Amazon's Invincible - thoughts?

[vulgar]

Invincible is an Amazon Prime animated adaption of a comic of the same name. The series focuses on the coming-of-age of Mark Grayson, son of Nolan Grayson (known as OmniMan, roughly analogous to Superman and the most powerful superhero on Earth), who receives his superpowers at the beginning of the series shortly after he turns 17. The show is another attempt in the increasingly popular subgenre of portraying superheroes as immoral, violent assholes.

I'll preface this by saying I don't like the superhero genre. I also find most of Invincible's characters are obnoxiously written, have terrible forced dialogue, and are generally unlikable or boring. However I overall liked the show. Why? Solely because of OmniMan, who is voiced by JK Simmons and carries the entire series.

Without spoiling too much, OmniMan is an archetypal hardass father who views strength as the highest virtue. The only method of learning or growth is through extreme violence. The show will often meander into insignificant teen drama among other, frankly, unlikable and naive superheroes. OmniMan contrasts other character's awkward insecurity with extreme unrelenting confidence and drive towards his mysterious motivations and goals.

The first couple episodes are alright, the middle isn't good, and the ending is pretty good. The show has been renewed for 2 more seasons.

anyways, thoughts?

 

[Gone Ham]

JK Simmons carries yet another show on his back

 

[garakfan69]

I've never seen a show handle a kid getting super powers in a more boring way.

 

[an retard]

It was decent, kinda like The Boys was decent in the first season and they thoroughly fucked it in the second, and I expect the same treatment here. Amazon writers rooms can't keep their shit together.

As mentioned J.K. Simmons did carry this shit though, if it wasn't for him there's no way I would've watched this

 

[LazloChalos]

I was just going to make a write up about this show.

I watched it out of boredom and kept on watching to see where it goes; but it seems I am watching it for the wrong reasons as I don't really care about the main character or any of his orbiters.

In media you get a story, then people get tired of them due to oversaturation and some chose to subvert the genre to keep things fresh, then when it happens again you subvert the subversion, then you go back to the classics, then in the end you have a generation of people who don't know how to write something that the readers/viewers won't expect.

This show falls into that, think of the show as being like a darker take on "Sky High"

Spoiler: Premise of the show

The main character is a Superboy and his father is basically Evil Fascist Superman from Evil Krypton who wants to conquer Earth

You get Invincible (real name Whogivesashit), a High-schooler that gets superpowers, His father is Omniman,(basically Superman) "The world's greatest superhero"

Cue Training, juggling secret identities, social commentary and teenager angst.

Everything tends to flow in foreseeable patterns, events that are meant to evoke emotion just get a "meh" and some events can get into outright cringe.

Spoiler: Spoiler

One episode has a villain turning young men into cyborgs, Invincible's gay friend has a boyfriend who ends up as a cyborg and is helping beatdown Invincible, how does the friend help his boyfriend snap out of his programming? by sperging how amazing their gay sex was.

The cast seems oddly by the numbers, almost as if they went through a list to make sure everyone on the good side was "diverse"

As for surprises the only one was the level of violence (for something that looks like a saturday morning cartoon), but their attempts at social commentary seem telegraphed and anything that might come of as subversive seems tired or bland.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Once Character, Monster Girl, has the ability to turn into a green monster. However everytime she does she ages backwards. She is 23 in a 14 year old body and some male team members don't seem to mind being... friendly

With the story so far I can't say anything would surprise me, they could throw in incest, rape, cannibalism and it would still seem like trying to hard to get a reaction from the viewers.

Just waiting for the main character to turn into a Mary Sue due to "muh mixed heritage".

Spoiler: I'd be more interested in watching...

Omniman succeeding and the show focusing on humanity adapting to the conquest

 

[Gar For Archer]

It was decent, kinda like The Boys was decent in the first season and they thoroughly fucked it in the second, and I expect the same treatment here. Amazon writers rooms can't keep their shit together.

As mentioned J.K. Simmons did carry this shit though, if it wasn't for him there's no way I would've watched this

This IS an adaptation of an already finished work whose source material is generally considered to be pretty good, so it should be less of an issue as long as they stick with it.

 

[DumbDude42]

coming-of-age

stopped reading right there
pretty much guaranteed to be dumb shit lol

 

[SiccDicc]

This IS an adaptation of an already finished work whose source material is generally considered to be pretty good, so it should be less of an issue as long as they stick with it.

"As long as they stick with it".

Ah, there's the qualifier.

 

[Marissa Moira]

stopped reading right there
pretty much guaranteed to be dumb shit lol

FLCL was a coming of age story though.

 

[Gone Ham]

More shows need to have humanity lose and show the effects of it

 

[vulgar]

I was just going to make a write up about this show.

sorry, I was surprised no one did one yet too.

I watched it out of boredom and kept on watching to see where it goes; but it seems I am watching it for the wrong reasons as I don't really care about the main character or any of his orbiters.

I had a similar problem, because the show was meant to be subversive, I genuinely could not tell if the characters were written poorly on purpose to make watching them get beaten to a pulp satisfying, or if it was just written poorly. Literally, the "supervillain" of the show is the most likeable, well written, and best acted character in the entire show.

 

[Reverend]

Just a reminder of how badass JK Simmons (66Yrs old) is in Real life

 

[DumbDude42]

FLCL was a coming of age story though

had to google what that is and apparently its anime? that doesnt count, anime plays by different rules.

 

[Kabuki Actor]

FLCL was a coming of age story though.

The only thing I know about FLCL is that it's proudfully "dumb shit".

 

[LazloChalos]

sorry, I was surprised no one did one yet too.

I had a similar problem, because the show was meant to be subversive, I genuinely could not tell if the characters were written poorly on purpose to make watching them get beaten to a pulp satisfying, or if it was just written poorly. Literally, the "supervillain" of the show is the most likeable, well written, and best acted character in the entire show.

I just kept seeing memes being posted, so I came to check and see if there was a trash fire. didn't see one and told myself I could leave it until tomorrow. It was going to suck anyways.

Want to be subversive? How about Earth being curbstomped easily, like in BattleField Earth. I am talking about a "My God how are we even alive if the universe is so dangerous" kind of beating, the kind of beating that makes people embarrassed to have thought they could put up a fight.

And this would be the kicker, the Earth was conquered, but things are actually better than at any other point of human history.

 

[kūhaku]

Started watching it yesterday actually, it’s mostly dumb fun and excessive gore. J.K. Simmons does indeed carry it, I don’t care about any other characters other than the MC family, the teleporting boss dude, and maybe Robot since he’s fun. I already kind of get the picture of where the show is headed because I started watching it due to the redraw memes. Still, it’s a good watch for the background while doing something else.

sorry, I was surprised no one did one yet too.

I had a similar problem, because the show was meant to be subversive, I genuinely could not tell if the characters were written poorly on purpose to make watching them get beaten to a pulp satisfying, or if it was just written poorly. Literally, the "supervillain" of the show is the most likeable, well written, and best acted character in the entire show.

I think that’s probably part of the joke, see: Doc Seismic

 

[vulgar]

I just kept seeing memes being posted, so I came to check and see if there was a trash fire. didn't see one and told myself I could leave it until tomorrow. It was going to suck anyways.

Want to be subversive? How about Earth being curbstomped easily, like in BattleField Earth. I am talking about a "My God how are we even alive if the universe is so dangerous" kind of beating, the kind of beating that makes people embarrassed to have thought they could put up a fight.

And this would be the kicker, the Earth was conquered, but things are actually better than at any other point of human history.

I'm getting strong anti-colonial/imperial vibes from the show. An enlightened powerful mustached (White) man comes to a relatively primitive place with promises of protection, technological advancement, an end to regional war, and induction into a great empire. Settles down with a native woman and has a half-caste son. However is, in fact, purely loyal to his motherland and will win their submission regardless of the cost. I haven't read the source material so I'm not sure...

As much as I would love to see this planet filled with naive idiots get demolished, I doubt that humanity will do anything but win in the end.

 

[Seminal Ointments Lain]

They let Season 1 be good to sucker mouth-breathing capeshit fanatics into staying subscribed. Same with The Boys, same with Stranger Things. Hell, even the same with the X-Files and some may argue Twin Peaks.

Game of Thrones proved people will endure any trash as along as you can trick them into being invested. They also know smoothbrained cookie cutter weed addicts such as yourselves to suck off any decently acted fascist villain ala OmniMan, Homelander, Tywin, the Demongorgan, Dick Tremayne, etc.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

It's based on a comic by Robert Kirkman, the same guy behind Walking Dead, who is a mediocre writer that gets by entirely on excessive gore and shock value.

 

[Cyber Bowling]

I'm another person who watched it solely because of OmniMan/JK Simmons. I thought it was okay. I think the most damning thing I can say about it is, until seeing this thread title, I completely forgot I watched the show. It doesn't really do anything new, especially when you consider Amazon also has The Boys. Though, I will say I thought OmniMan was a more entertaining villain because they really don't dial back on how far he's willing to go. I'm sure some of that has to do with it being animated vs. live action, since you don't have to worry about big budget destruction scenes.

I think the biggest problem the show has is the tone. It feels like the majority of the show is meant to be a parody of traditional superhero shows. Lots of popular comic characters have some kind of obvious counterpart in the show, and a lot of the non OmniMan related plot stuff is clearly inspired by campy golden age comic plots. Even the over the top gore feels like it was done for laughs.

But then it has moments where it tries to be a super serious drama. Sure, dramatic comedies are a thing, but they tend to be more balanced. A lot of the episodes felt like a 95% jokey/parody show, with the remaining 5% suddenly becoming a serious show we're supposed to be invested in. The last episode or two tend to drop the parody elements, and I think that's when the show was interesting. Otherwise, it falls pretty flat.

All the teenage characters, which unfortunately includes the title character, are also just really poorly written. They also seem to exist largely for filler/joke purposes. I'm not familiar with the original comic, but it seems less like a traditional superhero comic and more like some kinda quirky web comic.