Josh Reviews Invincible Season Three

I’m a huge fan of the animated Invincible TV series on Amazon Prime video, and the recently-released third season was another terrific installment.

The series is based on the comic book written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Cory Walker & Ryan Ottley, and tells the story of Mark Grayson, a young man who is also the powerful superhero Invincible.  The show plays with lots of fun, classic superhero tropes (secret identities, kid sidekicks, girlfriend love-triangles, etc.) but filtered through an unabashedly adult prism.  There is a lot of violence on this show, and things don’t always turn out well for all of the characters.  Most importantly, the show allows its characters, both super-powered and “normal”, to be flawed and complicated.  The show digs deep into the superhero situations in which Mark and others find themselves, often painting them into tough corners from which there’s no easy moral solution.  I love this approach to the storytelling, and it was particularly prominent here in season three.  Mark has incredible powers, but he often has to make hard choices; the series explores that, and the ramifications those choices have on Mark and those around them.

This series kicked off with a bang with a spectacular first season back in 2021.  The second season was also good, but the delays in its production resulted in a less-than-ideal staggered release pattern (a one-shot special, then four episodes, then another long wait for the final four) that, for me, diluted the impact of the storytelling.  So I was thrilled that the show has come roaring back with a very strong third season of eight new one-hour episodes, released together.

By the way, I must again applaud the bravery of the people behind this show in releasing a one-hour animated superhero show.  There are scant few examples of that ever having been done, but it is 100% the format that’s right for this show; it allows each episode to pack in a lot of storytelling mileage.  I love the show’s approach to the storytelling.  There are clear character and story arcs that carry across each episode, and tons of classic super-hero comic book style “subplots” running in the background… but at the same time, the show preserves the integrity of each episode.  Each episode feels like a complete and satisfying whole, while at the same time often ending on a cliffhanger that would propel me into the next episode with alacrity.

Also rare in the world of superhero TV shows, the series is incredibly faithful to the original comic book series, carefully adapting the storylines from the comic book series in pretty much the exact order in which they originally appeared.  The character arcs and the superhero adventures are all attentively translated for the screen.  As a fan of the original comic, this is incredibly joyous to see.  At the same time, Robert Kirkman (the comic book writer who, in a rarity, is a key creative player in this TV adaptation) and the show’s other writers have demonstrated a beautiful elasticity in the way they move pieces around to make this adaptation work and flow smoothly as a TV show.  This isn’t a stiff, line-by-line adaptation.  Time and again, they’ve made a million little changes… and time and again, I found these changes to work remarkably well.  I’m particularly happy with the depth the show has given to the supporting cast.  I love how well all of the many side-players have been woven in and out of the main story, and how real they all feel to me as characters.  This is actually an improvement on the original comic!  It’s pretty great.  (Here’s one example: this season, Atom Eve gets involved in the climactic, season-ending fight with the bad guy Conquest.  The same thing happens in the original comic book, but there, she has a relatively small role in that fight.  Here, Eve steps into the spotlight for an extended sequence that allows her to demonstrate her smarts, her fighting skills, and her high-level superpowers.  I loved it.)

If you haven’t been watching this show, go back to season one, kick back and enjoy!  If you have been watching, stick around and let’s dig a little deeper into this third season.

Beware SPOILERS ahead!

Fans of the comic book know that a lot of interesting storylines kick off when Invincible switches to his blue and black costume, so it was fun to see the show reach this point in the story!  I love that they put that switch right at the start of the season, and I loved the look of the new costume in animation.

This season really piles a lot of bad stuff on poor Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun).  Picking up on his murder of the supervillain Angstrom Levy at the end of season two, I liked the way the show explored the impact of that action on Mark’s psyche and his sense of self and morality.  And I thought it was interesting the way the show continued to push Mark into corner after corner, where the pressure to kill these vicious, powerful villains so they could not continue to hurt others kept growing stronger and stronger.  The show didn’t back away from that, and I was shocked (pleasantly so) that the season finale ended with Mark in a very dark space, embracing the need to start killing villains.  (This was taken straight from the comics.)  I can’t wait to see how this plays out in season four.

I’ve loved Walton Goggins’ work on the show as Cecil Steadman (the head of the Global Defense Agency), and I was thrilled we got a lot more great stuff with Cecil here in season two.  I liked the way the show found ways to keep Cecil and Mark at odds in a way that made sense for both characters (and didn’t feel like a narrative cheat with one or both characters behaving out of character, the way this sort of interpersonal drama sometimes happens on sci-fi or fantasy TV shows).  And I loved that we got a flashback origin of Cecil in episode two!!  That was awesome!!  (I’m not sure if that story was ever explicitly told in the comics!)

There were a lot of interesting digressions that kicked off episodes this season.  I loved the Cecil story in episode two, and I was also quite taken by episode three’s opening vignette, following two gay criminal partners who try, and tragically fail, to go straight.  That was quite moving; I wanted those two to get a happy ending!!

It was nice to see Mark and Eve (Gillian Jacobs) finally get together this season.  I was impressed with how smoothly the writers handled Mark and Amber (Zazie Beetz)’s break-up and Mark and Eve’s beginnings as a couple.  Here’s another place in which the show (and the original comic) avoided the pitfalls of many a previous superhero TV show.  I enjoyed the romantic sparks and tension between Mark and Eve, but I’m glad they didn’t wait too many years before allowing the couple to get together.  Similarly, while the stories this season throw some speed-bumps in their way, I was glad there weren’t a lot of dumb plot devices used to break them up and maintain the show’s status quo for many more years.  (I do have a small quibble in that the show might have given us a few too many wrap-up scenes of Mark and Eve sitting together on the roof of his house.  That started to get a bit repetitive after a while…)  I liked that the show took the time to show Amber happy with her new boyfriend, when the gang meets up for bowling late in the season, and it was also nice to periodically check in with Mark’s friend William (Andrew Rannells) and his boyfriend Rick (Luke Macfarlane), even while the show and Mark’s adventures moved further and further away from the High School setting of season one.

I’ve already mentioned Cecil; another standout this year was Jason Mantzoukas as Rex Splode.  Rex has always been a (somewhat?) lovable asshole, but this season actually saw him growing and developing as a person.  I really enjoyed the sweet arc of his burgeoning relationship with Shrinking Rae (Grey Griffin).  The end of his story was sad!

I loved the storyline of Allen the Alien (voiced PERFECTLY by Seth Rogen) striking up a friendship in prison with Nolan (J. K. Simmons).  My only complain with this season’s otherwise note-perfect finale was that they didn’t cut back to Allen and Nolan at the end!!!  I really wanted to get one more scene of those two together before the end of the season.

The arrival of Mark’s blue and black costume also heralded the arrival of his younger brother Oliver, and I loved how well Oliver was incorporated into all of the stories this season!  Christian Convery did a terrific job voicing Oliver, and I enjoyed following Oliver’s growth as a kid and a superhero over the course of these eight episodes.  I enjoyed the way he and Mark bounced off one another; the show had fun exploring their similarities and also their very different worldviews.

I loved that this season brought Battle Beast into the action — and casting Michael Dorn (Worf!!!) to voice him was a brilliant idea.

I loved episode six’s story, focusing on the villain Powerplex (voiced by Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul!), driven mad by grief and rage over death of his sister and her daughter in the season one finale.  I liked that the show took the time to explore the ramifications of that violent battle, which surely would have left an impact on so many in this Invincible world.

This show has had some epic season finales, but wowwee did this season go for broke.  Episode seven was a barn-burner, with the return of Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown), looking even more disfigured than before, and his league of multiversal Invincibles.  What a great plan by Angstrom to ruin Mark’s reputation.  And I was blown away by Steven Yeun’s work playing all of these different and deranged versions of Mark!!  The violent mayhem in this episode, in which the evil Marks wreak havoc across the globe, was incredible.

But the show was just warming up for episode eight, and the arrival of the vicious Viltrumite Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).  The show managed to shock me with the level of violence and destruction.  That shot of Oliver spitting out blood and most of his teeth?  The brutal beatings that both Mark and Eve take??  This show takes no prisoners.  I was stunned.  I liked seeing Eve’s Phoenix-like rebirth (which tied in nicely with some of the visuals of the Atom Eve special we got between seasons one and two).  (The only let-down, as I’d noted above, was the mid-credits tease of a bunch of demons.  That fell flat to me.  I wanted to see Nolan and Allen again… OR one of the other Viltrumite villains we know are coming back, like Anissa (Shantel VanSanten), who was introduced in season two but was missing this year.)

I love this show!  I hope it can go the distance and adapt the entire run of the original Invincible comic book series!  We’re pretty much half-way.  Bring on season four!!

Thanks for reading my blog!  Click here to order my latest comic book: The Tomb of the Broken Amulet, an all-ages Passover mummy adventure!

Please support my website by clicking through one of my Amazon links the next time you need to shop!  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  That means I’ll receive a small percentage from ANY product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through.  Thank you!