Nightmare Fuel / Invincible (2021)

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

And it only gets much worse from there.

"Why? Why?!"

— The Immortal, asking what the audience is probably thinking.

Invincible might be a Reconstruction of the superhero genre, but as anyone familiar with the comic can tell you, if you're expecting that this show can serve as a breather to take the edge off after a binging of The Boys (2019), you'd be sorely mistaken.

General

• THE GORE. DEAR GOD, THE GORE. The brutal fights from the comic are now animated in detail, showing the effects that the fantastic superpowers and technology in fiction have on the human body. And it's far from pretty. Also, it's worth noting that unlike The Boys, where most of it was played for Black Comedy, it's Played for Horror here instead, giving it a very realistic feel.
• After the title screen is shown in the first episode as pristine and clean with triumphant music; each following episode has more and more blood being sprayed across it with a Scare Chord out of a horror show. In "Where I Really Came From", a larger splash of blood almost completely covers the "Invincible" logo itself, signifying how dire a situation is going to be. "A Lesson For Your Next Life" has a further blood splatter that almost completely obscures any other color, eventually having the background Fade to Black and leaving only the blood-red letters of "invincible" hanging in the void, as if signifying that this season will somehow be even Darker and Edgier than the first.

Season 1

It's About Time

• Darkwing nearly dies in the opening sequence via crushing. He pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and pushes out the woman he was rescuing, while preparing to Face Death with Dignity. The woman herself (who one of the Mauler twins had just thrown into the air by her head) is appropriately horrified as he forces her to grab the device to pull her out, asking "What about you!?"
• The horrific slaughter of the Guardians of the Globe at Omni-Man's hands.
  • In the scene leading up to this moment, heroic music was playing, and it seems like it was building up to Nolan having a meeting with the Guardians about continuing to protect the world. Then the music turns tense as they find out Nolan is attacking them. But after Red Rush is killed, the music stops. No soundtrack plays as the rest of the team is senselessly murdered one by one by one of Earth's finest.
  • At first, when Omni-Man first attacks the group, he goes for the kill on Immortal, and later Aquarus, but per typical superhero shows, the speedster Red Rush pulls his teammates out of the way in time and makes his move on the enemy. And then Omni-Man grabs Red Rush's head and starts crushing it, and then you realize this is not your typical superhero show.
    • The entire episode has fights wherein any form of damage is either shown through feeling winded or slight marks on the body, not a trace of blood is ever shown on the characters for 40 whole minutes. As Red Rush is being crushed, the gory nature of the show becomes apparent in just a few short seconds. The first drops of blood and the episode has already unleashed it in gallons.
  • How each of the Guardians dies.
    • Red Rush attempts to attack Omni-Man at full speed, except Omni-Man can move nearly as fast as he can. After a few punches, he anticipates the next attack, grabs Red Rush before he can escape, then crushes his head in both hands (similar to Mera's death in Justice League Dark: Apokolips War but even more gruesome). And the poor bastard is left punching Omni-Man's chest in a frantic, desperate bid to break his hold, to the point where he breaks his hands on him in the process. A quick death it is not.
    • What makes this even more chilling is how sadistic and spiteful Omni-Man is during this scenario. The reason for this is because it's a whole lot Harsher in Hindsight in regards to the last episode - Omni-Man crushes a pilot's head with a simple grab and clench of his hand as if crumpling a wet towel, taking only a split-second to accomplish. This retroactively makes Red Rush's death worse, because Omni-Man was deliberately taking his time with the speedster's horrible death, aware of how his reflexes make him perceive time much more slowly than others. What was only a few seconds for other people was hours of horrible agony for Red Rush.
    • It is possible that the difference is due to the Red Rush being actually more resistant than a normal human (which would be necessary to move that fast, and as would be shown by the fact his hands don't immediately break after throwing his fastest punches at Omni-Man). Doesn't mean it was less painful, but possibly it wasn't just Omni-Man being petty.
    • Darkwing is ragdolled into the ground so hard his head explodes and gets thrown in the direction of the intangible Green Ghost, who instinctively turns tangible again to catch her friend only to be greeted with his unrecognizable, limp corpse. She's in such a state of shock that Omni-Man is immediately able to impale her face with his open hand and use her as a shield against Aquarus's water beam, with her dead body flailing about from the high-pressure water. Aquarus's head is then promptly beaten into mincemeat with War Woman's mace.
    • Martian Man uses his shapeshifting powers to coil and restrain Omni-Man as Immortal and War Woman beat him, only for Omni-Man to tear out his core. Even if you're unfamiliar with the comics (which established that Martians can heal from almost anything, as long as their core, the seat of their personality, isn't damaged), it's not hard to guess that it's just as vital as a human's heart or brain, especially when the coils fall limp as Omni-Man grabs it.
    • War Woman gets her neck snapped by Omni-Man turning her head 180°, and her dying head vomits up blood before her body finally falls over.
    • Immortal gets a hole punched through his stomach with his intestines flying out of his back, and is decapitated with a swift chop to the neck.
  • Immortal tries rationalizing that Omni-Man must be Brainwashed and Crazy, because the Omni-Man they know wouldn't do this... would he?
    Immortal: Someone must be controlling him! He would never do this!
    War Woman: Regardless, it's him or us.
    Immortal: I choose "us".
  • Along with the lack of music, Nolan massacres the team without speaking a word, refusing to give his victims an explanation for his actions. At the end of it all, when Immortal is the last to die, he uses his final breath to quietly ask, "Why? Why?".
  • Finally, all is said and done, Omni-Man himself falls to his knees, bloody and bruised, a broken Thousand-Yard Stare being the only expression on his face as he realizes what he's done before fainting.

Here Goes Nothing

• It's never shown why the Flaxans are invading, with the implication being that it's For the Evulz.
• The Flaxan leader targeting Mark, for the crime of taking his eye. He gives an Evil Laugh when finally defeating him in combat.
  • He also uses the one English word he has learned.
    Flaxan Leader: Die.
• For a warrior race whose aim is to capture slaves, the Flaxans' weapons and methods seem self-defeating for this purpose. A single rifle shot pulverizes people and their tank shots do the same to entire crowds as it cuts through them, even if you happen to be standing nearby. Just as with the comic, the animation does not pull its punches depicting men and women being turned into gibs. Their later upgraded weaponry cooks people into mulch. None of it is instant and victims live long enough to feel it and scream.
  • Even worse, the final attack occurs with a much larger upgraded army in the same location which has been turned into a memorial, surrounding the mourners and survivors of previous attacks on all sides who they then begin to massacre just as they did their lost loved ones.
• They honestly asked for it, but Omni-Man's genocide of the Flaxan race when he crosses their portal. He starts off by pulverizing their commander, flying him through a military base's structures until there's nothing left but a part of his skull in Omni-Man's hands, which he quickly crushes.
  • Then Omni-Man starts destroying the rest of Flaxan just by flying through their cities, causing massive shockwaves and making buildings explode like nukes due to his extreme flight speeds. As if to demonstrate the scale of destruction and Omni-Man's speed, we're given a shot of his trail of destruction from orbit, zig-zagging through the planet's surface in seconds before taking out a space station in a fraction of a second.
  • After he's done, he forces their scientists to open a portal back to Earth while holding a massive rock atop their heads... and drops it as soon as he leaves. What makes it worse wasn't just their horrified expressions, but one of the scientists clutching toward the other with their eyes closed.
  • Before all of this, Omni-Man gives this line that, under normal circumstances, would be a Declaration of Protection, but comes off as something more sinister as he prepares his onslaught.
    Omni-Man: You don't seem to understand, Earth isn't yours to conquer.
• From an in-universe perspective, the public announcement that the Guardians of the Globe are dead.

Who Are You Calling Ugly?

• At both of the funerals for the Guardians, the eulogy is delivered by their murderer Omni-Man.
  • It is extra chilling is that he is able to flawlessly deliver an emotional eulogy at the private funeral about the Guardians being his first friends upon arriving on Earth when the audience knows he slaughtered them all just days ago.
• Omni-Man's mere presence as he oversees a meeting of the new Guardians of the Globe from afar, most likely sizing up Earth's new defenders.
  Omni-Man: Pathetic.

Neil Armstrong, Eat Your Heart Out

• Omni-Man allows a dragon to rampage through Rome while his wife begs him to save people. He doesn't even flinch and demands that she say that she trusts him.
  • When she finally agrees and says she trusts him, he thanks her and continues to calmly sip his coffee.
    Debbie: I trust you. Now do something!
    Omni-Man: (utterly calm) I'm on vacation with my beautiful wife. Let Cecil earn his paycheck.
• The Sequids at the end manage to find a host human, and quickly swarm against the doomed Martians.

That Actually Hurt

• Titan hurling a pistol hard enough into gangster's head that it caves his skull in. And in another instance he puts a hole in their chest by throwing another member into them.
• Machine Head calls forth his goons to fight Invincible and Titan. While they're able to give the two a run for their money, one of them, Battle Beast, proves to be far above Invincible's punching weight. He easily beats him into a bloody pulp and slams his mace into Invincible's stomach hard enough to leave a gaping hole and cause blood to splatter against his face. And Battle Beast licks some of the blood off.
  • Mark futilely trying to crawl away from Battle Beast as he walks over to finish him off.
  • He also manages to take down the entire new Guardians of the Globe without breaking a sweat, snapping Black Samson's arm like a twig and bashing Monster Girl's face off. They were lucky that he left out of disappointment.
  • Monster Girl is still alive when the battle is over. However, while she healed as she returned from monster to human, she is still bleeding. No doubt it's unsettling to have that ability and recovering from the verge of death.
• At the outset of the fight we see Omni-Man looking down at Machine Head's headquarters, and in the aftermath of the battle (in which his own son was nearly killed) Mark catches a glimpse of his father hovering over the hole in the penthouse ceiling. While it's unclear if Nolan was the source of the anonymous tip to the Guardians of the Globe, the fact that he simply stood by while his son was nearly beaten to death is utterly terrifying.

You Look Kinda Dead

• The Reanimen are introduced and they are terrifying.
  • Adding to that, we, unfortunately, get to see how one get to be made at the beginning of the episode.
• Doug Cheston impaling himself after seeing what Sinclair did to his body.
• Debbie has Art examine Nolan's battle-damaged costume, discovering evidence to prove that he killed the Guardians. Nolan meanwhile already seems to know or suspect this and goes over to have a beer with Art as an excuse to most likely silence him. Fortunately, he doesn't kill Art, merely bribes him because he overheard them agreeing to keep it secret.
  • Then there's the final scene of him coming home to find Debbie drinking wine and confronting him about what he did. Nolan coldly dismissed Debbie as being drunk, only for her to spitefully tell him to fuck off before she heads upstairs, leading to him punching a hole in the wall in anger.
    • What's more nightmarish is the fact that he doesn't murder her right away despite the fact that he easily could if only because of the ambiguity it leaves behind.

We Need To Talk

• Cecil tells Debbie that he doesn't want Nolan dead, and even if he wanted to, they have no guaranteed failsafe. Mark may be the only one, but Debbie gives a blunt no, and Cecil reluctantly agrees because they can't find Mark and it would mean breaking the news to him that his father is a killer. Cecil's plain scared, and that should make the viewers terrified.
• Omni-Man's killing of Cecil's soldiers in his house, of which he's no less creative than he was with the Guardians of the Globe. He first notices them while they're cloaked from the sound of a floor creak and crushes one's head into the floor. Then he shoves one of their rifles through their face, pushes another against the countertop so hard it splits the soldier's body in half, casually rams himself against another (they were thankfully still cloaked) and kills the last soldier (who was fleeing) by sending her flying across the street from his door, twisting her torso a full 180 degrees. She dies from the injury before Nolan moves in to do anything else but in her last moments she reaches toward the house across the street, exposing the GDA surveillance post.
  • After that, Nolan finds Donald at the nearby house where Donald bravely distracts him so the rest of the staff can flee. Just as Donald reaches for the self-destruct button, Nolan grips and squeezes his back hard enough to reach his spine. Donald manages to slam the button but the blast doesn't even hurt Nolan.
• Just like in the comics, Cecil decided to use the Reanimen as foot soldiers, which is nightmare fuel in itself because these new models are from already dead soldiers. They were able to at least offer some resistance to Omni-Man before he kills them. And we, unfortunately, get the lovely image of Nolan literally shoving one of Cecil's spy cameras inside a corpse giving us a good look at its organs. Just to freak them out.
• Nolan's encounter with William is tense, at best. He acts like a stern father but, with the fact that William sees blood on the hero's suit, it's becoming clear that Nolan is slowly shedding his facade. He flies down in front of Williams' car, walks up to the driver's window and sternly demands him for Mark's whereabouts. When he gets irritated enough by William's struggle to find an answer, he lightly crushes the roof of the car. He thankfully leaves when William is able to point him in a direction.
  • It's worse when you realize all of William's answers he's giving Nolan are the truth, but they sound like terrible lies.
• Nolan's encounter with Cecil is also tense. The gun he uses succeeds only in getting his attention, and all Cecil has is his teleportation device to be one step ahead of Nolan. Cecil admits it's frightening that Nolan is always close to grabbing him and, after returning to the HQ, his tie is shown to have been torn in half from the teleportation field.
• The Immortal's revival. The Mauler Twins stitch his head back to his body, hinting that he needs to have his body whole to come back to life. They then put a mind control collar on him, intending to use him to get revenge on Robot and the new Guardians. Instead, the Immortal breaks the device, literally flying off in a screaming rage to find and kill Omni-Man.
  Immortal: WHERE IS OMNI-MAN!? WHERE IS HE!?
  • Similarly, his second death is brutal. Omni-Man guts him and bisects him brutally... with Immortal trying to gouge his eyeballs out the whole time, with copious blood involved.
• Minor, but the ending can give a bit of a terrified feeling. Usually, we have some kind of mid-credits scene or music. Here, we only have dead silence, with the sound of the wind in the background as the credits roll.

Where I Really Come From

• Nolan reveals the true colors of the Viltrumite Empire; they are not peaceful protectors but tyrannical conquerors. They created a society where only the strongest survive, and we see a montage of Viltrumites murdering each other to prove their strength. He also makes clear that planets that fall in line are able to prosper while being subjugated while those that resist are wiped out.
  • Worse, fans of the comics may recognize someone that appears in that flashback - that nothing good can come of.
• Once Nolan recognizes that Mark won't listen to reason, he decides to emotionally break him into realizing how meaningless humanity is by going on a killing spree. What follows is some of the most nightmarish and violent imagery in the entire show (which, given the show's history with gore, is saying a lot).
  Omni-Man: Do you really think you can stop me?
  • Nolan kills a pilot that Invincible just saved by grabbing his skull in one hand and crushing it, splattering his brains on Mark's face.
    • What makes this pure Nightmare Fuel for some is the quick, absolutely nonchalant, by-the-way attitude of the move. "So much effort. For what?" - splat, like he was crumpling up a piece of wet tissue. And it's pretty clear that that's also an apt description of how Nolan sees the situation.
  • He later punches Mark into downtown Chicago, killing an untold number of people. A building begins to crumble, and Invincible tries to save a mother and a child but fails after the building collapses, and the only thing left of them is the mother's severed arm.
    • It can't be overstated how horrifyingly tragic this scene is for nearly everyone. The very act of Invincible landing causes a surge of debris - cars, and pieces of the street go flying, crushing thousands of innocent civilians. When the building collapses, Mark desperately tries to save the civilians inside, telling them to hold on and that everything's going to be okay... and then the buildings collapses around them, killing everyone except Mark. When the dust settles, the only thing he can do is collapse to his knees in tears, overcome with guilt and trauma. It makes the final fight in Man of Steel look positively benign in comparison.
  • In probably the episode's most harrowing moment, Nolan drags Mark down into the subway by his head, and stands in the middle of the rails while holding Mark out in front of him, allowing a speeding train to CRASH RIGHT INTO THEM. Mark's superpowered body, held in place by Nolan, slices through the train (and its occupants) like a hot knife through butter. Mark can only scream helplessly in horror as over an agonizing 20 seconds the passengers are torn to pieces and reduced to giblets against his own body. Mark emerges from the carnage, numb with shock and soaked in all of the victims' blood.
  • Nolan continues to state how pointless and worthless humanity is and how he is above them, as he casually crushes a father reaching out for his daughter. He then claims that he has been going easy on Mark, and starts punching him around helplessly through the sky.
    Nolan: I will burn this planet down before I spend another minute living among these animals! [...] I was wrong to raise you as a human. I should have prepared you better. Taught you more. Your life has been soft and painless. You're a Viltrumite in blood only. Well your true education begins, now.
  • He then kicks Mark through a cruise ship and holds him underwater while several passengers are dead in the water.
  • Finally with an expression terrifying in itself, he throws Invincible to a mountain and punches him hard in the chest, causing an avalanche that takes out a village.
  • Still seeing Mark trying to resist, Nolan's had enough; callously claiming that another 17 years won't be a long time and he can just make another kid after killing Mark, before beating him senselessly until they're both covered in blood by the end of the fight. Mark has ripped skin on his nose, lips, and chin, and is completely covered in bruises.
    • While Omni-Man's claim that he can just "make another kid" is horrifying in its callousness toward Mark, there's an extra layer to it once you consider the full context: Omni-Man is well aware by now that the whole world knows who he really is, so unlike when he first arrived 20 years ago, he wouldn't be able to just seduce a random woman by saving her or something as he did with Debbie...but considering how he's just about unstoppable against Earth's current defenses and has zero qualms with hurting civilians by this point, he wouldn't need her consent anyway. And that's assuming he wouldn't just add onto Debbie's current immense trauma by choosing her again.
  • As this is happening the GDA, Guardians of the Globe, and Debbie are watching. Debbie has to hear her husband claim that he loved her like a "pet", that her life wasn't worth anything in the grand scheme of things and then beat their son nearly to death.
  • Even after all that, Mark is still clearly scarred not just by his battle with his father, but his other failures too. He remembers what his father said to him about wanting to be like him with heartwarming music and wholesome scenes, before the music, speech, and scenes start to worsen showing his failures and shift Nolan's speech over to what it actually means to be a Viltrumite.

Season 2

A Lesson For Your Next Life

• An alternate reality shows how bleak Earth would have become had Mark chosen to go along with Omni-Man. His utter callousness of crushing Immortal's head to permanently kill him off and only further cements his heinousness by breaking Atom Eve's neck to paralyze her as opposed to killing her. Shortly after, he rounds on the members of Eve's resistance up to kill them with a cold, unflinching smile, completely blasé about the entire experience.
  • Omni-Man ends his son's fight with the Immortal by cutting his arm off. Then dispatches him with greater ease than his alternate counterpart by snapping his other arm in half and decapitating him. Then Mark catches the head and crushes it. Mark paying no mind to the blood and meat splattered on his face makes it more disturbing.
  • According to Angstrom, most realities he's been to have Omni-Man and Invincible turning against humanity and laying waste to it.
  • The aforementioned neck-breaking opens up all kinds of Fridge Horror, especially when you hear her whimper and see tears pour down her cheeks. Imagine being utterly helpless, unable to move or speak or use your powers, kept alive for decades, visited by the monstrous sociopath who did this to you. And you also have to bear witness to the world being ground to dust under his heel... which you got a taste of when you heard (if not saw) him murder all those people in the shelter, completely unable to help.
    • According to Omni-Man, Mark's been practicing this on mobs.
  • The alternate reality we see at the start makes it abundantly clear that despite Omni-Man's attempts to placate Mark, the process of "preparing" the Earth for the Viltrum Empire was not going to be a pleasant process. Mass death and the destruction of mankind's cities appears to be inevitable because the Viltrumite response to defiance is immediate death to any people trying to fight back.
• The end result of Angstrom disrupting the upload process in an effort to prevent the Maulers from killing Invincible:
  • Most of the alternate Angstroms and Maulers are disintegrated instantly as the machine overloads and explodes, with this conceivably happening to all the other linked machines as well.
  • The surviving Mauler Twin has half of his body carbonized.
  • Angstrom is left a blood-soaked mess with brains bulging out of his head, shoulders, and half of his back. This combined with the overflow of information from the other (now dead) Angstroms causes him to quickly go mad, abandon his previous pacifism, and swear vengeance against Invincible so fast that even the Mauler is shocked by the turn.

In About Six Hours I Lose My Virginity To A Fish

• We finally get an answer about what happened to the two criminals that Darkwing was interrogating before he was called to the Guardians headquarters in the pilot: given no one knew they were there, the two of them died of starvation and their bodies decayed down to the bone over the following year. Their bodies are shown decomposing in horrifying detail even if for a few seconds.
• Nightboy, Darkwing's former side— er, assistant, was apparently driven mad by his mentor's death at Omni-Man's hands and has become a murderous vigilante.
  • Mark realizes the state he is in when Nightboy misinterprets Mark talking to Cecil on the earpiece as him also hearing voices.
    Cecil: (over earpiece) Ok, bring him in. He's lost it.
    Mark: You think?
    Nightboy: You hear them too? The voices?
    Mark: (uneasily) Oh, man... Hey, you're coming with me.
  • Despite his instability, Nightboy has the power to travel to and from the Shadowverse... and even take people with him to leave them there.
    Nightboy: There are dark things here, hungry things.
• The post credits scene shows Angstrom interrogating Mark in a reality where Omni-Man was defeated. How did humanity win? It required the GDA ambushing Omni-Man with experimental quantum bombs but resulted in most of the European continent being destroyed, and Mark was only captured after they pursued him relentlessly and he finally needed to sleep.
  • This Mark is also completely unrepentant for the death and destruction, he mentions that "it cost them most of Europe" as a mere afterthought. He only gets upset when Angstrom reveals he was never going to help Mark escape.

This Missive, This Machination!

• Allen is one of the strongest non-Viltrumite beings around, but it becomes brutally apparent just how far short he still falls when three Viltrumites abduct him and literally beat him (very graphically) to the very edge of death.
  • Similar to Nolan's murder of the Guardians, what makes it especially disturbing is how the Viltrumites are just so brutally, sadistically efficient with violence. They barely show a flicker of emotion while they methodically maim Allen. They're like robots programmed to commit horrific acts of violence. It goes to show just how sociopathic Viltrumites are, and the kind of culture they come from.

It's Been A While

• Again we are shown just how ruthless the Viltrumites are. We see three of them make landfall on the Thraxa and from what we see in a short amount of time they managed to kill millions of Thraxans, with Andressa and her son Oliver being the only on-screen survivors thanks to Mark and Nolan's efforts.
• Just how outclassed Mark is by them (at least initially). His fight with Lucan could barely be called that as the Viltrumite easily pushes Mark into the floor with only his finger. Making it worse is how Mark is very aware that he doesn't stand that much of a chance against them. When face to face with Thula, Mark practically tries to beg his way out of fighting her. Unfortunately the only mercy she's willing to give him is a quick death.
  Thula: Since you're Nolan's son, I'll make this quick.
• Their Social Darwinist philosophy in general. The passive dismissiveness of those they deem weaker is absolutely chilling. Not even those amongst their ranks are safe as after seeing that Nolan (seemingly) killed Lucan, Vidor can only say that he deserved to die for failing. Unless you are of Viltrumite descent (and if you are, you better be able to hold your own in a fight), then you are either dead or a slave. There is no other option.
• Nolan continues his penchant for inflicting gruesome injuries on his foes. He guts Lucan with a knifehand strike and follows up by shoving a stalactite through the injury; he beats Vidor and smashes his skull, though unlike Red Rush his head remains intact... just internally split in half. Finally he caves Thula's jaw into her face and she seemingly starts to drown in her own blood. While Nolan may have changed from his evil conquering ways, he is still most 'certainly as brutal and ruthless as ever if you piss him off.
  Nolan: (Slowly crushing Vidor's mangled skull under his foot) Do you regret attacking my family NOW?! DO YOU!?!
• The episode ends with Mark coming face to face with General Kregg, who out of a twisted Darwinistic respect for Mark holding his own and surviving the fight, decides to have him finish Nolan's mission and prepare the Earth for the Viltrumites' rule, ending with a very explicit threat as to the consequences of defiance:
  Kregg: You can kill a few humans to convince them to capitulate, or we will kill millions if we arrive to find you and your planet still defiant against us. And unlike your father, we do not change our minds.

This Must Come As A Shock

• Rex, Shrinking Rae, and Dupli-Kate's fight against the Lizard League goes south real fast. Like with Battle Beast in the previous season, what starts as a generic fight with random henchmen turns into a bloodbath.
  • Kate uses her clones to beat down Komodo Dragon, but he slowly but assuredly starts killing them faster than Kate can reproduce and eventually overpowers the last, who is now too weak to duplicate. As Kate uses another clone to try and escape his grasp, he catches the two and horrifically smashes them together, nearly killing Kate off for good. And the fact that both of the clone's bloodshot eyes are popping out... yeesh.
  • In the wake of this, an enraged Shrinking Rae manages to kill Salamander, itself Body Horror in its own right, with her entering his body through his eye, bursting the inside of his head, and popping his right eye out of his skull to get out.
  • Then... she tries to do the same to Komodo, and it seems like she might manage to accomplish doing so (his veins and neck almost burst). But she doesn't tear free of his body immediately and instead Komodo begins to strain back and flex inward, hunching over and crushing Rae inside him as her muffled yells of effort give way to screams of pain and horror... until with one final flex, her screaming cuts off with a crunch before Komodo spits out a bubble of her blood, presumably Rae's last gasp of air. The heroic music cutting off as her method is clearly not working as planned and Rex's realisation of this just adds to this.
    Komodo Dragon: Yum.
    • This YouTube comment gives a very disturbing insight into what the experience was probably like for Rae:
      tbuckley2031: It’s messed up because you immediately think if she can’t break out, her feet are in one of the strongest acids in the world.
  • The aftermath of Rae's apparent death is just as horrific. Her growth inside of Komodo resulted in a sizable spray of blood from his mouth and nose, implying she may have managed to rupture something inside him in her escape attempt. But after he incapacitates her, Komodo spends the rest of the scene with a crushed and mangled full-grown woman inside his torso, not necessarily just in his digestive tract, and it doesn't phase him one bit.
  • Though Rex manages to kill Iguana and Komodo in his crowning moment of awesome, it comes at the cost of his hand getting bitten off by Komodo - and even though that directly results in Komodo's death when the charged coin explodes inside his mouth, Rex can only collapse and start half-crying, half-cackling in a semblance of an attempt to process the horror he just witnessed and somehow survived. Regardless of how much of a Jerkass he's been until now (and especially in light of his tender moment with Eve prior), Rex did nothing to deserve this Trauma Conga Line. Hell of a way to Break the Haughty...
• To make it even more horrific, the Lizard League has been referred to countless times by numerous other heroes as a joke. This episode gives a disturbingly realistic wake up call (akin to Invincible's encounter with Battle Beast) that even normally crappy villains can be just as dangerous as more traditionally fearsome villains, especially towards heroes like Rex, Kate, and Rae who don't fit in the weight classes of Invincible, Immortal, or Atom Eve.
• After Shapesmith knocked out the real Rus Livingston and took his place, Rus was found by the Sequids and effectively made into their leader for the upcoming invasion, and the Guardians have a hell of a time battling an army of millions of them.
  • To wit: all the terrible shit listed for this episode happened because Shapesmith wanted to get off Mars and took his opportunity when he saw it. One childhood dream fulfilled is all it took for these gruesome events to unfold. Nice Job Breaking It, "Hero"!
• Donald's nightmare, in which he's inspecting the metal skeleton which then comes to life and starts strangling him, with the scientists in the room completely oblivious to his cries for help.

It's Not That Simple

• King Lizard nearly executing Rex with a bullet to the head. Rex lives thanks to King’s aim being a tad off and gets back up, but there's a constant spurt of blood shooting from his wound, his right eye is bloodshot, and he's barely lucid to register King Lizard until he's had enough of his taunts.
• As awesome as it was, Rex beating the bloody shit out of King Lizard by repeatedly punching him in the face with the bone stump where his right hand used to be until the villain's face is almost caved in. Then he furiously stomps on him for good measure.
• Shrinking Rae manages to survive being crushed inside of Komodo Dragon, presumably due to quickly shrinking when her plan was clearly not working, breaking out of the flesh of Komodo's severed neck. But she's covered in the villain's blood, visibly bruised around her eyes and left in critical condition. If anything, the fact that she was alive inside him after getting crushed may be even worse.
• Despite the Guardians of the Globe successfully halting the Sequid invasion before it can reach Earth and bringing the real Rus Livingston home, one of the Sequids comes along with them and possesses Rus once more after he vomits it into his sink.
  • Rus shared that he was aware of his possession the whole time; the Sequids wouldn't let him sleep, and after returning to earth he wearily requested to just go home and rest.
• The Stinger shows Angstrom Levy getting fitted with a suit that he plans on wearing to get revenge on Mark.
  Levy: Oh, it is good to be home!

I'm Not Going Anywhere

• In the middle of Mark's date with Amber, a Viltrumite, Anissa, suddenly enters the scene out of nowhere demanding that Mark speak with her about his progress on conquering Earth, or she'll slaughter everyone in the restaurant they're in, starting with Amber. This threat is delivered with bone chilling casualness while her hand is calmly resting around Amber's neck, and Amber herself is slowly shedding tears of fear.
  • Anissa’s presence is a horrifying reminder for how helpless humanity (including those with superpowers) are against Viltrumites. A terrified Amber describes how Anissa’s grip was like an iron clamp that could kill her at any second, and she isn't wrong. Mark is only able to save Amber and the surrounding civilians by convincing Anissa that he will talk to her as long as she leaves Amber and the people unharmed. And Anissa tells him to make it quick…
    • As much as Anissa talks to Mark about how her and the Viltrumite Empire could help humanity, and even denounces any personal sadism, it’s clear that she doesn’t value human life anymore than Vidor or Thula did on Thraxia. She shows not a shred of hesitance to kill Amber or the surrounding people and the tone in her voice lets you know she can and will in a heartbeat if Mark doesn’t comply.
  • Her actions and demeanor as Invincible fights against a kaiju attacking a cruise ship. Even as Mark struggles against the monster and the surrounding civilians put in peril, she simply… watches, calmly surveying the beasts’ rampage and not lifting a finger until it’s clear to her that Mark alone is inefficient. At which point, she rushes straight through the creature, instantly killing it and shedding the blood covering her whole body off just by stopping mid flight. She doesn’t even blink. Anissa points out the civilians being in danger, but her choice of words make it clear that she was only prioritizing a demonstration for Mark above any of the lives that were at stake.
• After managing to fight evenly against Thula in It's Been A While, there might be some hope that Invincible can hold his own against another Viltrumite should things get violent. There isn't. Anissa completely outclasses Mark to the point of helplessness. Their fight is arguably even more one sided than when Mark tried to fight his father, if a lot less drawn out and brutal. The GDA already determined that they can do nothing to even the odds or assist without escalating into a bloodbath; sending in other superhero teams would be "feeding them to wolves", and their own artillery wouldn't be able to hit her provided they even had any effect. It's a chilling demonstration of how helpless Invincible still is compared to a fully-trained Viltrumite, and more-over how bleak Earth's prospects are against a Viltrumite invasion when just one of them can already prove too much to handle.
  • Anissa very nearly crushes Mark's throat under her foot, just stopping before he dies. He just regains both his consciousness and his breath after she takes her foot off. Then she promises the next Viltrumite won't be as patient as her if he's still resistant.
  • Fans of the original series are no doubt aware of just how terrible Anissa can truly be, despite her logical and merciful disposition. While the scene is also taken from their first fight in the comics, the imagery of Mark in a crater beneath Anissa surely brought back some unpleasant memories for those fans as well.
• Angstrom takes Debbie and Oliver hostage in order to draw Mark into a fight, calling him on Debbie's phone to get straight to the hero.
  Mark: Hi Mom...
  Angstrom: Hello Mark. When are you coming home?

I Thought You Were Stronger

• The entire situation the Graysons find themselves in with Angstrom Levy. At this point, the man is totally insane and holding Debbie and baby Oliver hostage. Mark, despite his powers, is unable to move fast enough to stop Levy before he teleports him to another Earth where Mark is attacked by a variety of different threats, including dinosaurs and zombies (Walkers?). On top of that, he makes it clear to Mark that the minute he figures out that nothing can physically harm him, he will resort to hurting Debbie and Oliver as a back up plan.
  • And while Angstrom claims he won't harm Debbie or Oliver as long as Mark essentially plays along with his plan to kill him, he's very callous with their well-being; throwing Oliver by the arm like he's a doll with him only being saved by Debbie catching him in time. Then, in what's somehow one of the most full-body-wince-inducing injuries in the entire show, he snaps Debbie's arm at the wrist, nearly taking her hand clean off. only all because Debbie told him off that HE'S the villain and not her Mark. She still reaches out for a crying Oliver in spite of the pain, struggling to tell him she's okay while shedding tears and stammering in agony, all the while as Angstorm threatens to hurt her and her family even more. No one's truly safe from harm in this show...
    Angstrom: (To Debbie, while holding a screaming Oliver by the leg) I'm going to make your son... hurt. I'm gonna make YOU hurt... I'm even gonna make this child... hurt...
  • According to Angstrom, he's discovered a few universes where Debbie willingly joined Mark and Nolan in conquering Earth. Yes, you read that right. Willingly.
  • For all his talk of being the good guy in this confrontation, when finally battling Mark himself in a normal city, Angstrom casually pushes two random civilians into other dimensions for simply being in his way. Putting aside the sheer callousness and cruelty of that act, imagine being one of those two people, forever missing from their home timeline...and then think about the Death World that they were likely sent to, lacking Mark's powers and combat experience, all due to an absurd case of bad timing.
• In a departure from the comic, this episode shows the various Marks that Angstrom and his multiversal counterparts have encountered, and from what we are shown, Mark being a good guy is not a common trend across the multiverse.
  • One version of Invincible finds Angstrom and his understandably scared young son and comments on how weak and pathetic they are. As a show of “mercy”, he decides to kill Angstrom's son quickly, which he does right in front of Angstrom as he futilely tries to stop him, only for a splatter of blood to hit his face when Angstrom moves.
  • Another version of Angstrom is a cop trying to stop an evil Invincible along with his fellow officers. Invincible slaughters them in a step, and pops the last one’s head off.
  • A third version of Angstrom is in a prison camp at the end of a long line of kneeling people that Invincible is walking alongside, and casually decapitating with a wave of his arm. One by one as he's getting closer and closer to Angstrom, who seems to solemnly accept his fate.
• Mark's final beatdown of Angstrom when he gains the upper hand in their fight. He knocks Angstrom down and starts punching him over and over again, throwing off Angstrom's attempts to fight back before hitting him even harder...again, and again, and again. By the time he finally stops and realizes just how far he went, Mark is dripping rivers of Levy's blood, his arms are caked in flesh and brain matter, and the ruins they were "fighting" in are stained red from viscera. Mark, of course, is left completely and utterly horrified.
  • The worst part is, despite how the series thus far has never been afraid of Gorn, we're kept from seeing the full extent of Mark's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown - the camera pans up to Angstrom's neck, and that's all we get.
  • As Mark dashes at Levy when the latter admits that he will kill Mark's family, the music turns triumphant and heroic... until he smashes him into the ground with an overhead and his entire face becomes splattered with blood. After a brief wean, the music entirely cuts out for the rest of Mark's "fight" with Angstrom... just like how the music cut out after Omni-Man crushed Red Rush's skull to pieces.
• After being rescued by the future Guardians, Mark says he has no idea if he would have survived without their intervention. Robot says he did survive on the ruined earth, alone, for twenty years... and that Mark wouldn't have liked what he became.