When Amazon Prime announced development of an animated series based on the niche Invincible comic series, fans were excited—mainly because an adaptation of Mark Grayson's tale felt long overdue.
The creative team behind the show quickly went to work, adapting the bold story of a superpowered teenager plus other heroes who fight against those that come to invade Earth. When it released, critics lauded the series for its brutality, emotional narrative, and voice casting.
Mark's journey—and discovery of his father's true nature—played out as well as any animated superhero series ever has, with the show becoming a hit for Amazon Prime and paying off the platform's faith.
A second season of Invincible is on the way. Until then, we thought it'd be fun to revisit the best scenes from Invincible so far.
7. Allen the Alien Meets Mark
When Mark is sent to protect Earth from a being that's headed for the planet, he soon meets Allen—and they do battle, with Allen believing that Mark is Nolan, having shaved off the moustache.
As the battle progresses, Mark tries to talk to Allen, who stops when Mark essentially calls a timeout. The pair talk about their misunderstanding.
Allen is actually there to check that Urath can protect itself from invasion—before Mark points out that he's currently sitting above Earth, leaving Allen embarrassed.
Mark and Allen become friendly, and Allen returns in the last episode to warn Mark of Nolan, giving audiences a tease of what's to come.
6. Monster Girl vs. Rex
During the trials to decide who will join the new Guardians of the Globe, Rex refuses to keep his mouth shut about some of the other applicants and picks on Monster Girl—who doesn't take his insults lightly.
She challenges him to a battle by punching him into the arena, where she proceeds to dominate Rex. That is, until Invincible intervenes and tells Monster Girl that Rex has had enough punishment.
The scene provides insight into how the others think of Invincible, as well as how tough Monster Girl really is despite her small stature.
5. Debbie Finds Out
Mark's mother and Nolan's wife, Debbie, slowly becomes an integral part of the series, as she begins to suspect that Nolan hasn't told her the truth about what happened when the Guardians died.
Her back-and-forth with Cecil as he sows the seeds of doubt in her mind are well-written and insightful. And the audience also gets to see behind Cecil's veil and what he thinks of the matter, with him underhandedly preparing Mark for a potential fight against Omni-Man.
When Debbie confirms her suspicions about Nolan by looking closely at his ruined costume (from his fight against the Guardians), she confronts Nolan and they argue about it.
It all ends with her kicking him out of the house in a sequence where she turns against Nolan, and the series has only one place to go from here.
4. Omni-Man vs. The Immortal
In the penultimate episode, when father and son are pitted against one another in the fight of the century, the GDA finally makes their play against Nolan for killing The Guardians of the Globe.
They throw untold amounts of firepower against him, including a monster/Kaiju type of creature, all to no avail. But then one member of the team that Nolan killed returns: the aptly named Immortal.
The pair quickly go to battle, with The Immortal laying some good shots into Nolan, even if in the end he fails. But he does prove to Mark that his father is responsible for killing The Guardians.
3. Who Robot Really Is
Throughout the Invincible series, Robot appears to be an AI that helps the GDA put the team together once the former members of The Guardians of the Globe are dead. But it soon becomes apparent that he's doing other things in the background that serve his own interests.
He frees the Mauler twins to use their genius to grow a new body for himself, and the audience finds out that Robot is controlled by Rudolph Conners, who has a frail body encased in a bacta-style tank.
When the new Guardians find out that Robot is a drone controlled by Rudolph Conners, they're stunned. But the moment is surprisingly complex as it pulls Conners' moral compass into serious question.
2. Omni-Man Kills the Guardians
First episodes are supposed to hook the audience with panache and promise that they'll be entertained if they stick it out. Invincible goes far beyond the usual appetite-whetting and interest-hooking.
At the very end of the first episode, we see Omni-Man—the apparent Superman-esque figure of the show—turn on The Guardians and brutally murder all of them in a bloody battle.
Aside from the flourishing animation, the sequence is shocking and enthralling all at once as Nolan uses his vastly superior power to destroy the team of heroes for some yet-unknown reason.
1. Mark vs. Nolan
Everybody knew the series was building up to a climactic showdown between Mark and Nolan—so when the series finally arrived at that moment, audience expectations were sky high.
The anticipated fight between Mark and his father is a bloody act of savagery, with both Graysons laying explosive blows into the other—not just physically, but emotionally.
This fight is tinged with the feeling of Luke Skywalker's encounter with Darth Vader, as Mark desperately tries to get through to his father as we watch with bated breath. In the end, Nolan (the fully-grown adult and battle commander from Viltrum) defeats Mark.
But he can't bring himself to kill his son, who lays bleeding on the floor. Instead, Nolan leaves Earth with Mark still alive.
