ThatOneYouDontLike

[kingslayer444]

I hate the Anissa rape plot so much

The entire plotline of Anissa raping Mark and the following events annoy me so fucking much. Now I’ll give the story credit, it treating rape as a traumatic thing regardless of your gender is good. Which does make it already not the worst male rape plot ever. But it honestly just makes the later stuff piss me off more. Since Kirkman has shown he knows it’s wrong and traumatising, and still doesn’t care

First off is the near immediate aftermath of the rape. Where Mark has a couple moments of trauma from what happened to him. One where he pushes Eve off him when she tries to have sex, a good, small, realistic reaction. And another where he talks a little about how he feels defiled and broken, and then Eve comes in to tell him to shut up cause the plot is happening. And that’s it. That’s all we get of Mark’s trauma of being raped. And the second one annoys me because if you try and defend it as ‘well the later issues were quite rushed, maybe Kirkman didn’t have the time?’ In the very same issue it happens, he dedicated 5 pages to Mark taking a shit, and 1 page to Mark’s trauma. Cinema.

Then there’s Nolan’s reaction to learning of Anissa’s actions. Where he just goes ‘well that’s what viltrumites are like Mark’. So??? Viltrumites also thought it was ok to kill and conquer everyone and the whole plot has been about taking issue with that. Why are we suddenly supposed to be all respectful of Viltrumite culture?? Then he goes ‘Trust me Mark. I know Anissa hasn’t apologised or shown any regret or remorse for her actions. But she’s definitely a better person now.’ Peak redemption arc there, just have someone else apologise for them.

Next is everything done with Anissa’s son from the rape, Marky. For starters, needlessly fucked up to name him Marky and no one seems to care. And I say ‘everything done’ with him, but I mean everything not done with him. He’s really just a pointless addition to the narrative. His only moments is a page long evil arc at the end of the story, and facilitating Anissa’s “redemption” by just existing.

And yeah now we’re getting into Anissa’s so-called “redemption”. Where she just disappeared for multiple issues, came back a completely different person, and then went ‘I’m a mother now so obviously I’m a completely redeemed good person now!’ And everyone just shrugged and agreed. And then later when she dies she gets a hero’s death where she says ‘tell mark I don’t regret raping him one bit. Cause literally everything good in my life came from raping him’. And it’s supposed to be a sad moment.

Look I hate to pull this card, but if the genders were reversed people would be fucking rioting. A man rapes a woman, gets her pregnant, doing so is treated as his redemption arc, and then dies a hero saying he doesn’t regret raping her. Nothing wrong with that arc at all right?

And as a final point I just have to wonder, what was the point? I asked myself this a lot in the later parts of Invincible, as it just devolved into endless torture porn with Kirkman kicking him in the teeth. In interviews I read about Anissa raping Mark, Kirkman talked about (not treating rape in fiction with any grace or care) kicking Mark down so they could build him up later. And uhhhh where was the building up? Mark’s life sucked, then there was a time skip, and now he’s god emperor of the universe. No growth, no development, nothing. So it’s just impossible for me to come away from this story believing Kirkman actually wanted to do right by rape victims as so many defenders of this arc claim

Sorry if this ever felt like me just raging, I’m just really pissed off about it

[kingslayer444]

I really hate how secret identities are treated now in superhero media

Specifically in how removed the issue of a ‘secret’ identity is

I feel like after many years of complaints about love interests always acting bad, we’ve now swung to the complete other end of the spectrum on how love interests or friends react to learning the mc is a superhero. Now they just don’t care at all. Which really pisses me off

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the initial complaints. The trope was becoming quite tired and being done quite poorly, but I feel this new dynamic is just as bad for two reasons. One, it feels like a really lazy way to remove all stakes and drama for the hero, both in the need to keep a secret identity, and have any drama with their friends or partner. I know drama for the sake of drama is annoying, but is it really for the sake of drama in this situation? Imagine your best friend or your partner revealed they were a hero getting beaten up and almost dying every day. You wouldn’t care at all? Seriously? And this leads into my second point, it often feels like it’s done to show how much better this hero’s relationship is. Their partner and friends love them so much they have no issue with them being a hero. But it really just comes off as like they aren’t the hero’s real friends. Since they show no actual concern to them.

3 pieces of media I think did the ‘mc’s secret causes drama’ really well are the Tobey and Andrew spiderman movies, and the Netflix daredevil show. So spoilers for them

- So Tobey and Andrew both get drama mined in different ways. Tobey has the classic ‘Peter can’t be with MJ because spiderman is always needed’ but it’s a classic for a reason and it’s done really imo, even if it’s laid on a little thick at times. Meanwhile Andrew does the opposite and tells Gwen right away, but there’s still drama to be had. Because now it’s not just Peter’s secret, to keep, it’s their secret to keep. So it’s still an issue. And it helps that the pair have enough chemistry to make me believe they love each other despite Gwen not minding how much Peter gets cut up that much

- And in the Daredevil show it’s another classic ‘friend learns the hero’s identity and reacts badly’. But it’s a simple premise done brilliantly. As foggy starts questioning everything he knows about Matt if he’s kept this big of a secret. Is horrified to see how badly he gets hurt every night, with good reason since Matt literally would’ve died if Foggy hadn’t been there. And Foggy isn’t angry Matt is saving people, but he’s angry about how he’s doing it. They’re lawyers, they’re supposed to believe in the system, but instead Matt takes the law into his own hands every night. And yes Foggy supports helping people, but his desire to help people also extends to helping Matt and not wanting him to kill himself every night. God it’s such a good episode. I’m gonna rewatch daredevil tonight

So yeah, this is just my feelings on the matter. I’m sure there are more examples of good superhero identity drama so I’d love to hear any if you have them.

[kingslayer444]

Why Invincible gets hit with the powerscaling complaints more than other superhero stories

So if you’re even slightly interested in Invincible, you’ve heard the complaints. About how the power levels are all over the place and nonsensical. And you’ve also probably heard the complaint about why Invincible gets criticised for it so much.

And in my opinion it comes down to a couple reasons

For starters is the fact that in many other superhero stories, how strong the hero is isn’t ever plot significant. In a general sense yes, you do need to know how powerful a character is for stakes and consistency. But in the case of Invincible and Mark, we are told time and time again by the writers how he’s the strongest hero on earth, how he’s the only one who can fight viltrumites, and how Earth would be fucked without him.

Yet repeatedly he is shown to not be the strongest, plenty of other characters can fight Viltrumites pretty alright, and Earth seems to do fine without him. Imagine if you were watching JJK, and got introduced to Gojo and how’s he’s so powerful his very existence altered Jujutsu society. And then he lost his first fight in the series. And then the show just kept trucking along like he was the strongest. You’d call bullshit.

And the second reason comes down to the show’s addiction to the ‘flying brick’ category of characters. 90% of the shows characters are some variety of strong guy who punches hard, and the 10% who aren’t rarely ever get a chance to fight. So when a guy who’s strong and can fly fights a guy who’s strong and can fly, it becomes very easy to scale down to real world terms how the fight should go. Every fight in Invincible is basically a skinny 12 year old vs prime Mike Tyson. The kid has no other powers, no strategy, no weapons. Nothing. Yet somehow the kid wins. And the kid here can be an analogy for Mark somehow winning to random fucking bugs somehow winning

Flashy and diverse powersets can really help bridge the gap between fighters and avoid blatant inconsistencies like this. There will still likely be inconsistencies sure, but most audience members won’t care. Going back to my JJK comparison, take the Sendai colony fight. It’s Yuta vs Ryu and Uro. ‘But Yuta was said to be second only to Gojo! How is he struggling to these guys?!’ Because look at them! I don’t care if he’s above Gojo, he’s still gonna struggle against someone with laser blasts that can follow you, and the woman who can bend the damn sky.

There are other reasons too of course. Like how some people have pointed out how the Viltrumites seem to act on video game logic with their knife hand move. Only using it after punching the opponent for 10 minutes achieving nothing, to win instantly with the knife hand they could have used right away like they were filling up a combo meter. But I think the two points I listed are the main ones I haven’t seen people talk about much.

Uhhhh anyways. Bye 👋

[kingslayer444]

The Boys hates Companies in a Weird Way

So there have been a lot of (correct) posts about how the political satire of The Boys is shallow and basic. And this is sort of similar to that, but I’m more focusing on how the show parodies and criticises big corpos.

After the millionth joke about Vought theme-parks, Vought bleach, and Vought puppet shows, I’ve realised that the biggest sin of companies in the eyes of the writers is oversaturation. Now yes, companies flooding the markets and slapping big celebrities on everything is annoying. But if that’s your only substantial critique of them, you’re not criticising them very well.

The show barely ever gets into how companies actually ruins lives and the planet. There’s pretty much never reference to ordinary people being run out of business by Vought, forced to endure environmental destruction, or anything else. It’s like hating Disney for putting Mickey Mouse everywhere, and not because they tried to claim signing up for Disney+ made you incapable of suing them. Or like hating McDonald’s because they opened up a new location, and not for running a smear campaign against a woman who was disfigured by their scalding hot coffee. Or hating Amazon for banging up your package on delivery, and not owning sweatshops.

Or hell it’d like calling yourself ‘punk’ despite being funded by Amazon to critique Amazon in whatever way Amazon allows themselves to be criticised. Oh wait that’s literally what the writers of the Boys did.

[kingslayer444]

I don’t think enough people realise how different Season 1 of Invincible is to the rest of the show

Ok I’m really sorry for how long this is but I’m not brave enough to make a YouTube video of it so please just suffer through TwT

So I recently went back to rewatch season 1 of Invincible, the season everyone seems to agree is the best one, but rarely give reasons why. Well here’s the reason why. In blanket terms, it’s because it’s an almost completely different story from the comics and later seasons.

For starters I’ll get into differences from the comics. This is where season 1 is the most majorly changed. Do you wanna know how long the plot of Omni-man’s murder of the guardians and the aftermath lasted in the comics? 4 issues!!! He killed them issue 7, the funeral happened next, immortal was revived next issue, and then omni man was exposed and left after that.

In the show it’s the entire launchpad of the plot, driving so many arcs that culminate in the finale. And it’s so much better for it! Which is why later seasons follow the comics so closely is disappointing.

For starters, it creates a very weird dissonance as characters that are radically changed from their comics counterpart, have to perform actions that only make sense in the comics. Eve going from strong self-possessed to Mark’s sex therapist mommy slave. Cecil doing moronic things like keeping Conquest alive but is still treated like a cold calculating badass. Debbie’s first scene with Nolan in season 4 is dramatic and tense, but their next scene is something out of a sitcom. ‘Oops the ship can’t land. I’ll have to carry you teehee :3’. I half expected her to need to wear a wedding dress for some contrived reason

It actually utilised its side cast and treated them like characters. If you haven’t read the comics, then I’ll let you know that all of the side characters (especially in the early issues) were just shitty parodies of existing superheroes. ‘Nick Fury but he’s stupid and dumb!’ ‘Ironman but he’s stupid and dumb!’ ‘Vandal savage but he’s stupid and dumb!’ ‘Now let’s watch Kirkman’s chad OC flex on all of them like the badass he is!’ So I was very pleasantly surprised to see season 1 actually treat them like characters. Eve wasn’t this no-name loser hopelessly obsessed with Mark, she was doing her own stuff like a functional human (low bar I know). Immortal and even the other Guardians were actually able to pose a threat to Nolan. And Cecil went from a fat dumbass whose only purpose was to make Mark look better, to an actual character contributing to the plot. And Robot’s plotline of wanting a body actually ended up leading into the finale with the revival of Immortal.

But now in season 4 the biggest contribution of the side cast was Robot and Monster Girl disappearing halfway through. Rae is gone, Rex is dead, Tech Jacket is useless, Eve is sidelined. It’s like the show is trying to have the most boring side cast. Or like they’re actively against the idea of the side cast having anything to do with the main plot

Season 1 also had much stronger formatting and build up. Now this isn’t me saying Invincible can’t or shouldn’t do an episodic format, since Season 1 was episodic too! But it was much better there for 2 reasons. First off is that Season 1 had the Nolan plot constantly in the background being built up to. Almost every scene with Nolan or Cecil slowly built us up to the finale even if their plot never really dominated a whole episode. And the second is that the episodic stuff in season 1 was used to introduce and flesh out the world in interesting ways. Stuff like Seismic, Sinclair and the Sequids helped make the world feel lived in. But ever since then, the world has felt smaller and more boring. In this season we had plot lines of the Flaxans, the Sequids, and Titan and all of them did the exact same thing we’ve seen them do for 4 seasons now. Titan literally repeated the exact same plotline he had last season almost beat for best.

There’s so many more examples I could get into, but the post is getting really long. But essentially, Season 1 is the best because of how different they are from the comics. The comics weren’t even a first draft, they were basically a post it note. And reimagining the old story in better ways, and radically changing plot lines and fixing characters made it good. Season 1 is far from perfect, but it’s way better than everything that’s come after. And I’m guessing it’s only because they had literal years to write season 1 that it turned out the way it did. Compared to later seasons that come out every year. Which is another reason invincible seasons could do with taking a little longer to come out, besides just the animation

[kingslayer444]

The Powerplex Episode is Awful

‘All I Can Say is I’m Sorry’ is easily my most hated episode of Invincible. So I won’t bother with any fluff and I’ll just get into why.

For starters, the good:

- I like the dynamic between Powerplex and his wife. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth-esque. It’s neat!

- Consequences! The actions and failures of our heroes has finally caught up with them. After seeing the city get destroyed every episode, the people are finally fed up. And Powerplex is an embodiment of that. A reckoning of their sins. And you could see his powers of getting stronger when he’s hit as symbolic of how the more the people suffer, the more likely they are to strike back

Now, the ehhh:

- I like the detail of Powerplex having tried to get at Mark through the system first. Getting people to sign a petition and take Mark to court. I don’t like the implications of Mark being completely untouchable thanks to the GDA. There’s very dark implications of that the show doesn’t acknowledge. There’s a reason the phrase ‘Who watches the Watchmen’ inspired the best superhero deconstruction ever. But at least when Batman, or Daredevil severely break the law they face consequences. Even Superman does, so Mark being powerful isn’t a good excuse

Now onto all of the bad:

- I hate every single line out of Aaron Paul’s mouth this episode. He is not a bad voice actor, he’s very good in Dispatch and Bojack. But he is unbearable as Powerplex. I don’t blame him for not reprising the role, because I too would not want to lose my voice screaming every line no matter how big the paycheck.

- This may be a nitpick, but during the memorial scene Mark says ‘Cecil kept me sheltered from this’ in reference to the victims on the memorial. Mark. You were on Thraxa for 2 months following their devastation from the viltrumites. You were there with all the survivors helping them rebuild. How were you sheltered? Secondly, you’re 19, an adult. If you didn’t recognise human lives up to that point, that’s not Cecil’s fault! Again, it’s a nitpick. But it’s just odd to me

- The title card gag is a similar thing that just rubs me the wrong way. It feels like such a mean spirited way to treat the character. And also gives the episode such wacky tonal inconsistency. Half the time it’s title card jokes and ‘HE CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT’ memes, and then he kills a baby.

- Speaking of killing babies, Powerplex’s plan at the end is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. And before anyone argues ‘He’s crazy! He doesn’t have to make sense!’, a character being insane doesn’t mean all logic goes out the window. Powerplex is crazy yes, so he should go about enacting his crazy beliefs logically. Lex Luthor is crazy to hate superman so much, yet his plans make perfect sense to me. Yet Powerplex, who believes Mark doesn’t care about innocents, hinges his entire plan on Mark caring about innocents. Not to mention those innocents are his own family, despite his entire motivation being revenge for his family. It’s not even like he was trying to expose Mark as a monster, he just did this stupid thing so the writers could have a forced ‘look what evil his sins have wrought’ moment.

- No consequences! I know I said earlier that there were, but there aren’t! Because the writers are cowards. As is revealed to both us and Powerplex, Mark was not responsible for his sister’s death. Despite the fact that the writers are far from starved of moments where she could’ve been. Instead it comes from the single time where Mark is completely blameless. What is the point of this you may ask? I don’t know. It throws away every opportunity for greatness this episode could have had. To make Mark seem like he’s never carelessly let a villain destroy the city, and makes Powerplex seem stupid for ever accusing him for it.

- What did Mark learn this episode? Nothing. Outside of convincing himself he’s responsible for Powerplex’s family dying I guess. And like, no Mark, him killing his family was not your fault. What is your fault is how horribly you handled the situation. Going there in the first place was the equivalent of putting a bull in a china shop. And then instead of grabbing Powerplex and flying away from the hostages, he tries to impart life advice to the mentally unstable adult, even though he’s an inexperienced 19 year old. All because he wanted to teach Oliver a lesson about peaceful resolutions. I am not against Mark having made these mistakes. A character has to fail to do better next time obviously. But he isn’t learning. So him focusing on the thing that isn’t his fault doesn’t make him seem guilty, it makes it seem like he’s actively avoiding responsibility for his actions.

I could add so many other things, but it’s already a huge post and I know people won’t want to read it all if I make it longer. But I hope I’ve articulated well enough why I despise this episode so much. And why I think it’s such a waste of good potential.

[kingslayer444]

My only issue with the abortion scene is, am I supposed to care? Because if so, the writers probably should’ve first

So after the finale where Eve reveals she got an abortion, there was the typical outrage and debate you can expect between pro-life and pro-choice people. But I personally have not seen any real talk about the scene itself. Whether people thought it was a poignant scene, a sad one, whether they’re excited to see where it goes etc. Now this could partially be due to the aforementioned debate drowning it out, but it’s also because I think the whole plotline itself is such a nothing burger

So I should say that I don’t think the whole plotline itself is that bad, it all makes sense and is consistent. In the sense that Eve said she didn’t want kids, and then proceeded to not have kids. But the plot is just such a clear lazy afterthought by the writers. It starts with her losing her powers, something not even Mark really seems to care about. Then we learn the cause is because she’s pregnant. Then she’s just not in the next 4 episodes, not seen or anything. And then in the finale we learnt she had an abortion. So my only real reaction to the scene is just ‘Ok. Kinda forgot you were pregnant tbh.’

Eve being sidelined by the writers is nothing new, everyone has complained about it. Hell this plot point only really exists to sideline her. But you can still do something with her character in a plot like that. Dr Manhattan’s plot in watchmen mostly exists to sideline him, but the author still gets plenty of mileage out of it to explore his character and worldview. But it seriously does feel like the writers forget Eve is in the show half the time.

[kingslayer444]

I still don’t like Nolan’s Redemption Arc

Ok I am aware that Nolan’s arc isn’t over yet and later seasons may rectify my issues with it. But given the fact I’ve read the comics, and how I feel I’m much less sold on it than others, I decided to make this post.

I also probably should explain my own feelings on redemption. I do genuinely believe that anyone can be redeemed, regardless of what they’ve done. So I do appreciate Invincible trying to show that with a monster like Nolan. I also don’t think a character has to suffer to earn their redemption or anything like that. But I’m personally not sold on the arc just because I feel they’ve mishandled various elements of his arc.

For starters, his time on thraxa post leaving earth. I think my feelings here could best be described as how his arc works better on paper than in practice to me. I think it’s a good idea. He leaves Earth, meets the thraxans, who are basically how Viltrumites see every species, and they even worship him as a god. But despite this, he still learns to care for them as beings worthy of respect. A good arc for a character like Nolan, but unfortunately it all happens in a 3 minute silent montage. And when mark next sees Nolan, the guy is practically a completely different person from when we last saw him.

Next up is how the show really glosses over the true impact of his city destruction in season 1. Such an act would have devastated society. Chicago would have taken ages to rebuild. Families would’ve been broken for generations. But the show barely gets into any of that. The most of it is Powerplex, who is treated as a joke by the story and made out to be a total moron. Same with Mark, whose trauma from Nolan is just told not shown. He just says he’s traumatised, but in practice he’s the exact same person as always, and even acts like Nolan just left to get the milk when he was 6 when he meets him again. Instead of you know USING HIS FACE AS A SLEDGEHAMMER TO KILL HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE. And the reason I feel showing the true scale and impact of the event is because if you’re going to redeem a truly awful person, you shouldn’t shy away from the truly awful things they did.

Going back to my point about how I don’t think a person should have to suffer to earn their redemption, season 3 feels like they’re kind of doing just that. Having Nolan suffer to but sympathy for him with everything that happens to him in prison. Maybe this is another issue of better on paper than practice. Since I really just don’t like his interactions with Allan, since I find Allan a really annoying character.

And now his talk with Debbie in the mid season. I like that she doesn’t forgive him, I’m terrified she’ll get back with him next season, and I still don’t buy he actually feels bad for his actions. Because Debbie is the only person he seems interested in making amends to. And she absolutely deserves an apology for what she’s been through thanks to him, but she’s not the only one. So when Nolan only cares to get back with her, it feels more like he’s just doing it for himself to get a wife again. He should be planning to make things right with Earth as a whole, doing hero things again and stuff like that. Earth will probably hate him, but if he actually cares about doing good why should that matter?

And what really plunged my feelings about him was when he said (paraphrasing) ‘You need to stop being mean to me and forgive me because that’s what you do’. Which is maybe one of the most fucked up things he could’ve said. That’s worse than the ‘pet’ remark in my opinion. And kinda proves to me that he doesn’t care about doing better, he just wants forgiveness. Nor does he actually care about Debbie. Which yes, can make sense for him, I get that. But A) don’t write that when you’re also trying to tell me he’s a supremely better person now. And B) actually do something with such a fucked up line. But I doubt they will. Debbie looked at him meanly and that’s all I expect to come from it

Now again this may get rectified later on. I’m solely talking about his arc so far. But I do just doubt it, because both the show and the comic have never really cared about civilians. And thus never cared about Nolan having to make things somewhat right with them. So I’m placing bets it won’t be. But if they do actually do a better job next season, I’ll be more accepting of his redemption. I still won’t think it’s perfect given how everything else has been handled, but it’ll be a bit better

[kingslayer444]

I genuinely think the Dinosaurus Arc might destroy Invincible’s reputation if the show keeps it comic accurate

So already Invincible has been receiving some criticism for its mishandling of various plot elements. Such as mishandling side characters, Mark being a pretty weak protagonist, lack of consequences, and shallow nonsensical plot lines being played serious and smart. And I think the Dinosaurus arc that will likely be season 5-6(?) might push all that over the edge if it’s adapted straight.

MAJOR INVINCIBLE COMIC SPOILERS AHEAD

If you’re not aware of the storyline, or had it spoiled for you already as Invincible fans often do, I’ll go through the whole thing in this rant

So after his first minor appearance, Dinosaurus pops up again, this time in Vegas. He’s planted nukes all around the city and intends to blow it up to make room for solar panels. I guess it never occurred to the super genius that solar panels could be planted in the MASSIVE FUCKING DESERT AROUND VEGAS. But whatever. The bombs go off, millions killed, the city is turned to glass.

During the aftermath of all this two things happen, Dinosaurus (in his innocent unwilling human form) turns himself into the GDA, and Mark meets a criminal selling weapons they created to other criminals. Mark initially considers taking him to jail but instead takes him to the GDA to work for Cecil. Good sign of growth right? Shows Mark has seen the error of his ways since last time right?

Well Cecil seems to think so, so he takes Mark to what remains of Vegas and reveals he’s followed along in Dinosaurus’ plan and is putting up solar panels. And Mark looks at this and goes “Dinosaurus was right!”

Somehow. Mark. I know you’ve always been basically incapable of dressing yourself without Eve, Debbie or Cecil doing it for you, but this is just too dumb. And he only gets dumber.

He proceeds to break Dinosaurus out of jail, force his human self to transform against his will, and pledges his allegiance to Dinosaurus. It would be one thing for Mark to go to Dino in a Hannibal Lecter capacity, asking for advice on world issues. It’s another to break him out. Why??? Who is he breaking Dino out from? Cecil??? The guy who’s been ‘let’s work with villains’ all along?!!?

Together Mark and Dino become besties and achieve… nothing. They don’t actually achieve anything together. The best they do is beat up the Guardians for the horrific sin of not wanting a genocidal eco-terrorist on the loose.

And after some stuff with the Viltrumites and Allan, Dino reveals his next plan to Mark. Nuking even more cities around the world! To which Mark responds “Huh?? Why?! This is so unlike you!!” Sigh. See what I mean by Mark being impossibly stupid?

And then Dino reveals his plan is even dumber than that. He’s going to nuke the Antarctic to flood the world and kill as many people as possible. This happens, and millions, likely billions are killed around the world. And Mark kills Dino, and his innocent human host, who is completely forgotten by the story. L to that guy I guess.

So what did we learn from this arc? Absolutely nothing. This arc is promptly forgotten about instantly. The deaths and destruction explicitly caused by Mark and his idiocy is never brought up again. Debbie, Nolan, Eve, the other heroes, none of them bring this up either.

I guess we learnt not to work with criminals that much? Wow. What a necessary lesson to teach.

To preschoolers.

[kingslayer444]

I Seriously Don’t Get What The Point of the Invincible War Was

So after watching season 4, I’m really confused as to why the invincible war, a surely Earth shattering event, never got mentioned again. And not a single plot thread seems to have come from it either. And it’s a good example of how Invincible is pathetically devoted to preserving its status quo every step of the way.

For starters, the destruction. We’ve seen the show have more consequences for less destruction in season 1 with the death of the guardians. But after 17 Marks attack the entire world, it’s just forgotten. Realistically the world shouldn’t have even been able to rebuild after this, but I guess I’ll accept them not turning the show into a post-apocalypse wasteland. But what I won’t accept is how nothing comes from it on the public perception side. Angstrom did this to destroy Invincible’s image and make the public hate him, and it surely should’ve worked. Mark’s face should now be permanently associated with ruining the lives of god knows how many people across the world. And what came from it? Mark got a dirty look in the season 4 premiere. And even that got forgotten quick. Great.

Next up is angstrom. When it was revealed he’d somehow survived season 2, the big defence made for the choice was it helping to solidify Mark’s stance on killing. He killed angstrom, beat himself up about it, angstrom came back, mark stopped beating himself up about it after realising the harm angstrom causes while alive, and goes to kill him. Bit convoluted but fine, but then why doesn’t he get to kill Angstrom? He’s not a good villain. I don’t know of anyone who’s excited to see him come back. So him not dying this time just proves how devalued the ‘I thought you were stronger’ moment is now.

And finally there’s Mark sitting out of it. An asshole choice and, imo, an out of character one. But also a choice that should surely lead to plenty of conflict down the road right? How would Debbie and Oliver feel knowing mark just didn’t care about them during the event? How about the other heroes? Mark is (supposedly) their strongest, but he doesn’t help at all. Or how about Cecil? Cecil has given Mark so much leeway because he believed Mark was their only hope to fight the Viltrumites. And now he sees their only hope completely sit out of a fight against Viltrumites. But no. Literally nothing comes of the choice. At all.

I’m just genuinely confused as to what the point of this was outside of ‘hype moment’ and because it was in the comics. The only possible thing that came out of it was possibly solidifying Mark’s stance on killing. But again, he didn’t go through with it, and Conquest comes next episode to solidify it in a whole different way. So it really does just feel like it was put in for hype, and that doesn’t feel like a good justification for sacrificing so much consistency and stakes.

And this applies to so much in Invincible. Nolan killing the guardians is pretty much the only thing that’s had consequences but everything else? Nolan destroying the city lead to just Powerplex and nothing else. And that plotline sucks so hard it barely feels like it counts. The city gets destroyed weekly which is also forgotten instantly. Conquest appears and still nothing comes from it. And now the viltrumites have finally come to earth but thank god they’ve done it in the most status quo stabilising way

[kingslayer444]

Thragg is not a Complex Character, he’s Just Doing Whatever the Writers Need

So Thragg has been introduced and made a big splash with audiences, he’s been showered with plenty of praise. But as someone who read the comics and hated him there, I hate him here too. And it’s because his motivations and actions are always all over the place.

Now this is nothing new to Invincible, Powerplex and Angstrom are the biggest offenders. And the defence for them I’ve seen is the same I’ve seen for Thragg: “They’re crazy man! They’re crazy! They don’t need to make sense!” And that is total bullshit. There’s been plenty of crazy characters in fiction, but they can still make sense with their actions. Joker, Lex, and more are all crazy, but their actions to undertake their crazy actions make sense.

I’ll stick to the show here, but he’s not any better in the comics

Like when he sits out of the war against the coalition. I don’t know why. I understand why he wouldn’t lead the charge, he’s Regent. He orders his troops to fight. But when they clearly started losing, I don’t understand why he didn’t just step in. It’s not like he had 1 million troops who got decimated. He had 15 guys who got punched more than they were punching back. He could have very easily swooped in and beat the heroes’ asses, as shown in the next episode where be beat the heroes’ asses. I guess he hadn’t aurafarmed enough that episode to power up for it.

And then there’s the scene where he gives Nolan a chance to join them again. Now if this was it, I’d have no problem. I get why Thragg would want to bring Nolan back ‘to the light’ as he’d see it instead of killing him. Except for the fact that Nolan was set to be executed last season by the viltrumites. Why is Thragg suddenly aghast at the idea of killing him? Nolan was set to be killed just for leaving Earth and banging a bug lady, now he’s both done that stuff *and* waged war against his people and even killed some of them. But now Thragg is a big believer in 5th chances.

And then there’s the finale where he and the others go to earth to live and repopulate there. And I just have no idea why he’s doing any of this. For starters why are they living amongst humans instead of conquering them? I get he wants to use human lives as a bargaining chip against Mark, but you can do that and still take over. Just threaten the world leaders or something. Most Viltrumites hate humans as scum, why would Thragg want to mingle? Secondly is why is Thragg not destroying the coalition? The only threat to him and his people. The coalition is weak, rebuilding, and lost its previous leader and most of its Viltrumite-killing weapons. Meanwhile Thragg has all of the remaining viltrumites with him now, all at full strength. It would be one of the easiest fights in their lives

See what I mean by just doing whatever the writers need him to do?