Amazon's Invincible - thoughts?

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The underwater fish episode was a snoozer. Glad JK Simmons is back. If you just did Episode 1 and 3 it would have been better.

Kinda think it was dumb writing that Debbie would spill the beans to the grieving husband. Yeah lady you think he’s still want to be friends with you?

I kinda find it funny that Virtrimites in any lore scene are always 1/3rd black because they don’t want to deal with people arguing they’re fascist/imperialist aliens. Even though well they kinda are. I don’t know if the comic was the same but I’ll take that over another Amazon show where you’re hit with a hammer that “Why Pipo = Bad”
Sithis said:
Is the negro ubermensch a long running character? Cause I have no interest watching Nigger Rick Sanchez for more than that first episode.
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I call him Yakub.
 
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Homer J. Fong said:
Kinda think it was dumb writing that Debbie would spill the beans to the grieving husband. Yeah lady you think he’s still want to be friends with you?
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The Boys did the exact same thing. Butcher walks into a room of people killed by super heroes, during a group therapy session, and starts screaming like a nutcase. "Where is your rage!". As if the therapist there wouldn't immediately tell her superiors at Vought that someone crashed a group therapy meeting and was deranged and possibly violent and needs to be monitored. And then they get video footage of Hughie and Butcher together as well if they investigate. The Boys has characters constantly drawing attention by doing stupid things but there are never consequences (no main character has died in the Boys since like season one from what I remember).

Debbie should be living in a CIA facility getting interrogated about Nolan every day. Maybe they can find a weakness or understand his psychology. Maybe they can bargain with him if he returns. But no....instead she gets her real estate license? And is talking to random strangers about Omni Man? How would she even know if the next person who got close to her was another Viltrumite or dangerous? Makes little sense. Her time and knowledge should be more valuable to earth than "Yes...we just upgraded the kitchen with modern appliances".
 
TheHarbinger said:
The Boys did the exact same thing. Butcher walks into a room of people killed by super heroes, during a group therapy session, and starts screaming like a nutcase. "Where is your rage!". As if the therapist there wouldn't immediately tell her superiors at Vought that someone crashed a group therapy meeting and was deranged and possibly violent and needs to be monitored. And then they get video footage of Hughie and Butcher together as well if they investigate. The Boys has characters constantly drawing attention by doing stupid things but there are never consequences (no main character has died in the Boys since like season one from what I remember).

Debbie should be living in a CIA facility getting interrogated about Nolan every day. Maybe they can find a weakness or understand his psychology. Maybe they can bargain with him if he returns. But no....instead she gets her real estate license? And is talking to random strangers about Omni Man? How would she even know if the next person who got close to her was another Viltrumite or dangerous? Makes little sense. Her time and knowledge should be more valuable to earth than "Yes...we just upgraded the kitchen with modern appliances".
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How is she going to tell them anything new under interrogation? He fooled everyone so completely they can't even trust what she knows about him intimately.

He called her a pet, do you tell your pet all your secrets? You cant get water out of a dead stump. Granted, I totally buy the real deal letter agency's doing that, but you wouldn't gain much she wouldn't already volunteer.
 
Michael Wade said:
How is she going to tell them anything new under interrogation? He fooled everyone so completely they can't even trust what she knows about him intimately.

He called her a pet, do you tell your pet all your secrets? You cant get water out of a dead stump. Granted, I totally buy the real deal letter agency's doing that, but you wouldn't gain much she wouldn't already volunteer.
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That really is only a perspective we have as the omniscient audience. Any sane intelligence agency, especially one dealing with a rogue superman, would have spent weeks interrogating her until it was clear she was just as fooled as everyone else or had no other useful insider information she might not be aware is actually valuable.
 
Chilson said:
That really is only a perspective we have as the omniscient audience. Any sane intelligence agency, especially one dealing with a rogue superman, would have spent weeks interrogating her until it was clear she was just as fooled as everyone else or had no other useful insider information she might not be aware is actually valuable.
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She and Mark should not be allowed to do anything on their own. Mark is already traveling to other planets with zero supervision or oversight. And the first time he travels to another world.....Omni Man is literally there waiting for him. The writing is just abysmal. The rabid fans of the Invincible comics are incapable of criticizing anything though. Imagine the CIA not having the Immortal or someone else travel with Mark to ensure he isn't planning on meeting with Viltrumites out in space to invade earth.

I can already guess the series ending based on standard writing tropes and some of the things that Angstrom Levy said. Mark sides with Nolan in almost all universes but the one we are watching. So in this one Nolan probably sides with Mark and we get the same Darth Vader redemption arc as usual. We get the coalition of aliens versus the remaining Viltrumites including a few rogue/traitor Viltrumites fighting with Mark and Nolan. And probably in the end no races receive genocide including earth nor the Viltrumites. And like most super hero stories almost no one dies in the end from the original cast like Rex, Robot, Monster Girl, Atom Eve, and so on.
 
Chilson said:
That really is only a perspective we have as the omniscient audience. Any sane intelligence agency, especially one dealing with a rogue superman, would have spent weeks interrogating her until it was clear she was just as fooled as everyone else or had no other useful insider information she might not be aware is actually valuable.
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I’d agree it’s on shaky grounds but to justify it but Nolan only left because Mark wouldn’t give in. So for the lore they’re left placating Mark because if Mark turns well they’re screwed.
 
Homer J. Fong said:
I’d agree it’s on shaky grounds but to justify it but Nolan only left because Mark wouldn’t give in. So for the lore they’re left placating Mark because if Mark turns well they’re screwed.
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Yeah they got no one good who can really stop him, and they really don't want to poke him too much to to ensure he stays on the leash.

It makes sense to me, Cecil is a very optimistic perspective of someone in the government who actually gives a shit and tries to minimize collateral. Then again you'd have to be a pretty great operator to manage a world where superheroes exist.
 
They don’t know what to do with Debbie, because they speed ran her character arc, just like the gay friend.

This is where she should be grieving, getting ready to transition into where she was at the start of the show. The comic handled this storyline 10x better, and Kirkman isn’t exactly Cormac McCarthy.

I’ll give them credit on the things they improved from S1 though.
 
TheHarbinger said:
Debbie should be living in a CIA facility getting interrogated about Nolan every day. Maybe they can find a weakness or understand his psychology. Maybe they can bargain with him if he returns. But no....instead she gets her real estate license? And is talking to random strangers about Omni Man? How would she even know if the next person who got close to her was another Viltrumite or dangerous? Makes little sense. Her time and knowledge should be more valuable to earth than "Yes...we just upgraded the kitchen with modern appliances".
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It's probably because the CIA got overshadowed by the GDA in importance, and he cleared Debbie, because she's already a friend of theirs and he knows her and how she was fooled like all the rest. But if it were me, I'd have her work in the GDA and monitor her closely. Especially since she just wound up blabbing that her husband is Omni-Man, so word around the grapevine will obviously spread and she'd get lynched by someone who lost a friend during Nolan's rampage.

TheHarbinger said:
I can already guess the series ending based on standard writing tropes and some of the things that Angstrom Levy said. Mark sides with Nolan in almost all universes but the one we are watching. So in this one Nolan probably sides with Mark and we get the same Darth Vader redemption arc as usual. We get the coalition of aliens versus the remaining Viltrumites including a few rogue/traitor Viltrumites fighting with Mark and Nolan. And probably in the end no races receive genocide including earth nor the Viltrumites. And like most super hero stories almost no one dies in the end from the original cast like Rex, Robot, Monster Girl, Atom Eve, and so on.
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The way the later chapters play out, it just seems to me that Nolan's rampage at the end of Season 1 and him killing the Guardians in the first episode was a big fucking waste of time. Sure, they're iconic events, but they don't really play into the grand scheme of things given that Omni-Man goes back to being full hero status and he even takes his whole damn race with him. So eventually, not only are what's left of the Viltrumites turned into good guys, but Nolan killed the Guardians and all those people for fucking nothing. It doesn't really take that long for Nolan to turn good again, so the callous brutality with which he killed the others makes no fucking sense. At least with Vader, it took his son being slowly roasted by his master after his master abandoned him before he made his move. He was abandoned by the forces of evil, and forced to watch someone he loved suffer a slow death. Meanwhile, all it takes is some Viltrumites attacking him and Nolan turns back into a good guy because there's no going back to the evil team, so he just reverts back to a loving husband and father and drops his Viltrumite upbringing of seeing other people as beneath him.

It would've made more sense if say, Omni-Man admitted to the Guardians and to his family who the Viltrumites are and what they were really like, and for him to suggest for them to join the Coalition of Planets because Nolan betrayed the Empire after he was kicked out of his rightful throne by Thragg, so he went to Thaedus for help. Thaedus sends him to a conflict-ridden Earth with the mission of helping them try to become a better civilization because he knows they need to be united to fight against Viltrum when the Empire comes by. You can still have another Viltrumite like Conquest massacre the Guardians the way Nappa slaughtered Goku's friends, you can even have Conquest put Nolan in front of a train the way Nolan did to Mark in the show, then you can have Nolan crush Conquest's head like a melon after he gets enraged that Conquest killed his friends and used him as a tool to kill other humans.
 
Tepes Thot said:
They don’t know what to do with Debbie, because they speed ran her character arc, just like the gay friend.
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When you have ultra powerful godlike heroes and villains like Omni Man, Invincible, Maulers, Atom Eve, Robot, and so on. A simple human housewife who is a real estate agent pales in comparison when trying to be interesting. People generally hate the personal lives stories in almost any type of show. But in something like sci-fi or fantasy I don't really want to see anything from powerless characters unless it is directly part of the world building.

Debbie selling a couple a home or lamenting about how her husband used to take her to a vacation dinner every night. Are these things really going to pay off in satisfying way in the long run? Compared to say getting the backstory of Viltrum or Thrax or whatever. Or seeing what Omni Man has been up to after leaving Earth? Viltrumites might destroy Earth at any moment. Any urgency there? None. No, instead we need several minutes of Mark and Faggot talking about using sock signals to indicate sodomy and shit pushing is occurring. If the Viltrumites knew that the first of their Earth based offspring was spending his time discussing degeneracy and living with a freak they'd obliterate the world instantly.

This show gave us several minutes of some faggot whining about trying to spread AIDS on his first day of college. Rather than the Viltrumite Wars or whatever.

I don't care about Amber, or Debbie, or Mark's pathetic sodomite faggot friend. As they can do absolutely nothing to advance the plot. The Boys has tons of characters who have no powers that are well written. Edgar, Stillwell, Hughie and Butcher without V, Grace, Ashley, Shetty, and so on. I can't believe that we are going to get scenes of Debbie's real estate career or entire Atom Eve specials instead of stuff focusing on the imminent extinction of mankind at the hands of the Viltrumites. If this show runs a dozen seasons it will be a lot of filler then.
 
In the comic she was just a housewife, and was crushed by the big reveal. She becomes a drunk and while Mark is in college, we see her deteriorating in the background.

Eventually, Nolan has another child (half alien) that she winds up raising. The responsibility makes her shape up, and start to work. I believe she works with Mark’s handler (I forgot his name) but I could be wrong about that. Maybe she did real estate in the comic too, but the point was picking up the pieces after.

There most likely won’t be payoff in the show, because it was so poorly executed, there’s not really any room.
 
Tepes Thot said:
In the comic she was just a housewife, and was crushed by the big reveal. She becomes a drunk and while Mark is in college, we see her deteriorating in the background.

Eventually, Nolan has another child (half alien) that she winds up raising. The responsibility makes her shape up, and start to work. I believe she works with Mark’s handler (I forgot his name) but I could be wrong about that. Maybe she did real estate in the comic too, but the point was picking up the pieces after.

There most likely won’t be payoff in the show, because it was so poorly executed, there’s not really any room.
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She later exists solely so that they can show Nolan(now redeemed) does nothing but fuck her on the moon all day.
 
Going back to the massacre of the Guardians, I kinda feel that the original Guardians of the Globe needed more time to cook. As in, I'd have left the massacre of the Guardians for the end of season 1, have it so that the first season is all about Mark and Omni-Man being a father and son superhero team outside of the Guardians who are the go-to superheroes, with some episodes exploring them and their struggles, exploring each member of the Guardians and making us care about them.

I'd even have Omni-Man slowly probe the Guardians, asking them some polite questions where he tries to gauge whether or not they can be assets or enemies to Viltrum when they get to Earth, like would they accept an absolute ruler if said ruler gives everyone social security and no one ever goes sick or hungry ever again. Originally, Nolan plans to use the Guardians as breeding stock to mate with Viltrumites, but he drops the plan when he realizes that none of them will accept Viltrumite rule despite all the blessings it can give to humanity. This would then lead to the even where Omni-Man massacres all the Guardians, and it would happen just like in the show, with him fainting after decapitating Immortal being the season 1 ending, and season 2 begins with the fallout from the Guardians' massacre and people believing Omni-Man's story that someone tried to kill them all.

That way, the deaths of the OG Guardians would mean more once the viewers got a whole season to learn about them, accept them, and like them, so when the new Guardians show up to replace them and suck at the job, we understand what Cecil is thinking when he treats them like kids, because they're kids standing in the place of titans. Season 2 would then have its final battle with Mark and the world realizing Omni-Man's duplicity, but then Omni-Man rebukes his son by saying that Viltrum recently sent him a message saying that if the Earth doesn't bow to their rule in 3 weeks' time, the Viltrumite fleet will arrive and annihilate the planet, and Omni-Man killed the original Guardians to make sure that there would be no threat to Viltrum's occupation of Earth, and no reason for Viltrum to deal with humanity harshly. Nolan even says that he got Grand Regent Thragg to agree to rule humanity with a gentle touch, so long as the nations of the world surrender to Viltrum peacefully.

Season 2 ends with the world surrendering to Viltrum as Thragg arrives with the Viltrumite fleet. Omni-Man and Invincible welcome him along with Cecil and the Global Defense Force, handing over a flag of surrender in the UN building, with the world leaders present and bowing. Thragg accepts Nolan's surrender, thanks him for a job well done in bringing Earth and humanity into Viltrum's fold. Thanks to the fact that the human governments surrendered without a fight, Thragg allows them to retain their power and continue going about their business, so long as they acknowledge Viltrumite rule, and he also shares Viltrumite science and technology with the world leaders present. Nolan goes home to Debbie and Mark, and he starts drinking heavily, the losses of the Guardians having affected him dearly, saying that they were his friends too. He goes between justifying what he did because it was to save humanity, to him having nightmares of the old Guardians accusing him of murder.

Season 3 would be a mix of some people trying to resist the Viltrumite rule, while the new Guardians continue to fight against increasing supervillain threats, with increased Viltrumite support. People would also be adapting to Viltrumite rule. Eve's father, for instance, tells Eve that there's no need for her to go off being a superhero when the Viltrumites are doing their job for them. Nobody messes with Debbie at her job because her husband is a Viltrumite. Mark gets letters of recommendation at school because some high-class schools want to get in good with their new Viltrumite overlords. The other Guardians are split 50/50 on the Viltrumites; some like Rex like fighting alongside Viltrumites and even tries to score with a Viltrumite woman, others like Robot don't trust the Viltrumites since they cause too much damage, while Monster Girl and Dupli-Kate couldn't really be bothered to care so long as the Viltrumites help them fight supervillains.

Immortal comes back and tries to rally an underground resistance against the Viltrumites, but Cecil and the GDA oppose him, since not only is Cecil trying to keep Thragg happy, but Viltrumite science and technology has eliminated world hunger and diseases. Not to mention that the GDA now has more Viltrumites on call to squash any supervillain resistance. But instead of the villains disappearing, they escalate; they become more powerful and double-down on resisting the good guys and the Viltrumites, and this gets more people killed.

Neither side is portrayed to be completely good; the pro-Viltrumite side ignores the fact that Viltrumites don't give a rat's ass about collateral damage and they send GDA soldiers to kill any human who tries to rebel against Viltrum, while the rebels also don't care that their actions cause collateral damage, and some even target humans who befriended Viltrumites, like say, some rebels try to kill a woman that a Viltrumite is dating. That way, Mark still does his superhero stuff as Invincible, stopping villains and saving lives, and Omni-Man helps on the side, but you have a gray conflict of rebels vs empire that isn't so black and white.
 

That way, the deaths of the OG Guardians would mean more once the viewers got a whole season to learn about them, accept them, and like them, so when the new Guardians show up to replace them and suck at the job, we understand what Cecil is thinking when he treats them like kids, because they're kids standing in the place of titans.
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This is the problem with so many 'Evil Superman' stories like The Boys or Invincible. It assumes that the readers and viewers are a bunch of capeshit fans and are extremely familiar with the source material being parodied. I have never seen a Marvel or DC movie. I have no idea who any of these heroes in either show are supposed to be parodying aside from braindead obvious ones like Soldier Boy is Captain America. But I can still enjoy the stories within themselves. But when the stories are basically retelling something from Marvel and skipping the entire background I get completely lost.

So you get all of these situations and characters in Invincible and The Boys where their backstories are not explained or the plot is never developed because it follows the exact parallel storyline from some X-Men or Batman comic that the writers assume everyone is familiar with already. So then the show becomes about stuff like Mark's sodomite friend getting laid or whatever. Or Mark's mother freaking out that her near immortal god powered son is missing his high school graduation. Where these writers differentiate their superhero stories by focusing on mundane nonsense instead of things of actual importance like the invasion of earth by genocidal aliens that perfectly can infiltrate earth because they look human. It would be like if the world knew about Compound V but instead you got an entire season about the lives of college aged superheroes.

This would then lead to the even where Omni-Man massacres all the Guardians, and it would happen just like in the show, with him fainting after decapitating Immortal being the season 1 ending, and season 2 begins with the fallout from the Guardians' massacre and people believing Omni-Man's story that someone tried to kill them all.
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Invincible reminds me of Game of Thrones or ASOIAF. Where it started out with its first scene being the Others or the White Walkers being introduced. They are otherworldly demonic beings that will kill all life on Earth (Westeros). Then you get 90% of the story go by where they barely do anything and everything is some gigantic detour from what looked like it was going to be the main story. Invincible starts out with the dramatic deaths of the Guardians and now we are probably getting several seasons of juggling the main cast without anyone dying just like The Boys where they seem incapable of killing anyone or moving the plot anymore.
 
They got the drama right but fucked up the fight. Mark shouldn't have been able to put up any at all. The comic established the viltrumites so much better. Nolan could fight several at the same time, putting him far above most. Mark couldn't even fight a grunt. That one no-name could've destroyed the entire fucking Earth. Here, Thulla is one of the oldest but somehow having trouble with him. What a joke.
 
TheHarbinger said:
It assumes that the readers and viewers are a bunch of capeshit fans and are extremely familiar with the source material being parodied. I have never seen a Marvel or DC movie. I have no idea who any of these heroes in either show are supposed to be parodying aside from braindead obvious ones like Soldier Boy is Captain America.
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It's kind of hard to believe that not unless you were raised in a cave somewhere that someone couldn't "get it" through osmosis. There's not much to really get. Surely you know of Batman and Superman's origins? That and the concept of a Justice League or Avengers is more than enough. I think you're dramatically overthinking something very simple that a child could grasp.
 
God of Nothing said:
They got the drama right but fucked up the fight. Mark shouldn't have been able to put up any at all. The comic established the viltrumites so much better. Nolan could fight several at the same time, putting him far above most. Mark couldn't even fight a grunt. That one no-name could've destroyed the entire fucking Earth. Here, Thulla is one of the oldest but somehow having trouble with him. What a joke.
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Power levels are never the stronger aspects of comic or anime writing. In one episode people are struggling with hand to hand combat to fight each other. By the end of the season they are summoning elder gods and throwing nuclear bomb level powers at each other like it is nothing. Atom Eve literally has the power over matter.....yet chooses to shoot basic lasers and make energy shields. Robot is some genius who can build cloning machines and see 100 moves ahead but then puts himself directly into combat and almost dies to a giant with the mind of a five-year-old.

But this is the problem Game of Thrones had. They establish the Others/White Walkers as being end of life level apocalyptic. The biggest threat in history. Then they do nothing in the end and the story focuses on literally everything else. Including about 150 pages of food platter descriptions and graphic and vivid details of characters pissing and shitting. Or two or three hours of pointless sex and nude scenes in the HBO show. Instead of the snow monsters that could kill all life.

Viltrumites were described as being the end of earth. An urgent threat that could destroy billions in mere minutes. Yet most of this episode is spent on things not very urgent. Like Nolan making out with a blue bug (instead of a yellow bug?). Or Donald realizing he is a clone. It just seems like the Viltrumites in the end will go the way of the White Walkers and not be a threat. And the fans of Invincible like Game of Thrones will say "duh it wasn't about the plot or the world building it was just about the characters".
BrunoMattei said:
It's kind of hard to believe that not unless you were raised in a cave somewhere that someone couldn't "get it" through osmosis. There's not much to really get. Surely you know of Batman and Superman's origins? That and the concept of a Justice League or Avengers is more than enough. I think you're dramatically overthinking something very simple that a child could grasp.
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I could not tell you the first thing about Batman other than he's Bruce Wayne, he has no super powers, and must be a billionaire somehow. Never seen a single movie, comic, or show with Batman in it. I literally never read or watched anything comic related. I only got into Invincible and The Boys because they were supposedly parodies or "sophisticated" version of standard comic tropes and I can easily access them on Prime.

But you've proven my point. If Batman and Superman are childish stories then why are people constantly comparing Invincible (and The Boys) to them? Shouldn't Invincible rise above the stuff it's parodying or improve upon them? Rather than just rehashing the same story with a new coat of paint? Or just rehashing the same story with more gore or sex? Superman with nudity and gore and lots of cursing? Anyone could write that.
 
The episodes feel too bloody crowded, nothing has time to breathe. I get that the comics probably had a lot going on in their 144 issue run, but the show doesn't have time to juggle all these plots and do them justice. Mark fighting the Vultrimites for the first time and being overwhelmed feels like it's supposed to be a pivotal moment, but it comes across as rather underwhelming when it's fighting for screen time with Debbie moping about the city (how much of the animation budget was saved just by having her walk by doing nothing?), Dolan trying to figure out if he's a clone or something, and Eve finding out that collateral damage is a thing.
 
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