It’s only been two years, but it feels like ages since Amazon Studios’ animated adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s film. Invincible The comic series first dazzled viewers with its bloody subversion of the myth of superman and truly brutal depictions of costumed supermen beating each other up. After being away for so long, it would be easy to see Invincible feeling, and this is a little strange to say, behind the times given how closely the show has tended to stick to its 2003 source material and how Hollywood has opted for superhero multiverses.
However, surprisingly it is because Invincible continues to take so many cues from the Image comics that the show’s second season feels surprisingly in our current moment.
Meanwhile he Invincible The comic series hoped to shock readers with the alarming revelation of Omni-Man’s (JK Simmons) true nature, the Amazon series spelled it out explicitly in its first episode and, in doing so, made watching his son that much more fascinating. Mark (Steven Yeun) journeys to become one of the few people capable of facing him in combat. Although season 1 was more than just setting the stage for a big Viltrumite father-son showdown, it definitely felt like the series was really starting to gain momentum by putting all of its characters on the same page viewers had been on. From the beginning. -go.
After the end of season 1 and the surprisingly shocking Invincible: Eva Atom special from earlier this year, Invincible It definitely feels like I’ve hit the brakes. fair a bit as its second season opens with Mark and the rest of the world still trying to make sense of how to recover from Omni-Man’s betrayal. Weeks after fighting his father, Mark’s physical wounds have healed and the city of Chicago is on its way to rebuilding after nearly being leveled.
Much to the relief of Global Defense Agency director Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins), the public is more inclined to return to their daily lives after Chicago rather than falling into complete panic over the fact that the world’s most powerful hero world has gone crazy. But they can all feel that whatever new kind of “normal” they’re building toward is uncertain and tenuous because of how deeply disturbed the planet’s remaining heroes, like Rex Splode (Jason Mantzoukas), Dupli-Kate (Malese Jow ) and Robot. (Zachary Quinto) seems to be.
After spending much of its first season in Mark’s head, InvincibleThe second chapter changes things up to a point by giving you a lot more information about the fears that keep the Immortal (Ross Marquand) and the new Guardians of the Globe awake. Similarly to the way Avengers Endgame took it upon himself to present his story with emotional devastation to make you feel the loss that Marvel’s heroes were fighting for, Invincible Season 2 uses characters like Mark’s mother Deborah (Sandra Oh) and his girlfriend Amber (Zazie Beetz) to verbalize some of the deeper disillusionments that ordinary civilians have yet to come to terms with.
The refreshing thing is that it is Deborah through whom Invincible begins to unravel many of his ideas about dealing with deep trauma, and the show cleverly frames his move into group therapy as analogous to Mark’s insistence on returning to his secret hero job, even as the audience still thinks who is just a normal high school student. mourning his supposedly dead father.
Like Deborah, InvincibleThe second season follows Mark in a darkly contemplative space that speaks Kirkman’s desire to “embrace it all” about classic superhero comics storytelling. Often this season feel as a comic, as its focus shifts between Mark dealing with the pressures of hiding a secret identity and preparing for college, his fights with criminals, and his internal turmoil over the fact that his father is a genocidal maniac from a planet of racists. .
But as big as InvincibleThe greatest evil always lurking in the background, this season also strives to have a lot of fun by building a much larger world around its main players with stories more or less lifted from the books. As much as it feels like a left turn when Allen the Alien (executive producer Seth Rogen) shows up, his return injects some much-needed humor into the story and provides insight into how events unfolded. urath The Earth resonates throughout the galaxy.
Like Allen, the arrival of newcomer Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown) at first seems InvincibleIt’s a way to give you an unexpected respite from the compelling but heavy melodrama of Mark’s life. But there is a deeper interconnection in each of this season’s major plots. And while that sometimes makes it seem comparatively simpler and more predictable than the previous one, that’s not really a bad thing.
Instead of trying to surprise you with huge, unexpected twists, this season really tries to let you sit with the weight of things before piling on more and highlighting how much heavier they’ve gotten. The show is still a bit shocking, particularly in some of its bloodier fight scenes where they rip people’s guts out, but that’s just Invincible be Invincible.
Invincible It also stars Andrew Rannells, Chris Diamantopoulos, Gray Griffin, Kevin Michael Richardson and Khary Payton. The show arrives on Amazon on November 3rd.
