Invincible Episodes 1-3 Review

Invincible Episodes 1-3 Review
Directed by – Robert Valley, Paul Furminger, Jeff Allen
Produced by – Simon Racioppa, Robert Kirkman, David Alpert, Catherine Winder, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Written by – Robert Kirkman, Simon Racioppa, Chris Black
Starring – Steven Yeun, Sandra Oh, J. K. Simmons
Released March 26, 2021
Based on the Image Comics series from Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, and Cory Walker

This past Friday, Amazon Prime Video released the first three episodes of the animated adaptation to the celebrated Image comic Invincible. The series follows 17-year-old Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) as he navigates the worlds of high school and superheroes after he gains superpowers from his father Omni-Man (J. K. Simmons), the world’s most popular superhero. This review will look at each of the three episodes released and will include spoilers.

Episode One: “It’s About Time”

The first episode began with an attack at the White House by two of the primary villains of the series, the Mauler Twins (Kevin Michael Richardson). The attack was thwarted by the Guardians of the Globe and Omni-Man. From there, the episode followed Mark Grayson as he went through a normal day for a high schooler dealing with bullies and a crappy fast food job until his powers finally kicked in. Omni-Man then tried to train his son in the basics of fighting and flying but it didn’t go terribly well. In an attempt to reconcile things, Omni-Man took Mark to a superhero tailor to get his official costume and Mark decided on the name of Invincible as his alias. At the end of the episode, Omni-Man tricked the Guardians of the Globe to their headquarters and slaughtered them all.

Episode Two: “Here Goes Nothing”

The Global Defense Agency found the murdered Guardians of the Globe and the injured Omni-Man. They took Omni-Man to their hospital but couldn’t save the Guardians. Meanwhile, Damien Darkblood (Clancy Brown), investigated the murders and became suspicious of Omni-Man. While Omni-Man was in the hospital, the GDA sent Mark to help fight off an interdimensional invasion of aliens called the Flaxons in the middle of the city with the Teen Team, a group of teenage superheroes led by Robot (Zachary Quinto). The Teen Team managed to repel the aliens and Mark recognized one of the members, Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs), as a classmate. She offered him membership with the team right before the Flaxons attack again. The team nearly lost before Omni-Man returned to save them. After the attempted invasion, the world is informed of the Guardians’ murder. Mark also had a brief fight with Allen the Alien, who evaluates the defenses of planets, before they realized that Allen had visited the wrong planet.

Episode Three: “Who You Calling Ugly?”

After the Guardians’ funeral, Damien Darkblood interrogated Omni-Man concerning the murder. Robot was tapped by the head of the GDA, Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins), to run the new Guardians of the Globe. Robot chose his fellow Teen Team members and Monster Girl (Grey Griffin), Black Samson (Khary Payton), and Shrinking Rae (Grey Griffin) for the roster, but the team quickly fell into disarray due to interteam drama. The Mauler Twins escaped from prison with help from Robot from the shadows. The episode ends with Darkblood interrogating Debbie Grayson (Sandra Oh), Omni-Man’s wife, about the murder. He found out that Omni-Man left out some details about the incident to her and left Debbie suspicious of Omni-Man. 

These three episodes are an excellent kick off for the show. They do a great job of drawing the viewer in, getting them to fall in love with the characters and world, and establishing the core relationships and themes of the series. The heart of the comic, being the relationship between the three Graysons and how superheroics affects their lives, is here in spades. While plenty changed from the comic, I don’t think anything is lost. The changes are often for the better.

Invincible Episodes 1-3 Review continues below

Check out our review of Invincible Volume 1

Acting

The voice cast is stellar. You’d be hard pressed to find a more star studded cast for an animated project. Even the most minor of characters was given a top level voice actor, many of whom have worked with Kirkman in the past as The Walking Dead alum. Steven Yeun has a youthful excitement to his performance as Invincible that makes his character instantly likable. J. K. Simmons and Sandra Oh have a wonderful chemistry as Mark’s parents and Simmons is an instantly believable Superman allegory. 

Animation

The animation, while slightly chunky at parts, has a simplistic charm to it that channels beloved superhero classics such as Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited. For those that enjoyed the extreme violence of the comic, the series has it in spades and animated blood has never looked this good! The blend of traditional and computer animation takes a minute to get used to, but it does work well. Despite this being an animated series, it is definitely not for children.

Summary

All in all, the start of Invincible is a very promising beginning for the series. If you’re a fan of the comic, there’s plenty of new things here to keep you interested while keeping the original feel and point of the story. If you’ve never read the comic, the show is an excellent story about superheroes, the price of superpowers, and family. 

If you enjoyed our Invincible Episodes 1-3 Review then leave a comment or give it your own rating below.

Check out our review of Invincible Volume 2

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