Why Invincible is so special in an era of superhero fatigue.

This article contains spoilers for Invincible Seasons 1-3

Superhero stories are everywhere these days and people are getting tired of them, but there’s something special about Invincible that makes it truly stand out in an oversaturated genre.

Between its brutal action, complex emotional arcs, striking animation and truly grey characters, Invincible has achieved things the likes of Marvel and DC could only dream of.

I want to explore how the animated series stands apart through its masterful characters and truly morally grey storylines.

“What will you have after 500 years?”

Let’s start with what really makes Invincible special, the characters.

The heroes, villains, side characters and everything in between all have incredible levels of depth that make them almost uncomfortably human.

While it would make the most sense to start with the titular Invisible aka Mark Greyson, I instead want to start with Debbie Greyson, the woman who raised him, voiced by Sandra Oh.

“I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, and I’m the only one of us that can’t fly.”

From the very start of the series, Debbie stands out from the traditional Aunt May-type of superhero parental figure as despite being married to Omni-Man, the most powerful being on the planet, Debbie is a confident and self-assured person who will not hesitate to send a god to his room.

I think this is best illustrated in episode one when, after Mark threateningly refuses to go to bed, Debbie refuses to be intimidated by him and manages to immediately mellow him out and bring him back down to earth.

Consistently across the series, we can see Debbie being the grounding force and moral guide to Mark, and later Oliver and, somehow, even to a post-massacre Nolan.

It is no surprise then that the fandom has repeatedly exclaimed that Debbie’s parenting has saved the world, a fact proved by the countless versions of Mark that turned to evil and genocidal conquest in her absence.

However, Debbie’s character is not just defined by being a super-mom, but instead by a disturbingly realistic depiction of alcohol dependency as she spirals following the revelation of Nolan’s true nature.

Throughout the first two seasons, Debbie is seldom seen without a glass of wine, and as she gets closer to the truth about Nolan, it quickly turns from a relaxing glass to a destructive bottle.

Debbie’s dependence on booze is uncomfortably realistic as she spirals while her whole world falls apart around her, creating a vicious cycle as the more her drinking destroys her, the more she needs to drink to ease the pain and provide herself some comfort.

Even when her friends, Cecil or even her son, see what is happening, Debbie cannot pull herself out of this slump as she feels responsible for all the pain Mark endures and all the pain Nolan inflicted.

With Mark off at college and Nolan gone, she feels as though she has no purpose and begins to collapse in on herself.

Even when she does try and put herself out there by going to a support group, that blows up in her face as well, and she begins to feel ostracised by anyone and everyone, thus causing her to even further rely on alcohol.

But then Oliver arrives, and with him, purpose.

From the time Oliver enters her life, Debbie never drinks alone again as she no longer needs to fill that void where purpose should be.

Yet, having someone rely on her again comes with its own issues as she begins to feel guilty about having any sort of life beyond her boys.

When Debbie starts dating and seeing Paul, she struggles to let him in and worries about leaving Oliver, which then causes her to overcorrect and expose Mark and Oliver’s secret identities as heroes without telling them.

And while Mark is mad about that, he understands she needs someone to truly confide in, or the weight of the world will come crashing down on her just like it did when she discovered Nolan’s deception and Mark started putting his life on the line.

The other thing about Debbie is that she blames herself for everything that has gone wrong with Nolan and everything bad that happens to Mark.

She blames herself for Mark’s lack of a normal life, for the pressure put on him and every time he gets hurt (which is basically Mark’s speciality), she feels personally responsible.

In the season three finale, Debbie even apologises to Mark for putting so much pressure on him, even though Mark never really felt like she had pressured him into being Invincible.

She is desperate to keep her boys safe but has had to accept that she can’t because if they don’t act, people will get hurt, and none of the Greysons could live with that.

So, as much as it hurts her, she realizes that she has to let Mark and Oliver go even as she knows they’ll be hurt because it is the right thing to do, and she taught both of them to always help people and do the right thing.

Perhaps those lessons are what separate our Invincible from the countless evil versions across the multiverse, as we do know that most of the evil Invincibles from the Invincible war had lost their Debbie.

So next time the boys save the world, just remember to thank Debbie Greyson, the woman who puts the weight of the world on her shoulders without ever expecting any recognition or thanks for what she’s done to protect the people that protect the world.

Okay, so that was a lot about Debbie, but I do think she is a perfect reflection of how human the characters are in this show.

There are other great examples of this and of characters similarly struggling with their identity, like Atom Eve, whose arc revolves around striking out on her own and defining her own identity as a person and as a hero while having to face the consequences of thoughtlessly using her powers.

However, the other thing that makes Invincibles’ story special, especially in season three, is the truly morally grey arcs and relationships.

While there are many ways to examine this moral complexity, I think the best way to look at it is by looking at Cecil Stedman, voiced by Walton Goggins, and his relationship with Invincible, voiced by Steven Yeun.

“We can be the good guys, or we can be the guys that save the world.”

Cecil is a good guy, but he is not a good person, and while he accepts that, it’s something that Mark struggles to accept, especially after the revelation of Cecil’s villain rehabilitation habit.

Across the first two series, Cecil is consistently depicted as a realist, a man who is willing to do anything and everything to protect people, no matter how dirty it makes him feel.

While that is mostly explored in season three, even back in season one, Cecil talks about doing what is necessary. When talking to Damien Darkblood, he even accepts that he will be going to hell, literal hell, with demons and everything for all eternity all for the sake of protecting the planet.

Ironically, the character that best parallels Cecil’s attitude is Nolan, aka Omni-Man, voiced by JK Simmons.

Before the events of the series and during season one, Nolan does whatever it takes to further the Viltrum Empire, be it decimating a planet or infiltrating and weakening a civilisation from within, which is what he does on Earth.

During the season one finale, Nolan is constantly trying to convince Mark to see things his way and talks about how everything he has done on Earth has been for the good of Viltrum, including his massacring of the Guardians of the Globe.

The key difference between the two men is that Nolan has a family he cares about on Earth. Once again, Debbie is partially responsible for saving the world, which causes him to question Viltrum and abandon his post.

This leads to the events of Thraxa and his eventual willingness to join Allan to fight against Viltrum.

“It’s why I hate me two”

Cecil doesn’t have anyone like that; he doesn’t have anyone full stop.

Cecil’s entire life is based on protecting the Earth and making the decisions that other people could never live with.

Usually, we see this through his numerous contingencies and puppet-master-like control of Earth’s heroes however, things get a lot darker in season three.

At the start of the season, Cecil and Mark are working together constantly to try and make Mark stronger after his battle with Angstrom Levi and the Viltrumites on Thraxa.

At the same time, Mark is developing a far more black-and-white sense of justice, deeming that any criminal must go to prison and not allowing people to attempt to make up for the sins of their past.

These ideals run totally in contrast to Cecil’s who is more than willing to rehabilitate monsters if he thinks they can do some good, no matter how much that turns his stomach.

But Cecil didn’t always have this mindset, in fact he used to have even more extreme black-and-white beliefs than Mark did until he was forced to adapt, utilising and reforming criminals in prison, which is how he came to command the GDA.

These two points of view totally clash in season three, with Mark literally at Cecil’s throat after Cecil is forced to deploy The Reanimen and Darkwing to save every hero in America from being killed by Doc Seismic.

Thanks to Cecil deploying these assets there are no casualties and the heroes lived to fight another day thanks to a murderer and a sociopath who dismembered and modified living people to prove his own greatness.

Mark cannot accept that in the exact same way that Cecil couldn’t accept his old boss doing the same thing until he was forced to see the necessity of using these monsters.

But there is a difference between rehabilitating criminals to protect the world and seeing Mark, a kid who has only ever done his best to help people, as a threat because of his father.

Then, The Invincible War happens, and Cecil’s worst instinct is proven absolutely right.

When the Invincibles attack, Earth is devastated and most of the planet’s heroes are killed, The Reanimen and Cecil’s other anti-Viltrumite weapons become an essential backbone in the planet’s defence.

All of Cecil’s paranoia about Viltrumites is proven to be absolutely right. Except for his paranoia about Mark, who fights the other Invincibles and Angstrom and Levi.

When Conquest attacks, Mark fights him without a second thought to protect the planet and whenever support arrives he immediately attempts to get them away to safety.

When the dust settled from the invasions, Cecil’s actions were instrumental in saving the world multiple times; Mark is forced to reevaluate his morality, accept that sometimes he is going to have to kill villains to protect the world and understand that people make mistakes.

Yet still, he is unwilling to work with Cecil, and Cecil is unwilling to bend to Mark, yet they have at least begun being civil to each other.

But this truce feels like it is going to be temporary, as while Cecil no longer has a weapon in Mark’s head, which I’d say is the one thing Cecil has done that is truly unjustifiable, the GDA is now going even further with their ‘rehabilitation’.

Mark has a very understandable hatred for The Reanimen, and now Cecil is turning his evil dead multiversal variants into super-reanimen which is undoubtedly going to make Mark absolutely lose his mind, and justifiably so.

On top of this, Cecil refuses to kill Conquest and is instead holding him in an underground prison while telling Mark that he incinerated the body.

This is a total betrayal of Mark’s trust and puts Earth in jeopardy but Cecil thinks it’s worth the gargantuan risk.

Mark will never be able to trust Cecil again when he finds this out, but Cecil is not necessarily in the wrong here, apart from the weapon in Mark’s head and sparing Conquest, those are just terrible decisions.

The Viltrumites are coming and Cecil doesn’t know how many of them are coming so building the Reanimarks (which is definitely what we should start calling them) makes sense for the planet just like the anti-vitrinite weapons, they are needed to save the world.

Mark and Cecil are both right, and they are also both wrong.

They both have a point and while Mark is morally in the right, Cecil is doing what he knows is necessary despite how much he hates having to do it.

Many other series have tried to walk this moral line but it is very rare for them to do it so well.

Cecil feels dirty; he is doing some horrible things, but he does them for the right reasons, he shakes hands with the devil every day so that the rest of humanity can sleep soundly, never knowing the horrors that have been done to protect them.

“I thought… I thought you were stronger.”

I was planning to talk about the series action for a bit here but as I’m already over 2,000 words, I think I’ll just wrap things up.

Invincible is the dark superhero universe that The Snyderverse wanted to be; it masterfully balances uncomfortably human characters, truly grey storylines, brutally impactful violence and beautifully real connections to create a story that doesn’t feel like any other project in a genre that has become oversaturated and commercialised.

It is a very special series that has such a strong sense of identity that needs to be recognised and supported as projects like this are why people love the genre, so if these stories aren’t supported then we will just be left with a conveyor belt of mediocracy.

So talk about Invincible, show your friends Invincible, support other independent comics and shows like Invincible because there really is no other show quite like

Featured Image Credit: Amazon MGM Studios