Review: Invincible Is a Remarkably Capacious, Nimble Superhero Show

It takes high school senior Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) two tries to get the dumpster lid up at his fast-food job. Then he heaves a garbage bag onto his shoulder and, grunting, throws it in. He goes to toss the next one in, and it unexpectedly shoots out of his hand, disappearing into the sky. “It’s about time,” Mark says, as he finally unlocks his superpowers—genetic gifts from his vaunted superhero father, Nolan (J.K. Simmons), a.k.a. Omni-Man.

That scene comes early in the first episode of Invincible, a remarkably capacious and nimble animated series based on the comics created by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Cory Walker. The episode initially sets up a fairly lighthearted coming-of-age story, as Mark acclimates to his body’s jarring changes (colossal strength and the ability to fly), navigates high school society and his budding relationship with the ultra-cool Amber Bennett (Zazie Beetz), and opens up about his anxieties to his endearingly forthright mother, Debbie (Sandra Oh).

Then, bam, the episode ends with an exquisitely composed bloodbath of jaw-dropping savagery, the kind that reminds you that people are mostly meat. The fight, along with other blunt-force surprises that punctuate the three episodes provided to press in advance of the show’s premiere, crystallizes the stakes of Mark’s new profession as the crime-fighting Invincible. This isn’t the starry-eyed superhero story that the series first seems to be, as lives are on the line, and young practitioners struggle to grow up quickly.

Additional flashes of reality come courtesy of scenes featuring Nolan, who warns Mark about occupational hazards as he teaches him to fly, fight, and think like a hero. Nolan’s superhero boot camp offers him and his son a welcome chance to connect. Mark both idolizes and lives in the shadow of his dad, who’s temperamental and frequently absent—foiling supervillains, slaying dragons, and chopping up kaiju. In a particularly creative scene, Mark and Nolan play catch amid the clouds, their backs turned to each other. Nolan throws a curveball into the distance, and it wraps around the Earth until it hurtles into Mark’s baseball glove. Even a game of catch, the ur-ritual of masculine bonding, conveys the gulf between the father and son.

Nolan hails from the faraway planet of Viltrum, where everyone is superpowered—and where it appears that all men are mustachioed. In a flashback, Nolan explains to a younger Mark that, per custom, Viltrumites travel across the galaxy to help “lesser-developed worlds,” like Earth. Thus, Nolan arrived on our rock, got married, and had a kid. Nolan’s suspicious behavior gradually betrays ulterior motives at odds with his superhero-Peace-Corps origin story and do-gooder persona. But Mark, in contrast, refreshingly forgoes pretense. He busts his first baddie following a fit of rage triggered by a school bully. “I need something to punch,” he says.

Invincible recaptures what our current glut of superhero fiction largely loses sight of: the pleasure that superheroes must feel when wielding their powers. Not the sacred satisfaction of helping the downtrodden, but the id-centered thrills of soaring through the sky and inflicting hurt on those deemed deserving. The series consistently makes smart use of music and sound to sweep you up in the bodily sensations of its heroes. The first time Mark flies, a stirring orchestral score communicates both the wonder of his impossible movement and the euphoria of his self-assuredness. Later, when Mark takes his new costume out for a test ride, relentless guitars and drums propel his flight and relay the catharsis of his liberation.

Mark’s experiences breaking into superherodom expose him to an eclectic group of characters—from the lively and poised Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs), of the relatively green Teen Team, to Art Rosebaum (Mark Hamill), tailor to caped crusaders. The wildly star-studded voice cast is, at times, given underwhelming material to work with. As Cecil Stedman, the U.S. government’s covert superhero liaison, Walton Goggins gets little opportunity to flex his prodigious capacity for eccentricity, while Rex Splode, another Teen Teamer, fails to freshen the loud, belligerent mold into which Jason Mantzoukas is regularly relegated. Debbie, on the other hand, possesses more substantial interiority, reflected especially in her playful but tender conversations with Mark, and Oh deftly manifests the emotional range that parenthood and early middle age demand—at times comforting, or scathing, or turned on, and always sympathetic.

We feel for Debbie, who takes heat from two sides: Nolan is a loving husband but also volatile, while Mark shows streaks of his father’s temper. Although Nolan encourages and trains Mark, we get unsettling hints that he could snap. When the two spar, Nolan wallops Mark in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He claims to be teaching him a lesson about readiness, but as he looks down at his son, curled up on the ground, the arch of his brows and the set of his steel jaw suggest a dangerous pride, or perhaps even scorn. Elsewhere, when Nolan gives Mark pointers on flight, one can’t help but think of Daedalus, whose gifted wings sent his son plummeting into the sea. Superhero puberty can be tough, and the sun’s allure so great.