Review | Invincible (Season One)
Introduction
Okay… I’m going to review this show without spoilers. If you’ve seen it, you know how much of a challenge that is. I’m also going to try to do it with less violence than the show had. Which, if you’ve seen it, you know how easy that’s going to be. Avoiding spoilers for this thing is a challenge--I had a hard time not getting it spoiled for me before I watched it and I'm a really cautious person. So, if you're someone who doesn't want any spoilers but wants to know what you can expect from this show anyway, I promise you're in a safe place, here!
If this is your first time seeing something of mine, hello! I’m T. L. Bainter, I review stories--mostly books--on my YouTube channel and website and I also include posts with writing advice and personal vlogs. If that interests you, please check out what else I’ve got once you're done here!
If you'd prefer to watch the video version of this review, you can do so here:
Season One Summary
Invincible is a grim, realistic take on the superhero genre, specifically teen superheroes. It’s bold in this approach, too. It doesn’t shy away from tropes or comparisons to other superheroes, but leans into and embraces them. The Guardians of the Globe are basically the Justice League, character to character. The same goes for the Teen Titans equivalent. These characters have a couple of things that set them apart from their typical comic book counterparts, of course, but the comparison is very apparent.
At first glance, all of these tropes can be a bit off-putting. I know that while I found a lot to like in the first episode, I had a hard time with how heavily the story was leaning on these tropes and how much it borrowed from the superheroes we’ve all seen a hundred times over. Did I really want to see the “hiding my secret identity from my girlfriend” trope done all over again? No.
But, don’t worry. It leans on these tropes so heavily for a good reason. Invincible obliterates, mocks, and shines a light on them. These are tropes done well, which is something that is entirely possible but rarely done. I’d go so far as to say that this is one of the main goals of Invincible: to fill the story with tropes and then twist, contort, and alter them in unique and spectacular ways.
Season one follows what you would expect it to. We’re focusing on a teenager named Mark. His dad is the most powerful superhero on the planet and Mark inherits his father’s powers, though he isn’t nearly as strong or capable as his dad right off the bat. His dad helps him grow stronger, trains him, and advises him--it’s a bit like a dad giving his son the talk and this is a comparison that’s distinctly drawn in the show, too. Mark joins up with the world’s Teen Titans, called Teen Team, and fights off invading forces alongside them. Through the season, we follow Mark, the members of Teen Team, and a few other characters that include Omni-Man, Mark’s father.
There’s a bit of mystery in the story as well, and the world’s version of Hellboy is investigating it. We’ve also got a government agency that is doing its best to keep the dangers threatening Earth in check. For a season that has so few episodes, there are tons of pieces at play here and the story becomes considerably complex. It is really hard to summarize this without getting into spoilers--even the first episode is one that you don’t want to have spoiled for you, so I’m trying to summarize without giving too much detail beyond the first episode… let’s just go ahead and move on to the presentation.
The Review
Presentation
With books, presentation isn’t all that important. With shows and movies, though, it’s crucial. With an animated show like Invincible, my presentation rating is referring specifically to how I feel about the way the show is animated, how I feel about the voice acting, the cast, sound design, and everything else that makes up how the story is presented to us.
The animation is amazing. I came into this with somewhat low expectations, expecting it to be jumpy and kinda shoddily animated given the length of the runtime and how challenging animating a show like this can be. Instead, I was met with amazing animations. When combined with the superb sound design displayed throughout the show, you feel every punch, spine snap, skull crush, limb shred… all of it. They worked hard to make sure you know how gruesome the reality of having superpowers truly is. There’s a lot of fighting, a lot of blood, and a lot of death. The animation complements this perfectly.
The music is unexpectedly awesome. They’ve got some really great song choices for this show. Cage the Elephant, Run the Jewels, Vampire Weekend, and a ton of others are sprinkled throughout the show and to great effect.
Next, the voice acting… probably the best part of the show’s presentation, with the animation being a close second. The voice acting for Invincible was beyond excellent. We have a phenomenal cast that includes Gillian Jacobs, Steven Yeun, J. K. Simmons, Zachary Quinto… each voice fits its role perfectly. I loved them all. If I had to select a favorite, it’s probably going to be J. K. Simmons as Omni-Man, but Steven Yeun did a phenomenal job, too.
So did Gillian Jacobs…
Okay, I guess I can’t pick a favorite.
All in all, I’ll give the presentation five out of five stars.
Plot
I already said as much as I can about the plot of Invincible without spoiling anything, but I’ll try to give a more succinct plot review, here. We have two primary, overarching plots in this season of Invincible. One of them is focused on Mark learning about himself and his powers while the other is focused on the mystery of the show. Something… terrible occurs in the post-credits scene of the first episode (which, by the way, there is a post-credit scene of every episode and you CAN NOT miss them, they’re all important), and much of the show is spent asking why it happened, with many key players like the government and the Hellboy-type investigator seeking an answer to this question. That’s all I’ll say.
Overall, I really liked the plot. There was a lot to love about it. It was done well and most of it was tied together neatly in the last two episodes. I do feel like there was a bit of a cop-out at the end that didn’t sit well with me. Again, no spoilers, the ending of the season just didn’t really sit well with me. That’s all I’ll say here!
There were some plot issues relating to how they set up the second season. A couple of episodes didn’t seem to serve many purposes beyond setting up season two of the show. I can respect that, I just wish that they hadn’t done it the way that they did. There wasn’t nearly enough development for the main season done in those episodes to warrant their existence. I would have preferred an episode that contributed more to season one than it did to season two.
You’ll know what episodes I’m talking about when you watch the show; I think that they really stand out.
Much as I like most of the plot, the tail end didn’t sit well with me and a couple of episodes didn’t contribute very much to this season, focusing instead on setting up season two in a pretty obvious way. I appreciate what they were doing and understand why it had to be done, but I feel like the execution could have been improved. All in all, I’m giving the plot three out of five stars.
The World
I really like the vast universe we’ve got set up already in Invincible. In this season, we already go to space pretty early on and learn that there are many other races right from the start. This gives the show a ton of wiggle room and space to expand. It also makes it pretty easy to explain away quite a lot that isn’t terribly important, such as how and where certain characters got their powers.
This isn’t really a superhero origin story, so it doesn’t focus on how each hero got their abilities. Some got them "because science", some got them "because alien", and some got them because… some other random reason. What’s important is that they’re superheroes. The show needs you to know they’re superior beings and you need a basic grasp of what the powers are, but that’s all you have to know.
Very little of the world is explored given that it’s implied there are other dimensions and galaxies. This leaves us with a lot of room for growth that I’m excited to see. I felt early on like I had a pretty good understanding of the setting of Invincible, and there is tons of potential, here. Once I see more of it, I’ll be able to assign a more accurate star rating, but I’m giving what I have seen four out of five stars.
World-Building
All right, this is where I’m going to be pretty critical and some people may not like it. This is something that I’m sure is addressed more thoroughly in the comics, but the world-building was just not done well, in my opinion. Specifically, as it pertains to the abilities and limitations of the people in the world. It’s really unclear how everything works. I get some understanding of it, but a lot of these details that I personally find to be important are hand-waved. I need to know what the weaknesses and strengths of our characters are so I can have a solid understanding of the stakes when two characters are fighting one another.
In some cases, a lack of understanding is definitely intentional and I can respect that. But in many others, it just doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand how the science of the show works, yet that is really important in many instances; I don’t understand how many of the powers work when how they work is also important. The limitations need to be explored. I hope to see more depth and understanding added to the show's science and character abilities in the second season. I might pick up the comics as well--I’m hesitant to research it because I don’t want to be spoiled by people who’ve read the comics and know what’s coming next.
Overall--and I’m very sorry about this--I’m giving the world-building two stars. It’s a step above one because there was enough world-building and establishment of stakes for me to understand whether or not something was possible or impossible in most cases. They also explain a bit of it in the later episodes with a conversation between Mark and his father about their abilities, too much remained unclear for my tastes.
The Characters
Okay, let’s stop talking about things I didn’t like and get to things I do. The characters. Holy crap. I loved so many of these characters, even the ones you’re meant to hate. I hated them, but they were so well-written, animated, and performed. It was unbelievably well done. From Mark to Omni-Man to Cecil to Deborah and even Amber.
Amber, Mark’s love interest, is someone I was pretty iffy on at first. I was nervous that she was going to end up being a throw-away girlfriend who had one purpose and was then tossed aside, but they actually gave her real agency and a mind of her own. She was interesting, intelligent, and entirely capable on her own. They did a great job with her and I was pleasantly surprised.
There isn’t really a character I didn’t like--even among those who make only brief appearances. I’d be hard-pressed to choose a favorite, but I think I’d have to go with Omni-Man. Not only was he performed wonderfully by J. K. Simmons, but he was animated with so much subtlety that you could tell right from the start that there was more to him than met the eye. His facial expressions, his movements, the tone of his voice… everything about Omni-Man tells you that you should be concerned about him right from the first episode.
For my second favorite character, I'm going to say Robot or Allen, the latter of whom was voiced by Seth Rogen. Seriously, go look at the voice cast for this show, it’s astonishing.
All of the characters were written, animated, and designed with a great deal of care, and each voice performance is flawless. I’d be heartless if I gave the characters of Invincible anything less than five stars.
The Writing
I feel like I’ve praised the writing quite a bit already, but I’m going to summarize all my thoughts here. The way that Invincible embraces and then twists classic superhero tropes is fantastic. They executed their vision expertly, showing you just how destructive super-powered individuals can really be. Even when they aren’t trying to do any damage, our heroes still cause quite a bit of it and the writers make sure that this is known to the audience. There are moments that will make you squirm with discomfort right from the start as you see the casualties and negative impacts that are caused by people who are meant to be heroes.
The dialogue is pretty solid through most of the show. I don’t remember hearing anything cheesy or out of place. There wasn’t anything excessively flowery, either. Dialogue always felt natural and at times it was pretty funny. It was never funny in the sense that this was a funny show, there were just moments that made me laugh. I appreciated that.
Most of the episodes were written in a way that ensured everything contributed to the story in some way, whether they were developing characters or developing the plot. Most episodes, save a couple that just contained a lot of scaffolding that was being used to build up the second season. That and the final moments of the season’s main villain are what I think stood out as the most significant writing flaws for season one of Invincible.
The writing was never bad, but it was never spectacular, either. There were some great moments and some not-so-great ones. I love what the show did and the way that it turned so many classic superhero tropes on its head to deliver something new.
That said, I’m giving the writing four out of five stars. It was well-done and I really liked quite a bit of it, though nothing in the writing stood out to me too much apart from the last two episodes. I would have liked to see those setup episodes I mentioned earlier replaced with something that provided more depth to the first season, but I’m sure we’ll get some payoff for those episodes in season two. All that considered, four out of five stars feels like a pretty fair judgment for the writing of this show.
Pacing
And now we come to the final segment of my review before I summarize my overall thoughts. The pacing of the show. This is going to be short and sweet. The pacing was okay. Again, those semi-filler episodes that set up for season two just didn’t grip me all that well and I felt they could have been changed up to provide a lot more to season one than they did. There was never a boring episode, even among those that were just set up for the second season, but there were definitely episodes that I just didn’t care about as much as the others.
The main plot is really fantastic and I enjoyed following it. The characters were all intelligent, which helped with the pacing. I never got sick of watching them “sort things out” because they caught up to what I already knew as a viewer pretty rapidly. From there, it was just a matter of what each character would do with the information they had… and what they’d learn next. This ensured that there was always tension somewhere in the show.
So, overall, the pacing was great. They maintained tension, threaded you forward from one episode to the next, and even had several spikes in the pacing that was exciting and heart-pounding. Then, those last two episodes… if I were just reviewing those two, the pacing would get five stars without question. Since I’m reviewing the pacing collectively, though, I’m going to give it four out of five stars. I’d give the pacing five stars if there hadn’t been episodes that contributed very little to the season as a whole, so we might see this bumped up when I review the second season.
Overall
Invincible was an awesome, shocking, gruesome ride. There was so much to love here. It was unabashed in its portrayal of the collateral damage caused by superheroes and it made sure that you, as the viewer, knew just how devastating these super-powered individuals really were. It’s because of this that I’ll recommend this show to just about anyone who wants a fresh take on superheroes, but only if you think you can withstand the level of violence and gore present in this animated series.
I will definitely be rewatching season one at least once before season two releases, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the second season of this show. Overall, I’m giving Invincible's first season four out of five stars.
Conclusion
All right, that’s my review of Invincible, season one. I’m curious as to your thoughts on this! Do you agree with my summary and opinion? Do you disagree? Who was your favorite character and what are you hoping to see in the second season? I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! If you do share your thoughts, please be considerate and avoid spoiling things for others (and for me, if you're someone who's read the comics)!
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Thanks for checking out this review. Until next time, bye!