S01.E01: It's about time

[AnimeMania]

When Mark Grayson finally inherits powers from his superhero father, it’s a dream come true. But there’s more to being a hero than just choosing a name and costume.

Release Date: March 26, 2021

[arc]

I knew the comic got hella gory, but I must have forgotten how fast it got into it.

The deconstructionist takes from the comic have held up pretty well though. It's wild that coincidentally this is airing around the same time as the Superman and Lois show, with both shows having a Flying Brick superhero dad and a son who's got powers. I don't think Invincible (the show) was as good at the family dynamics -- or at least the father-son dynamic; the mother-son dynamic is solid -- as S&L. But the superheroing stuff is way more thought out and solidly written than S&L.

I wonder why Science Dog became Seance Dog.

[Gulftastic]

I wonder what it would be like watching without having read the comics first. A solid translation, I thought.

[AnimeMania]

Just wanted to remind peopleto use the X-Ray feature. There are some mini-documentaries in the X-Ray > Bonus Content section and comparisons to the Comic Book in the Trivia section of each episode.

[thuganomics85]

Haven't read the comic this is was based off of, but it is definitely giving me some The Boys vibes, with a darker, violent take on some of the superhero tropes, and while not exactly spoofing them, finding ways to put their own spin on things.  The Guardians were definitely a stand in for the Justice League, and Omni Man is basically what would happen if Superman was real and unchecked (but despite the ending, I don't think he's a flat-out psycho like Homelander on The Boys.  Or is he?)

They certainly stacked the deck with the voice cast, huh?  Steven Yeun.  Sandra Oh.  Mahershala Ali.  Jon Hamm.  Mark Hamil!  And J.K. Simmons was a perfect choice for Omni Man.  I also noticed that the Guardians were voiced by a ton of Steven Yeun's former Walking Dead co-stars like Lennie James, Michael Cudlitz, Sonequa Martin-Green, Chad L. Coleman, Ross Marquand and Lauren Cohan.

Thought it was interesting the majority of this first episode was light on the violence outside of a little bloodshed at first, but then they went all out with the gore when Omni Man slaughtered the Guardians.  Jarring in a good way.

Curious to see where this all goes.

[arc]

5 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Omni Man is basically what would happen if Superman was real and unchecked

(superpowers nerdery, not plot spoilers, but this is from later in the comics)

Spoiler

Viltrumites have the "flying brick" superpowers - strength, durability, flight, superspeed - but not heat vision/laser eyes nor the super senses. Which makes a difference here and there because attacks that couldn't sneak up on Superman can and do sneak up on Viltrumites. Then again, there's no kryptonite analogue or even red sun analogue for easy depowering either.

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 3/26/2021 at 12:01 PM, Gulftastic said:

I wonder what it would be like watching without having read the comics first. A solid translation, I thought.

I came into it with a general background in Marvel and DC, but I don't think I read Invincible ever, and all I really knew about the series was it was on Amazon Prime, it was about a kid superhero growing up, and it was from one of the Walking Dead creators.

So I wasn't prepared for the twist where Omni-Man killed the Guardians.

Other than that, it seems like a pleasant enough, easy enough to follow show. There are a few questions that I have, but I assume the show will get around to answering them in its own time. 

Like:

Why did Omni-Man kill the Guardians the way he did (full frontal assault en masse), as opposed to picking them off one at a time? 

How is it that none of the Guardians managed to broadcast "Oh shit, Omni-Man has gone bad and killed half of us?"

Does Mom Invincible know that Omni-Man is evil?

Note: I'm not looking for spoilery answers to these questions.

[arc]

On 3/28/2021 at 5:54 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

So I wasn't prepared for the twist where Omni-Man killed the Guardians.

Other than that, it seems like a pleasant enough, easy enough to follow show. There are a few questions that I have, but I assume the show will get around to answering them in its own time. 

Same thing happens in the comics (obviously) but not till issue 7, so there were six months in real time during the original run where it was kind of tonally just "Spider-Man mentored by his dad Superman".

[tennisgurl]

I haven't read the comics but I saw the amazing cast voicing, so I had to check it out. It looks like its going to be a deconstruction style superhero kind of story, but I was expected to find out that The Guardians were bad guys ala The Boys, not that Omni Man was the one we should be worrying about. Its like we came into a totally different show about the Guardians, who are clearly expys of different members of the Justice league (the stretchy alien looks straight up like Martian Manhunter) with their own subplots, supporting casts, and character issues, and then that show was invaded by Omni Man. So does he want to become Earths sole protector? 

[Ottis]

People are talking about how long it took OMNI Man to kill the Guardians. How about a why?

I have no background in this so I don’t know what the hell is going on. 

[Zonk]

On 3/26/2021 at 6:01 PM, Gulftastic said:

I wonder what it would be like watching without having read the comics first. A solid translation, I thought.

I came into this completely blind. Just saw it randomly on Prime and decided to give it a shot. Really glad that I did.

I think what was fun in this episode was, that up until the last few minutes it presented itself like standard superhero fare, no guts, no gore, everbody survived the attack at the beginning. And then came that fight at the end. I was really surprised by that one. Then in the credits I saw that Kirkman was co-creator and it all made sense.

On 3/28/2021 at 2:54 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Why did Omni-Man kill the Guardians the way he did (full frontal assault en masse), as opposed to picking them off one at a time? 

I was asking myself the same thing, considering it almost killed him, but

Spoiler

knowing what we learn about him in later episodes, it does make sense. He thinks as a Viltrumite he is basically unstopable and sees those "puny humans" as beneath him. He probably thought it wouldn't be a problem to mop them all up at once and don't give them a chance to hide or mount a resistance.