Invincible returning back to us year after year feels like a treat that we don’t deserve. It may be eight episodes that we’re getting a season of, but where else can you find 50+ minute long r-rated animated superhero media? There’s nowhere else but Prime Video, and that’s why, despite my personal relationship with the Invincible comic, I’m always excited to return to a new season and see what Robert Kirkman has to offer us as I experience the story through a whole new lens.
Invincible Season 3 ended on one of the best episodes of the series, with Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Mark (Steven Yeun) battling it out. Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs) comes close to death but overcomes her injuries before Mark seemingly kills Conquest. But wait, Cecil (Walton Goggins) couldn’t help himself and had him kept alive in a prison at an undisclosed location. Mark decides to change his ways of operating as a hero and tells Oliver (Christian Convery) that he was right to kill the Mauler twins and that he’ll kill anyone who poses a threat.
This is where we find ourselves at the start of Invincible Season 4, Episode 1. The episode opens up to “If I Get High” by Nothing but Thieves, which already sets this melodramatic tone as we see where our heroes are two weeks after the Conquest fight. Mark looks soulless and hollow as he takes down his enemies with the song matching his demeanour with its emotional yet powerful lyrics. He’s still dealing with the trauma of that day, knowing deep down that Conquest won’t be the last Viltrumite to come down for a fight.
It has only been two weeks, but Oliver has already grown slightly older, and it seems he’s beginning to tire of this superhero life. The world constantly needs them; he understands that, but he also just wants to be able to sit down at home, rest and play games. When Mark tells him that they need to head back out to go stop Furnace, he refuses, despite having wanted to face this villain in the past. Oliver wants the many other heroes in the world to deal with the problem, and Mark doesn’t trust anyone but himself (and at least Oliver) to deal with the situation correctly, and with Mark’s new rules, I guess that means putting a permanent end to them.
Surprise, surprise – there’s no Furnace in sight, and the construction workers weren’t the ones who called the issue in, but suddenly it all starts to make sense what’s going on when a voice starts to appear from out of thin air, telling him that Earth is becoming too overpopulated and that Mark’s destructive fights were helping put a correction to it all, but now him saving people is slowing down this process. It’s then revealed that all of this is coming from Dinosaurus (Matthew Rhys), a red humanoid dinosaur.
To summarize it all, he has the same mentality as Thanos and believes Earth would thrive if a certain number of people were to perish, and it’s his goal to take down Invincible and stop him from saving lives and putting a halt to his plans. It’s the first true fight of the series because there’s not much blood spilt (at least to Invincible standards). The fight quickly comes to an end when Mark comes face to face with a scrawny male who says that he can’t help himself and loses control to Dinosaurus.
This is a vital moment for Mark because it’s here that we see him make the decision of if he should end the man’s life despite him not truly being at fault for what has happened or what could happen, but all logical sense has left Mark. If it wasn’t for the Guardians of the Globe arriving to take over, it’s likely that Mark would’ve killed him.
It’s not long after that we get Mark visiting Eve for dinner with her parents. Unfortunately, that doesn’t go too well for him as her dad, Adam Wilkins (Fred Tatasciore) blames him for the destruction that’s caused, which cost him his job in Chicago and is the reason that Eve always comes near death. Hinting that not being in a relationship with her is the safer option compared to staying with her. It’s from this point that both the audience and Mark himself really start to feel the guilt for his actions.
He knows that he was coming close to killing Dinosaurus in his human form, and his conversation with Eve’s dad has painted a whole new perspective about people getting hurt around him. This entire scene plays a huge factor into Mark’s decisions later in the episode and most likely later in the season.
Oliver is seeming to find himself in this episode as he gets a new suit with a red and black colour design, still sporting the “O” which is infamously known for Omni-Man (J. K. Simmons). After facing the many Invincibles with it, Conquest, and almost dying wearing it, he chooses to make the symbol his own and separate it from his dad’s history. We also get a flashback with Omni-Man trying on his suit for the first time, saying that it makes his “strength and power clear”. Debbie (Sandra Oh) sees more than Omni-Man in Oliver and approves of him wearing the symbol.
Debbie also has some time to herself in this episode; while there’s yet another alien attack happening, she’s dealing with, well, life. Paul (Cliff Curtis) feels weird around her kids despite them being extremely okay with his presence, and with him coming to understand this, he finally asks her to move in with him, to which she agrees. It’s moments like this in Invincible that remind you there’s a lot more to just its central characters. It’s what helps build character depth and the tension for later moments that might involve them in perilous situations.
We also get the introduction of a new villain, Universa (Danai Gurira), a villain that doesn’t quite make sense (but when do they ever) and also one that gets dealt with swiftly. Universa attacks a power plant which coincidentally happens to be under Invincible Inc.’s protection, causing both Mark and Eve to arrive at the scene. We learn that Universa’s goal is to take all the energy sources from Earth so that she can help her people survive, but like Mark states, that’s killing his people in the process.
Eve proves quite useless in the fight at first, as her constructs aren’t holding form, which we saw earlier when she made a horrible-tasting coffee for Mark. Mark tries to disarm the Staff of Leadership, but it works similarly to Mjolnir, and only those worthy can hold it. Eve manages to get in quickly and knock out Universa with a striking punch.
While all this was happening, the Sequids returned with Rus Livingston (Ben Schwartz) still leading them. After Mark’s fight with Universa, he’s taken by Cecil, who swears there are no tricks and that he just wants his assistance. Luckily, the GDA had planned for if a future attack were going to happen and have prepared a containment dome to keep the Sequids from spreading further out while they rescue every civilian that’s currently host to the Sequids.
With the Guardians and Mark split up across the city to help separate everyone from the hosts, Robot (Zachary Quinto) decides to not follow initiative and heads into the sewers to take care of any stragglers but finds himself almost getting overpowered. Luckily, he manages to escape before a sequid can manage to attach itself onto him.
It becomes a race against time as the integrity of the dome is at 1%; Bulletproof (Jay Pharoah) is trying his hardest to get a disrupter to Mark, and Mark only has seconds to make a life-altering decision. He’s stopped Rus and the sequids before, but they still managed to find their way to Earth. With the conversation he had with Eve’s dad swirling in his mind and having to fight the guilt of the many people’s lives that have been lost under him, he strikes a killing blow through Rus’ head, spilling his brains across our screens.
If that wasn’t enough for one episode, Conquest has also escaped his prison and gone into space. This will not only prove a huge problem for Cecil but also for everyone else in the long run.
Invincible Season 4, Episode 1 finds Mark having a superhero crisis, one that doesn’t have to do with his identity but more his morals as his guilt eats away at him. The morals of a superhero are always something that’s vital to their character, but it’s interesting to see someone going from “We shouldn’t kill” to “We must kill our enemies.” He still seems strung between the two options, having let Dinosaurus live earlier but killing Rus later. I’m intrigued to see where Mark’s character arc goes this season, but as far as this episode goes, it was a great start to the season.
