‘Invincible’ is Still Fine. But It's Also Running in Circles.

Why is Robert Kirkman stalling when we should be neck-deep in a Viltrumite invasion?

Do these wounds symbolize the narrative problems in S3?

Fact: the superhero genre has been exhausted (though its stream never seems to end) in the past two decades. But we still got Invincible! A fearless and innovative outlier — that could even appease genre-fallouts like me — which turned the usual tropes on their heads. Thanks to Robert Kirkman’s hyperviolent, aptly self-aware approach and meta humor, the series made fans out of cynics and doubters (like me) who otherwise wouldn’t want anything to do with heroes and villains in foolish costumes.

So before I unleash my frustrations with Season 3, I need you to know this comes from a place of fandom (and not hate), regardless of how bitter and disappointing it might sound.

To begin: What the heck is Kirkman and Co. doing? This is the million-dollar question I’ve been trying to figure out watching the new season. After five episodes, season 3 is an incoherent jumble. For some reason, most critics don’t dare to touch on the issues the narrative began to suffer from this latest chapter. Perhaps it’s the hype or the fact that Invincible has been heaped with praise from the beginning (deservedly), and nobody wants to be that guy who points out the missteps that don’t add up. I also had nothing but adoration for season 1 and 2. But the flatulent time-wasting and imbalance season 3 is riddled with needs to be addressed.

Let’s be straight: ever since Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) used his son Mark (Steven Yeun) as a human wrecking ball to flex his God-complex as the member of a superior species to Earth's scum, we've been patiently waiting for a Big Boom. Season 2 served as an exposition and detailed explanation — a bridge between two pivotal plot points in the story arc — leading up to something potentially huge while preparing us for an inevitable showdown. It was even more than that: it showed that Nolan developed a conscience and underwent an emotional transformation which was, to me, the most tantalizing aspect of the series. But that subplot undeniably took a backseat as the writers put Mark’s (personal and superhero) life front and center to humanize him — beautifully and empathetically, I must add — as he faced impossible choices and a constant shit tsunami that washed him away over and over again. At its essence, that’s what made Invincible special and what it is in the first place.

And we got it. Life can suck even when you’re a beloved hero with the strength of ten Supermans on steroids. The implementation of the touchy human drama between heroes and villains who can effortlessly tear off heads and limbs and make entire planets go extinct is the reason the show is uncanny, reinvigorating, and poignant as nothing else in the genre.

Yet that last bit — the overarching, universe-threatening danger — seems to be absent in the current season. We don’t need another batch of eight episodes telling us that Mark is better off dating a superhero (Eve) than an ordinary civilian (Amber). Just as we don’t need to see him treating his purple half-brother with nothing but kindness because we already know he’s a benevolent and sweet guy. We don’t have to be told again that his keen sense of justice is unshakeable. We’re aware of all that: we saw it, related to it, and were uplifted by it for two seasons — thus building another one purely on this aspect feels repetitious and redundant.

the power couple?

And don’t get me wrong, turning Cecil (Walton Goggins) into a potential antagonist, a strict believer that a means, regardless of how immoral it is, can justify an end, is replete with potential and morally compelling questions. Which I have no doubt Kirkman will explore from every angle at some point. But now it’s not the time. It’s also not the time to randomly send Mark into the future just so he can quickly kill a depressed Immortal (Ross Marquand) who’s drowning in an existential crisis — where the hell is time travel coming from when season 2 was all about the multiverse, anyway?

My point being: while continuously humanizing characters is essential, I refuse to accept that as a “good excuse” at the cost of not progressing the main narrative — which, at this point, isn’t necessarily on Earth anymore. At least not yet, since the Viltrumites are nowhere to be found. Where are they? Why aren’t they invading Earth after one of theirs failed at what they ordered him to do and turned against them? What's the big secret Kirkman has been hiding from us for so long? It doesn’t seem logical that a superior species wouldn’t take the next step in their wicked plan to force humans to surrender/ join and enslave them if they don’t.

Episode 4 finally offered a glimpse at this — but only vaguely. “There are fewer than 50 pure-blooded Viltrumites left in the universe,” says Nolan, adding, "It's why we can beat them." Hold on a second. What kind of lame nonsense is this? We've already seen that one pure Viltrumite can single-handedly destroy a whole city (perhaps a state, a country, or even a planet?) without breaking a sweat. Invincible had no chance of stopping his dad in that initial fight in season 1. Of course, we now see that Mark’s getting ever-stronger (an unearthly power that still hasn’t been shown in its full glory), and maybe Kid-Omni-Man will become an asset soon, too. But still…

Theoretically speaking, how long would it take for 50 Viltrumites to reproduce and multiply when they grow a ton faster than humans or even half-Viltrumites do? Also: 50 pure-blooded, which implies there are more of them, but they’re just not as powerful (?). And given what we’ve seen of the mean Vs in the previous seasons, how come the two that were sent to execute Nolan have bitten the dust after getting a few slaps from Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen), a significantly weaker Omni-Man, and a basic-ass Lion-Beast who’s nothing more than a caricature?

I can pardon some BS in the Invincible universe (after all this is a fictional superhero show) if every other aspect is mind-blowingly awesome. But when we're treated to such nuanced character development and realistic human drama, this oversimplified explanation feels like an insult. It’s something that a mediocre Marvel flick would do (which Invincible is usually above) and not a layered, otherwise intelligent adult animation that acquired a reputation via ruthless and cliché-defying storytelling. It just doesn’t make much sense what’s happening here, and I’m unsure things will suddenly improve in the back half of the season. In fact, episode five has demonstrated again that a bunch of B-grade villains and their small-scale scheming will never be as engaging, let alone high-stakes, as anything involving Omni-Man and the Viltrumites. We're way past this, yet Kirkman is adamant about stretching the same mundane and small-scale conflicts again. Who cares about The Order at this point?

Don't get me wrong — Invincible remains outstanding compared to anything else in the superhero canon, especially these days — but its writing and drama are hollower and weaker when measured to the standards of Season 1 and 2.

Umm, I didn’t order a dragon

Maybe I'm wrong, and those familiar with the comics know something that I don't (apparently, the series is as faithful to the source material as possible), and what’s yet to come will blow me away. Frankly, I sure hope so. But even a best-case scenario would have a hard time justifying that the first half of this season is out of sorts. It’s as if that bone-breaking and heart-wrenching epic fight between Omni-Man and Invincible was a bait (a superbly effective one at that) that marked a peak for the show it may not be able to top ever again. Perhaps I should come to terms with that possibility and adjust my expectations. But if that’s the case, it’ll be a bitter pill to swallow after two stellar seasons that revitalized a genre that’s been bleeding from dozens of wounds.

Still, Kirkman has earned my trust over the years, and I hope the problems in season 3 are only glitches that will be resolved and forgotten once we reach the end of this new chapter.

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