#invincible critical

[thepinkpestilence]

its so insidious how in this decade there are white female characters from books/comics who were casted to be played by black women only to STILL fit into being the disposable black girlfriend trope. why didnt they made the MAIN female character that was white in the source to be played by a black woman on screen instead? mhmmm descisions descisions...

white woman from the source material played by a black woman on screen who was the first love interest

white woman from the source material played by a white woman who ends up with the love interest instead

[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

[ficday]

invincible writers when a characters love interest is a person of color

[littlefankingdom]

I'm going to kill Nolan. Wtf do you mean "you need to give me a chance to make things right"? Mf, get out of here, she doesn't own you shit. And the way he used his power before saying that, imposing himself as a threat and the strongest one between them. Dude, you are not better at all, you are a walking red flag. And then, he fucking tell her that she "will" forgive him, because she believes in rehabilitation and second chances?!?! GET OUT OF HERE!

I came up with a saying about redemption that I really like, because it's stupid, but it's "you cannot go play in the same sandbox". When children have fights, they have to apologize to the other kids they hurt before being allowed to come back to play with them, before being allowed in the sandbox again. Children fights are over small things, so forgiveness is pretty frequent. But adults have fights about way bigger things, especially when it's about abuse or violence, or being a genocidal monster. And you can change and grow, but to expect people to forgive you and "allow you again in the sandbox" is wrong. You need to find a new "sandbox", away from your victims, to let them heal and live in peace.

I believe in second chances and rehabilitation, and I also believe in letting victims HATE who hurt them and never forgive them. This is some abuse apologism bs to say to character that is a victim that they will forgive their abuser because they are a good person/have good morals. Fuck off.

[qwerty-sparrow]

Something something Atom Eve starting off trying to become independent and striving to better the world, but a series of mistakes sets her back and she returns to her parents house.

From there on, she "strives" to be independent/become better with making a business but instead it seems she is going backwards by just giving her leash from her dad to Mark. Along with her now being Mark's therapist/secretary/emotional support bang maid. She gets pregnant with his kid and from there on, her role is just Mark's baby momma/secondary to Mark.

Her business being supporting the American prison system by acting as a mercenary service(With Mark as the main selling point even after the Invincible Wars where the buisness should have gone under due to PR). Eve and Mark now use their powers not for the betterment of humanity, but to give services and money to the private entities who own those prisons.

She leaves behind the community service and desire to help the common people to helping the upper class to basically get money to buy a house but instead of "cheating" (using her powers) she is trying to do it "respectfully"(her dads way).

What started off as me hoping they were trying to do the "Superman: Peace on Earth" as an arc for Eve is instead the result of misogynistic writing where in the end, we cant have female characters be more powerful/successful then the male characters.

[nomaschanclas]

Honestly the weirdest part about watching Invincible critique the Viltrumite empire is it doesn't reflect inward for Cecil and the heroes who follows him.

You cannot have a show "critiquing" the horrors of an imperialism nation while seamlessly forgetting your main heroes work for the most infamous one.

[oddeyevibes]

I genuinely do not know how Invincible knocks it out of the park with improving Debbie as a character with agency and then completely flops when it comes to Eve.

This strong, independent thinker who wanted to help people on the ground turned into her boyfriend's coattails and always being written to be KNOWN as powerful but never really getting to be powerful once she becomes The Love Interest™/The Girlfriend™ who also doesn't wanna help ppl anymore but help prisons instead??? You can argue that these cracks were there in earlier seasons but I gave it a pass since she was still young and figuring shit out.

But then when ppl point it out, someone tries hitting you with the big brain take of "actually, women losing their personality and personal life in a relationship is normal. You guys just hate healthy relationships" meanwhile when was the last time you heard someone talk about their bf centered friend fondly? Not to mention everyone loves Debbie and Paul and Rex and Rae. To which I have to wonder do they think Samantha's parents have a healthy marriage because that's what Samantha is turned into...her mom.

I'm supposed to believe that the current Samantha is the same Samantha that decided to go to school so that she can use her powers better to help people???? Where's the pipeline of "helping folks at a soup kitchen" and "helping farmers grow their crops" to "assisting in the prison industrial complex"???

This is also because Mark's friends are just deleted from his life for the crime of not having powers cause William could've been Mark's receptionist. Give him something to do in the background so that when he pops up, I don't go "oh look, they remembered Mark has a BEST FRIEND SINCE HIGH SCHOOL".

[suchusoid]

Random hot takes

-absolute batman is carried by body horror and action scenes, it' story lacks substance.

-mcu iron man is a piece of shit

-the viltrumites are the most boring, uninteresting alien species in any piece of media that I've ever seen.

-Chamalien is actually a cool alien, he just wasn't utilized enough and the ghostfreak stans need to genuinely stfu.

-black hat is pretentious as a character to me, I hate how the writers try too hard to push as "the biggest and baddest villain evuh! Look he solos all other villains from media and they all want to be like him! Look at how cool and badass he is! Isn't he the coolest??!?!?"

-scott cawthon has a lot of similar writing problems and flaws as vivziepop(and is also an awful person), only reason people are more quick to defend him is because is more polite and friendly about it.