PLEASE don’t SPOIL events later in this series! I’ve only seen the first episode and will try to watch the rest ASAP.
Anyway, I just watched the first episode of “Invincible” on Prime Video. I actually watched it twice because after seeing it I wanted to share it with other people and my wife and I watched it later the same day I saw it the first time! What an absolutely fantastic hook in that first episode!
I saw the ads on Amazon and thought oh well, just another superhero show. But then someone whose opinion I think pretty highly of retweeted something positive about the show and I thought I’d give it a try. One episode wouldn’t really be that big a time sink if I didn’t like it.
The show starts off and yeah, it seems like a somewhat generic superhero story. Some security guys standing around shooting the breeze outside the White House. Some heartfelt dialogue between the two (I mean, it actually really hooked me in right away with the story of the stepson coming back), and then bam! Time for action as some clone (?) brothers show up to wreck the White House. Then we have a bunch of heroes show up, and they work together like the Justice League. They’re definitely not the Justice League, right? They have similar outfits, traits, and abilities, but this is all part of the setup for you, the viewer.
There’s some other dude with them who seems way stronger and more powerful, and you quickly learn that he’s his own superhero Omni-Man and the others are the Guardians of the Globe. Again, still feels like standard superhero fare. Omni-Man is definitely not Superman, but he’s from some far off planet where everyone has superpowers and looks like humans. Anyway, he has a son and a wife who’s a “normal” human. The son is waiting for his powers to manifest. It seems like we’ve got a kind of coming-of-age superhero storyline tagged on, right?
That’s how the rest of the episode seems to run. And then there’s a massive, enormous twist.
Huge SPOILERS for episode 1 follow.
We see all the Guardians of the Globe having some great character pieces, enough to hook me even more onto them as characters, even if they really are… er, aren’t stand-ins for the Justice League. But then they all get summoned to headquarters and no one summoned them but Omni-Man shows up and literally tears them all to pieces in the bloodiest fashion possible. Wait, what!? He’s a good guy! He seems a somewhat distracted dad trying to figure things out! But what the heck? Why did he just murder all the good guys? It’s a stunning twist, and watching the show the second time I wonder what it has to do with him saying that he wasn’t ready for his son to get superpowers and how maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t. Maybe that has something to do with what he does to the Guardians? What’s the bigger story? I don’t know, but you better believe I’ll be diving back into the show to find out.
I’m dying to talk about it with other people. Tell me your thoughts on episode 1 here! I can’t wait to watch more. I almost want to just buy all the comics and go!
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