season one and loved it and so season 2 was something I was really looking forward to. I feel like this show offers a more realistic view of what superheroes would be like, for the most part, the heroes are good minus Omni-man and the bad guys are bad but the heroes sometimes come out of these fights unscathed or sometimes they have physical or mental trauma but also sometimes they hook up with each other and I feel like the show explores the complexities that come with that. The show doesn’t shy away from showing a great amount of blood which makes you see that this is real, like they are fighting and blood is being shed, bones are being broken, and it’s really intense and everyone may not make it out alive. Throughout the season we see how death is around and how the characters address it in varying different ways. The voice acting in this show is top tier and reminds me how big awards like the Emmys should have awards for voice acting because the main cast as well as all the guest stars bring in these voices and give 110% and really elevate the show.
In season one I loved how they had blood splattered on the title card each episode and how every time we saw the title card it was because someone was about to say invincible. I thought that it would just be a season one thing because how could they possibly keep doing that but this time around they had something that looked like maybe dried blood that was getting chipped away with each episode.
Steven Yeun voices Mark aka Invincible and does such a great job. One thing about Mark is that if he joins a fight, he’s going to get his butt whopped. There were so many times where I was like for as strong as you are, you sure do get beat to a pulp a lot, not very Invincible of you. In this season we see him dealing with the aftermath of realizing his father is evil and has killed so many people, learning the Viltrumites are all bad, and trying to show some of the older superheroes from Earth that he is not his dad. Mark is trying very hard to be the perfect hero, the perfect boyfriend, and the perfect son and we see how much he struggles with this and sets these unrealistic expectations for himself.
Through Mark we see how much trauma a superhero goes through besides getting his butt kicked, he also has to deal with those around him who he cares for being used as pawns because they aren’t invincible. At the end of the season, he kills Angstrom and is in a universe where time moves slower and he rapidly goes through the stages of grief which was so greatly displayed with this animation and Steven Yeun’s voice acting, to add to Mark dealing with the weight of killing someone he now thinks he’s like his dad because he killed someone even if they were a supervillain, even though that villain was going after his mom and brother, killing is where he would typically draw the line. Mark’s goal is to be good, be better than his father but he is constantly getting beat up by life and it is sad because the situation with his dad is constantly on his mind and messing up his relationships and he just seems defeated.
I enjoyed Amber and Mark as a couple and thought they balanced each other well but as this season went on I knew it wasn’t going to work out and I’m glad they ended it amicably. There had been a steady set of issues that tested their relationship but the straw that broke the camel’s back was Anissa who threatened Amber’s life and freaked out both of them. I love how Mark and Amber confided in different people about their relationship and those people were basically you need to talk to each other, not to me. We have seen in superhero media how having relationships is hard especially when someone knows your secret identity and how everyone becomes a liability but it was still sad to see their relationship fall apart.
Nolan is still around in this show and I will never forgive him for what he did to Mark and Earth. I’m glad he defied the viltumites but still wish nothing but the worst for him.
Alan is great whenever he pops up and Seth Rogen voicing him just makes it better. I was sad that he almost died but happy that he has Viltrumite DNA now so he is way stronger. I can’t wait to see more about his plan to stop the Viltrumites, who is his mysterious boss, and if he’s really good.
Debbie is voiced by Sandra Oh and she was going through it with trying to figure out how she was deceived by Nolan for so many years. It was sad seeing her go to the dead superhero spouse support group and realizing that some spouses were there because her husband killed them and once they found out who her husband was, they told her not to come back. With Mark in college, she really has no one to talk to about it and she holds so much hate but if there’s one thing I know it’s that she loves her son no matter what and is definitely the reason why he will never end up like his father. She was the real MVP for not only trying to make sure Mark’s life is doing good while hers is falling apart, even going as far as to take on raising Mark’s adopted brother and even after Cecil was trying to get his hands on the kid, she didn’t let him because she loves Mark and he asked her to protect his brother and she will do just that. I’m excited to see what will happen to Mark’s brother now that he is being raised by Debbie.
Donald is someone who is a supporting character but remains important. He wasn’t someone who I gave much thought to but in this season I enjoyed the storyline of him finding out that he is not human and we see him struggling to deal with that until he finally goes and talks to Cecil. We come to find out that he has actually died many times and asked Cecil not to tell him but every time it has happened it was always while he was helping people which just goes to show that some heroes aren’t the ones out on the battlefield. I love how at the end of the season they used this storyline as a way to have him connect with William’s boyfriend Rick who is trying to kill himself because he realizes that he is a cyborg and lets him know that it’s not easy but there are things worth living for.
Also speaking of William, I was shocked that he wasn’t around but then I was thinking, maybe that’s intentional. William is Mark’s best friend and with everything going on this season Mark isn’t there for him at all but Mark expects so much from him, at this point and time it feels like a very one-sided relationship. With Mark and Amber failing I would hate to see Mark and William not be friends anymore but it seems like it’s headed that way considering how bad Mark is at juggling life.
Atom Eve is cool and her powers are cool but I feel like the show doesn’t utilize her enough and I really want more. She is a great asset but is reluctant to work for Cecil after dealing with Rex who cheated on her as well as the government using her biological mom as a means to make superhero kids which backfired. I’m interested to see what happens with her character but one thing I wasn’t expecting was older Atom Eve telling Mark that she’s in love with him and always has been. There’s a moment when Mark might tell present-day Eve he has feelings but he doesn’t and honestly, I don’t blame him because he is going through it and one thing he doesn’t need is a new relationship.
The Guardians of the Globe are like the Justice League or the X-Men, or the Avengers but worse at their job. Every time they’re involved in stopping a villain, I’m always asking if there weren’t any more heroes around to help. Like the team is led by the Immortal who is the only survivor of the last Guardians team and he is formidable but the others on the team kinda suck. I can’t tell if some of these people’s powers will get better with time but as of right now, they are barely getting by with the power set that they have.
The 3 Guardians of the Globe getting their butt whopped by the lizard league while the others were in space was not something I was expecting. It was a 3 v 3 and I honestly thought they had a chance but boy was I wrong. Dupli-Cate gets killed brutally, Shrinking Rae was holding her own until she thought she could go inside one of the villains and grow larger which ends with him crushing her while she’s inside him because he is stronger than he looks and she survives but barely, and Rex Splode who kills the final villains but loses a hand and is shot in the head. The fight was so stressful because I thought it would be a pretty evenly matched fight and boy was I wrong. We later come to find that Dupli-Cate is alive which was great while Rex sort of recovers and starts being self-destructive and I got this feeling that he realized that even though he jokes a lot about everything, that situation was not a joke and he may need to take being a hero more serious so he doesn’t almost die again and also his powers suck like they never seem to make a dent on anyone but I feel like they could maybe one day.
This season progressed like I was reading a comic book. Like there is a main villain of this season, Angstrom, but there are also side missions going on to remind you that other things are going on in this world besides one villain. I was glad that they revisited some storylines that were open from season 1 that may not have been huge plot points but were plot points nonetheless. They introduce some stories in this season which seems like they will be revisiting those at a later time.
Technically this is not a part of season 2 but a special episode but I can’t ignore the Atom Eve special. The special made me appreciate Eve so much more and gave me so much info about a character I didn’t know I needed. She has really cool powers and her potential is kind of limitless but she has this unique ability to surround herself with losers. This special didn’t dive into her relationship with Rex Splode but her relationship with her parents is awful and they treat her as this thing to be tossed aside. In the special, we learn that she can’t change humans due to a mental block but if she could she might be near unstoppable. It was sad to see that the government experimented on others too to try to replicate the success they had with her but couldn’t which led to those others attacking her and leading to an awesome battle. This special showed how badass Eve is while also showing us everything she’s had to go through before even reaching adulthood. I hope she gets more screen time in the future and learns the best way to use her powers without getting others hurt.
Angstrom was voiced by Sterling K. Brown and he did such a great job playing this very innocent man who because of the Invincible in his dimension and other dimensions becomes very evil. Because of the gap in episode releases, I did low-key forget about him but in the finale, he proved to be a formidable foe. I was so mad that after all Mark had been through this man decided you know what I’m going to make his day worse. He hurts Debbie and Oliver and Mark does not take it lightly and eventually kills him accidentally. I loved that while he was sending Mark to different dimensions Debbie questioned his motives and made me realize how fine the line is between villain and hero.
My favorite part of this season is how they show that being a hero isn’t always happy, there is a mental and physical toll. This show does a great job of showing that it really isn’t easy. These heroes feel guilty if they do nothing and the non-superheroes around them feel guilty if they hold them back from helping others which makes them feel like they aren’t valued in the relationship. We see how some do die and their spouses go to therapy and others might have had a rough battle and try to piece themself together and push themselves harder to the point where they are about to break. I feel like the show excels at taking these things that other superhero media might glaze over because it’s typical stuff but this show decides to explore it a little more and show how these heroes are different than humans in many ways but also very similar.
Invincible Season 2 continues the show’s winning streak in terms of quality. The voice acting is amazing, the animation is top tier and the storytelling really leaves you satisfied but wanting more. All I hope is that season 3 comes quickly because I need more.
