Amazon's Invincible - thoughts?

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

I recently got into this show but I have so many things to complain about, mostly about the heroes.

Guardians of the Globe:

• The Immortal: If Warf from Star Trek and Yamcha from DBZ did a fusion dance, you'd get the Immortal. He went from being the third most powerful character to a joke gag character. He exists purely to glaze the villain of the week by getting squished by them. Gets increasingly more pathetic with every fight he's in, does no training to improve his stats like Invincible does, the one time he's given real power he fucks it up by becoming a senile dictator rather than naming a successor or forming a republic, and when he's lucid he's just an obnoxious boomer who makes unwarranted judgement calls on the caliber of other people. He could easily be a decent Captain Marvel style character if he wasn't driven to be pathetic by the writing, nowhere is it ever stated he can't get stronger through training, he just doesn't because. What's worse is he's still stronger than almost everyone else on this list, so he's also a glorified human meat shield to even weaker characters as well as a personal pin cushion to the villain. He is the most important brick in the least important wall.
• Duplikate: Cannon fodder, the character. Duplikate is a one-man-army with no artillery and no flak armor, not even as good as a Warhammer 40K guardsman. Too stupid to bring a gun or to have any weapons whatsoever. Could be useful in a number of ways, like as a field medic, but that's too smart for the cannon fodder character. Not a very likeable character overall, but I can't name a character flaw I really dislike in particular.
• Samson: Sorry, what exactly do you do?
• Shape Smith: Conniving & intentionally useless asshole. The smartest thing he ever did was the most cowardly thing he did, which was to play dead on the ground while an Alt-Universe Invincible tore apart the Guardians. A gag character that could be useful but does nothing.

Teen Team:

• Rex Splode: We have Gambit at home. Throws quarters instead of playing cards. Built up to be put down. Only character more useless than Duplikate despite having a broken power, which is to turn anything metal into bombs, he would be so broken with a gun. Why doesn't he have a gun? He gets an arm cannon from Robot after having his wrist amputated by a villain, and it's literally more useful than his actual power. He's the only in-canon superhero to kill an Alt-Universe Invincible by his own hand, but only by pulling a Saibaman and blowing up his own skeleton at point blank range, making him officially more effective than the Immortal.
• Robot: An actually useful character but a huge creep who clones Rex's body to be attractive to a woman with a child body, he then steals Rex's name after he dies, further cementing what a ghoul he is. When I say he's useful, it's only theoretical since his Iron Man drones are made of tissue paper and he doesn't really do anything to make his other team mates more powerful when he absolutely could, he could've given power armor to everyone, especially Duplikate, he could've given guns to Duplikate, he could have a medical drone for field medicine but doesn't. He's hyperintelligent but needed the Maulers' help to make his clone body of Rex instead of doing it himself. He at least gave a device to Monster Girl to stop her time dilation condition from making her younger, but that just further underlines his creepy relationship with her.
• Bulletproof: The Immortal, but worse. Ironically gets pwned less often than the Immortal, likely only because he can't come back from the dead like Immortal can. Would have died to Alt-Universe Invincible if Rex didn't bail him out. Useless background hero.
• Monster Girl: A creepy Westernized lolicon character and love interest of sex-pest Robot. Why does this character exist? Putting aside the weird shit, she's a Hulk ripoff that never wins a fight unless it's that one time she pwned Rex Splode.

Independent heros:

• Atom Eve: A broken character with a stupid hero name. Theoretically the most powerful character and practically the most useless. She's a Full Metal Alchemist character with Green Lantern construct powers that can transmute all matter into whatever she wants at a whim, including thin air, all without any of the costs or handicaps of a FMA or GL character. Her only limit is she can't fuck with living beings, a handicap she can switch off if the situation is dire or emotional enough. She accomplishes basically nothing. When Earth was being invaded by a space alien army, she could have destroyed all their artillery with her FMA powers. Instead she fought them like a shitty Green Lantern character and ended up getting pinned and nearly domed by a Flaxan only for Invincible to bail her out. She could've contributed a lot more to Teen Team than she did, like making rare-earth minerals for Robot to use, armor and weapons for Duplikate and Rex. The show hammers on the drum that her powers are actually dangerous and not useful at all, which it underlines when Eve decides to do something nice for her community and turns a vacant lot into a public park, only for it to collapse in on itself because there was a crumbling tunnel underneath. Theoretically powerful character written to be useless at best and dangerous at worst. A strong example of her theoretical usefulness and practical uselessness is the fight with Conquest. She can't use her powers to fuck with a living person's biology, but Conquest has a bionic arm she could've dismantled with her powers since it's not part of his genuine anatomy, and it would've put him at a severe disadvantage. She could have replaced all the breathable oxygen with a poison like helium to suffocate him to death. But no, instead of being strategic like that, she tries to fight him Green Lantern style by smacking him around with light constructs. Conquest then proceeds to pick her apart like petals on a flower.
• Invincible: Basically the only character that matters, is the Goku of the Invinciverse. Everybody wait for Invincible to show up, agency is for dead men and gag characters like Immortal. The only character who's allowed to take on challenging villains without getting squished or doing the squishing. Remember what I said about Eve not using her FMA powers to deconstruct Conquest's bionic arm? It's because that would've robbed Invincible of the opportunity to have a really badass moment where he punches through Conquest's bionic arm himself, which is what happens.

A big problem with the series I've noticed that I hate is each fight is always a one-way blood bath. The only exceptions tend to be with characters who dog walk the entire cast anyway like Battle Beast, Omniman or Conquest simply because they're holding back the whole time or they bail due to waning interest. It's like watching DBZ characters walk into the Marvelverse and seeing Nappa stomp Spiderman's brains out. It's a really unentertaining way to write a fight.

I also hate Angstrom Levy and Powerplex, they're both retarded villains. I'll be so happy when Angstrom finally dies on screen.

 

[verissimus]

When you put it that way, I'm starting to wonder what exactly even is the appeal to this series.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

When you put it that way, I'm starting to wonder what exactly even is the appeal to this series.

Omniman, Invincible himself and the upcoming Viltrum war.

I don't think it's the greatest thing ever but I'm willing to see where it goes. I know the guy is raped by a woman way later in the comic. Okay, I have that look forward to I guess? Even though he takes it like a bitch and the rape came off like Kirkman living out a fetish of his.

Something I find repugnant and insulting is that this occurs after Invincible defeated Conquest, who is leagues stronger than Anissa and second strongest only to Thragg. It also begs the question as to why Anissa didn't just find another full-blooded Viltrumite to fuck instead of a human half-breed. The whole ordeal makes no sense and normies give it praise for being a mature and progressive depiction of rape when its oddly contrived circumstances make it come off as fetishistic.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Duplikate

She also exists for muh one person orgy fetishes. Still not as bad as Monster Girl.

Atom Eve

She's the stereotypical badass plot device power that was the cultural precursor to the girlboss. Probably also there purely for cuck fetish.

When you put it that way, I'm starting to wonder what exactly even is the appeal to this series.

The first season was tight and didn't waste time with a great ending.

Something I find repugnant and insulting is that this occurs after Invincible defeated Conquest, who is leagues stronger than Anissa and second strongest only to Thragg. It also begs the question as to why Anissa didn't just find another full-blooded Viltrumite to fuck instead of a human half-breed. The whole ordeal makes no sense and normies give it praise for being a mature and progressive depiction of rape when its oddly contrived circumstances make it come off as fetishistic.

This is 100% male rape fetish. Batman was also hit with super raping.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Still, despite all the good this show has, I'm quite surprised that so many people were taken aback at the idea of evil super-beings like the Viltrumites. Especially people from the 90s generation, who grew up with Dragon Ball Z, where the Saiyans were far more powerful and cruel. I mean, I can buy that people who were born in the 2000s would be utterly shocked at Nolan's strength and ruthlessness, but people born in the 90s grew up with shows like DBZ, where we had guys like Vegeta who were ten times as ruthless as Nolan, not to mention more powerful.

Prior to the Android Saga, Vegeta had almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Nolan at least, loved his wife and son enough to the point where he left instead of killing them. Vegeta would have never done that, if Vegeta was in Nolan's place. He would also have planned to eventually kill off Thragg so he can take control of the Viltrumite throne, since Vegeta planned on killing Freeza eventually once he became strong enough.

What's so shocking about Nolan is not his brutality but his betrayal.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

What's so shocking about Nolan is not his brutality but his betrayal.

That shock doesn't last long. Especially when his motivation is good old-fashioned imperialism. The story could've benefitted by making it a gray area thing where both sides have a leg to stand on, but no. Viltrumites are just plain evil, and also stupid, because not only do they treat non-Viltrumites like dirt, but they've over-expanded and there's less than 50 of them left. So they're not only clichéd evil, but also dumb as fuck when it comes to expansionism.

 

[TenMilesWide]

That shock doesn't last long. Especially when his motivation is good old-fashioned imperialism. The story could've benefitted by making it a gray area thing where both sides have a leg to stand on, but no. Viltrumites are just plain evil, and also stupid, because not only do they treat non-Viltrumites like dirt, but they've over-expanded and there's less than 50 of them left.

I agree with the thesis here but specifically on comparing Nolan to Vegeta for the "why are people shocked by this level of brutality?" question, I think it's just the wrong slot on the roster.
We are led to expect (by the obvious supercape pastiche framing) that the big hero's alien origin species will be evil brutal bastards, but there's an assumption that the big hero is "one of the good ones." Nolan is supposed to be the Kal-El or Son Goku here and the entire point of the shock intro is just "what if he wasn't one of the good ones? what if he killed the Justice League/Z-fighters and bent the knee to Zod/Raditz?"

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I agree with the thesis here but specifically on comparing Nolan to Vegeta for the "why are people shocked by this level of brutality?" question, I think it's just the wrong slot on the roster.
We are led to expect (by the obvious supercape pastiche framing) that the big hero's alien origin species will be evil brutal bastards, but there's an assumption that the big hero is "one of the good ones." Nolan is supposed to be the Kal-El or Son Goku here and the entire point of the shock intro is just "what if he wasn't one of the good ones? what if he killed the Justice League/Z-fighters and bent the knee to Zod/Raditz?"

That doesn't even last. He eventually turns into a prime asset against Viltrum and a plain good guy. It took a while for Vegeta to become good even after the Freeza Saga, whereas not too long after leaving Earth, Nolan has become the hero he was meant to be.

 

[Cave Fisher]

I recently got into this show but I have so many things to complain about, mostly about the heroes.

I assume they were going for an underdog kind of thing, but there's nothing engaging about the entire cast being too incompetent and/or weak to actually do anything, so most of their interesting moments are scenes that AREN'T fights, even the Z fighters were able to get some cool moments when Z started to lean a little too much into being the Saiyan show, hell, even Spider Man doesn't end every fight with his organs being wrapped around his neck or something and only surviving because this universe' version of Broly got bored. It's like dropping the Teen Titans onto Namek and telling them to take out Frieza and his men, there's nothing interesting you can do because it wouldn't even count as a fight.

Of the two members of the guardians and teen team who were worth a damn, one of them died, and the second is an autistic creep who's primary redeeming factor is how much he carries the squad and his design actually being cool compared to everybody else's lame-ass supersuits. (Tech Jacket's cool, though)

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

It just makes me like him more because he hasn't said a single stupid thing. He's just been extremely harsh by modern pussy standards. Even in her special, he has a point that something is off about her but focusing on it will separate her from other people. It's only when he hears other people already know she's different he decides to send her to a gifted school so she can fit in better. Except her autism was only related to matter.

He hasn't arrived home drunk, he doesn't beat her or his wife, he's strict on her even though she can kill him anytime she wants, and he doesn't do handouts. Eve's dad is a good man. He just exists in a world meant to cater towards pussies.

Most decent parents don't call their kid a freak, especially when they show potential for being gifted. The guy is a retarded asshole who puts down (what he believes to be) his flesh and blood because her elevated agency disrupts his 1950s halcyon dream life.

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.

They'd been spying on that family basically the whole time so they would know she doesn't know much of anything they already didn't know. Locking Debbie in Gitmo to interrogate her would also enrage the other Viltrumite, the one who just saved the planet from Space Hitler. It might be enough to make him reconsider his stance on letting Earth become a colony of Space Spain.

I assume they were going for an underdog kind of thing, but there's nothing engaging about the entire cast being too incompetent and/or weak to actually do anything, so most of their interesting moments are scenes that AREN'T fights, even the Z fighters were able to get some cool moments when Z started to lean a little too much into being the Saiyan show, hell, even Spider Man doesn't end every fight with his organs being wrapped around his neck or something and only surviving because this universe' version of Broly got bored. It's like dropping the Teen Titans onto Namek and telling them to take out Frieza and his men, there's nothing interesting you can do because it wouldn't even count as a fight.

Invincible in a nutshell.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

omni man kills the guardians in issue 7. 3 issues later is when mark finds out about omni man killing them and its 2 issues later that the actual fight with mark happens. the inbetween is the funeral for the guardians, the part where they have tryouts for the new guardians, and omni man donutting the immortal. had the show have a similar pace to the comics, the scene with the guardians wouldve happened in episode 6 and the fight taking place on episode 8. so i'd say the show paced it out a lot better here.
plus it adds tension of making the audience ask what omni man's goals really are

a funnier revelation i learned was the guardians werent supposed to die until like issue 25, but kirkman didnt know if this was gonna get cancelled early on or not so he pulled the trigger early and it kinda ended up working anyway

 

[Cryogonal2]

He gets an arm cannon from Robot after having his wrist amputated by a villain

What the fuck they did do that. I completely forgot that happened

The same post: Invincible: Basically the only character that matters, is the Goku of the Invinciverse.

It's worse than that, he's the Gohan of the Invinciverse.

 

[Dr Cruel]

It was decent, kinda like The Boys was decent in the first season and they thoroughly fucked it in the second, and I expect the same treatment here. Amazon writers rooms can't keep their shit together.

As mentioned J.K. Simmons did carry this shit though, if it wasn't for him there's no way I would've watched this

There was nothing wrong with The Boys when Soldier Boy was active. The other characters didn't matter.

 

[Salt_Merchant]

Do they ever actually show any world's in thr viltrumite empire?

Conquest says others would spruik about how rad it is to be in the empire due to the technological advancements and security

But like is that a lie or are the planets in the empire actually improved you just have to accept your overlords

 

[Glory To Arztotska]

I love/hate Watchmen (it's complicated) but cannot bring myself to like Invincible.

The 1st season started out rough with the SJW girlfriend, the violence level was...Half-appealing and half-offputting to me, and the entertainment outlets never stop shilling the show, which is a problem I had with Game of Thrones and puts me off of this show too.

I kinda gotta agree with Bill Watterson on this one---comic books are STILL incredibly stupid.

 

[BONECRUSHER]

I'll be so happy when Angstrom finally dies on screen.

Everything in your post is the issue with modern "comics" that aren't Marvel or DC (those have their own series of bullshit, as you no doubt know)
All these edgy faggot "deconstructions" always need to be some subversion of an existing concept or the corruption of the medium into some pointless edgefest where everyone gets fucking graphically murdered, raped or any other fucked up thing you can think about.
Most of the characters are dogshit subhumans with no actual ideals or discipline, it's just "me me me me", and Mark himself is like that too, despite knowing what his father did he still loses his shit when Cecil takes precautions.
Monster Girl is just pedo bait, and nobody can change my mind.
Robot is a fucking freak and should've been put down.
The Immortal is a giant faggot, I get it he watches everyone he loves die constantly, but why does he act like that in the future? He's seen it before countless times. He's just a whiny cunt that can't get over himself.
Rex was raceswapped because god forbid you have a white guy depicted as someone who is poor. He's a shitheel but his character works, maybe one of the few characters that with some more development could turn into someone decent.
The others are also annoying but genuinely so unimportant that you can just ignore them, when it comes to the Guardians of the Globe.
Justice League and Justice League Unlimited will stay forever as THE superhero show.

 

[Calandrino]

The Immortal: If Warf from Star Trek and Yamcha from DBZ did a fusion dance, you'd get the Immortal.

I think I like Immortal just because the writers hate him so much.

Duplikate: Cannon fodder, the character. Duplikate is a one-man-army with no artillery and no flak armor, not even as good as a Warhammer 40K guardsman. Too stupid to bring a gun or to have any weapons whatsoever.

She wouldn't be able to duplikate any foreign objects (other than her clothes, per standard comics rules), and guns in capeshit aren't much better than fighting unarmed anyway.

Robot: An actually useful character but a huge creep who clones Rex's body to be attractive to a woman with a child body, he then steals Rex's name after he dies, further cementing what a ghoul he is.

Robot seems to be a pedo with a mancrush on Rex, but the other characters barely react to it (in the comics, not at all). I honestly thought they were setting him up to have some kind of serious mental illness in the comics, and they'd have to deal with the ethics of one of the world's greatest superheroes being a closeted child molester or something, but it doesn't really go anywhere. I think to some extent Robot's autism is just Kirkman's out-of-universe autism, like he thought it would be cute to replace Rex with another "Rex" and didn't realize how bizarre and creepy that would be to the other characters. Or he's supposed to be a little off, but they waaaay overdid it.

She could have replaced all the breathable oxygen with a poison like helium to suffocate him to death.

Breathing is optional for Viltrumites though. Though she could've encased him in a block of titanium, or... something. Thing is, she's bound by superhero logic, where the author-determined "more powerful" character is fated to win, and she is not supposed to be as "powerful" as a Viltrumite, even though her powers are kinda way better tbh.

Related issue with Battle Beast (and every other non-flying brick): anybody with e.g. telekinesis or something should be able to give him a wedgie, but it's against etiquette to do anything but fist fight him at close range, so he's one of the most feared beings in the universe. Nobody ever just grabs him with a tractor beam and throws him into the sun, or whatever. He beat a Viltrumite while floating helplessly in the vacuum of space, lmaowtf.

Also related: Angstrom the genius scientist scours the multiverse searching for ways to defeat Mark, and makes the startling discovery that he's vulnerable to getting punched in the face, but only if you do it really hard. He nearly defeats Mark with this amazing plan, only for Mark to realize that he can stop Angstrom by punching him in the face even harder, which he then does. I dunno, I think they could've handled that a little more cleverly.

Also: bravo to Mark realizing he should've made sure that Angstrom was really dead, right after failing to make sure Conquest was really dead.

Omniman, Invincible himself and the upcoming Viltrum war.

I guess it's just me, but idgaf about the DBZ stuff, I like the "filler" material better and I wish the other heroes got more time to shine. Depressing to see the new Guardians jobbing to a weaker alt-universe Invincible. Even Powerplex got one, how useless are they? It's nice they tried to give Conquest a personality and it was a pretty good fight, but in the end it's just two guys smacking each other to settle who has the higher power level, and it happens like every fourth episode, and it's never going to get any more interesting.

 

[Cave Fisher]

Everything in your post is the issue with modern "comics" that aren't Marvel or DC (those have their own series of bullshit, as you no doubt know)
All these edgy faggot "deconstructions" always need to be some subversion of an existing concept or the corruption of the medium into some pointless edgefest where everyone gets fucking graphically murdered, raped or any other fucked up thing you can think about.
Most of the characters are dogshit subhumans with no actual ideals or discipline, it's just "me me me me", and Mark himself is like that too, despite knowing what his father did he still loses his shit when Cecil takes precautions.
Monster Girl is just pedo bait, and nobody can change my mind.
Robot is a fucking freak and should've been put down.
The Immortal is a giant faggot, I get it he watches everyone he loves die constantly, but why does he act like that in the future? He's seen it before countless times. He's just a whiny cunt that can't get over himself.
Rex was raceswapped because god forbid you have a white guy depicted as someone who is poor. He's a shitheel but his character works, maybe one of the few characters that with some more development could turn into someone decent.
The others are also annoying but genuinely so unimportant that you can just ignore them, when it comes to the Guardians of the Globe.
Justice League and Justice League Unlimited will stay forever as THE superhero show.

That's actually why I don't like this series' gore. It doesn't fit the superhero vibe, it just feels spiteful and juvenile, which makes the especially gory moments fail to his especially hard. (The Omni Man twist worked because the guardians hardly drew any blood when we saw them fight, so to see him graphically slaughter people who are supposed to be his long time comrades worked, especially when it wasn't JUST the gore, but the fear and confusion from them and lack of context for why he would do such a thing. Scenes like him disembowling another Viltrumite with his fingernail don't hit as hard, and frankly, looks more cartoonish and unbelievable than somebody being punched through a wall and walking away normal.)

The reason Omni Man stole the show was probably because he was the only one in the whole damn series who actually acted like a proper fucking superhero and adult, being seasoned, disciplined, and powerful, as well caring about big picture things bigger than himself, compare and contrast with all the weak, selfish teenagers and manchildren the cast consists of, like the immortal guy with centuries of life experience banging a teenager because she died a bunch of times, Mark's bitch-ass, who despite being so powerful, is only really in it anymore to keep his family safe and is only just now understanding that it's perfectly fine to kill somebody who's trying to kill you, or Robot's creepy-ass obsession with Rex that doesn't get commented after the initial scene, along with his later actions which are a whole other can of worms. Hell, even Cecil makes some pretty big fuckups, like utterly failing to de-escalate things between him and mark when the new guardians are in the room.

(As a matter of fact, it's the second time he's gone "shut up, just do what I say" without elaboration to a group that can quit working for him and stay superheroes any damn time they please. Didn't go so well for him.)

 

[Doctor of Autism]

That doesn't even last. He eventually turns into a prime asset against Viltrum and a plain good guy. It took a while for Vegeta to become good even after the Freeza Saga, whereas not too long after leaving Earth, Nolan has become the hero he was meant to be.

Will say that the interesting thing about Omni-Man is that his turn is probably going to be handled better than the comics since Mark instantly forgave him in the comics for the stuff he did where the show has him still reasonably pissed off. Hell he had that guilt montage over the shame he felt of what he did to Earth since he felt bad for betraying his family and then became Emperor of Thraxxa after saving them, compared to the comic where he cried on the moon and left to conquer another planet right away.

There's also the coming Hell arc which could potentially be more original Omni-Man content since its implied Darkblood is planning on bringing Omni-Man to Hell, which would be pretty neat.

Omni-Man alongside Rex are both good examples to really see how the show is a second draft of the comics since both their character development was handled.

I think I like Immortal just because the writers hate him so much.

Immortal is a fun character even if he's really a jobber. He really wants to do his best at being a hero but he keeps fighting enemies stronger than him yet still tries.

There was nothing wrong with The Boys when Soldier Boy was active. The other characters didn't matter.

The only thing wrong during that time was just the forced talk about how certain characters were embracing Toxic Masculinity for daring to get powers to be able to protect their loved ones. But that isn't on Soldier Boy but on everyone around him while he's active, and he's going to probably get worse in the final season.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

When you put it that way, I'm starting to wonder what exactly even is the appeal to this series.

There's no other capeshit?

Marvel/DC movies are trash.
The boys are shit after 1 good season.
What else?

At least Invincible is average and gets better.