When can we talk about how bad Invincible has gotten?
Marked for spoilers, in case I spoil anything for S4 in case someone hasn’t seen it yet. I’ve read the comics, I know the show is an adaptation. So I am of the opinion if you are adapting something you either make it just as good or better than the thing you are adapting.
I really liked Invincible S1, still do. It was a perfect shock to the system for the genre at the time. When the MCU was stalling out and the DCEU was dead in the water, Invincible gave us a new hero in Mark fighting the good fight as a traditional hero while facing a subversion of the genre in an unstoppable evil Superman, who also happened to be his dad. S1 is peak.
But after that, the fall off has been significant. Mark after the S2 finale with Angstrom has been the biggest hypocrite about his ‘we don’t kill’ and ‘all life is precious’. Oliver kill the Maulers, like in the comics, and has no punishment or true reprimand for him. Mark and Debbie give him a stern talking to. That’s it. When Cecil points out, Mark was willing to hear out Nolan and come to terms with him on Thraxia, yet he was demanding (like a child) that Darkwing and Sinclair shouldn’t be out of jail and allowed to do any work for the GDA to make up for their crimes, and Mark has no valid comeback for this in show.
People have also made the cope arguments for the fights that Mark is often holding back in his fights, which is another hard hit for his character. So he’s holding back when he has the chance to end fights and save lives, when so many of these fights end with civilians dead and collateral damage.
There is nothing wrong with having your character being a hypocrite, if the story is willing to point out and punish them on their hypocrisy. But Invincible doesn’t do that, it lets Mark be a hypocrite about killing and then lets him keep his benefits of being a public hero with no push back from the GDA, none of the other heroes question him or call him out on it. It’s as if Kirkman himself is fine with Mark’s hypocrisy. And yes, it’s the same in the comics. But, I am constantly being told that the Amazon adaptation is Kirkman’s chance to perfect his view for the comics and make improvements. Yet that’s still a glaring issue.
I have other issues, like broken power levels for the show (which do matter if it’s an action show with fighting, knowing how strong these beings are is necessary. Kirkman and Ottley have pointed out they don’t care about powerscaling their characters outside of the story, which is fine, whatever. But inverse, the hierarchy of strength is important. It ruins the plot when 20 different things from Earth can harm or kill Viltrumites, yet Earth is supposed to be terrified of these goobers). And blah blah blah the animation. Blah blah blah these shills who hate Amazon will shill for it when it comes to its subpar animation and art. The point is, the show fell off. Most of the bad stuff in the show is carried from the comics but worse. And that’s upsetting because Kirkman had a chance to improve his craft and didn’t bother. Yet they expect us to continue to watch and support him. Skip.