The whole subplot of Mark keeping his secret identity from his friends and girlfriend can have this Aesop: "You don't always understand someone else's perspective". Mark is judged for hiding his secret identity from William and Amber who don't have full-insight to his experiences. On his end he also does treat them poorly on occasions, not fully appreciating William and Amber's perspective on events or Eve's either, leading to her anger with him as well. The situation is only amended by more mutual understanding of everyone's perspective too. With an apology and a promise of more openness in the future from everyone, as Eve, William and Amber take Mark out for burgers and ask about his well-being after his fight with his father. Them apologizing on their ends and promising to be there going forth, while Mark also apologizes and commits to being a better and more honest friend and boyfriend.
Nolan/Omni Man's entire journey from loyal Viltrumite soldier to loving husband and father due to his time on Earth shows that sometimes even the shortest parts of our lives can be the ones that leave the most impact.
In episode 8, Mark recovers after having been beat to near-death by his father Omni-Man and forced to watch him mass murder civilians right in front of him to "teach a lesson," to the point that he lost most of his teeth and needed a neck brace. There are a few subtle hints of trauma: it has rendered him not quite ready to take up superheroics again and looking at a photo triggers a bad flashback for him, rendering him unable to keep looking at it, but overall he seems to have taken it surprisingly well. Allen the Alien lampshades it, asking if he's okay. Mark admits he's not okay, considering the circumstances, but he's better than he was.
Samson gets this in the last episode as well. He's the Sole Survivor of the former Guardians, owing to a Career-Ending Injury that took away his powers. Samson finds out on live camera that Omni-Man murdered his former friends, showing no remorse for it, and realizes that he avoided the slaughter by sheer chance. Rather than ponder and muse on this, he agrees with Rex Splode that they need to evacuate people from Omni-Man causing planetary destruction, even looking proud of Rex for suggesting the idea. After the dust has settled, Samson focuses on being A Father to His Men, saying happily if somberly that the new Guardians rose to the occasion and are finally a team.
Allen the Alien is a chipper guy who goes around testing planetary defenses as part of his job. Episode 8 reveals that his people were slaughtered by the Viltrumites, and the survivors had to establish breeding camps to avoid dying out. This apparently inspired Allen to join the Coalition of Planets to avenge his people and stop other species from suffering the same fate. Yet he's a wisecracking inspector; the only time we saw him truly scared was when he was terrified that a Viltrumite mole had conquered Earth already and hurt Mark, fearing he was too late to provide help. Yet when they talk about their tangles with Viltrumites, Allen brushes his tragic backstory off as "I never knew my father" because he was generated as part of a breeding program and in fact is more worried about Mark, who found out he was a Viltrumite and his father was the mole. He also notes it's a Game Changer that Mark is Viltrumite by blood but Earth by nurture, because that gives the resistance a fighting chance against the colonization. It's very considerate of him, but he's tough.
Awesome Animation: The show has quite a bit of these to offer. Surprisingly most of these examples come from Omni-Man.
The fight scene at the end of the first episode is well-received in part because of its fluid animation and amazingly gruesome art.
Just like the above, Omni-Man's decimation of the Flaxan's planet is fantastic because of the utterly beautifully animated destruction done by the Viltrumite, the song playing is just the cherry on top.
The Sad-Times Montage that plays as Omni-Man flies through space has many breathtaking visuals of planets and stars, ending with a downright-mesmerizing shot of a black hole as Omni-Man stares into it.
Awesome Music: The showrunners have a pretty good taste and choice in music.
"Tom Tom" by Holy Fuck an alternative rock song that plays when Omni-Man decimates the entire Flaxan race and planet to show how much of a monster he can really be.
"Hate To Say I Told You So" by The Hives. A banging tune that plays during the montage showcasing what's going on Earth and around the universe during the aftermath of the whole Omni-Man ordeal.
"A Lesson For Your Next Life" opens with a montage of Mark's continued struggle with heroics after his father's betrayal to the tune of "Karma Police". Perfectly encapsulating the vibe of Season 2's downer start.
"It's Been Awhile" shows us what happened to Nolan immediately after the end of the season, with him flying through space alone, contemplating suicide as he passes through a black hole. This is all set to Nick Cave's haunting cover of Leonard Cohen's "Avalanche", which hammers home the feeling that Nolan is now truly alone in the universe.
Awesomeness Withdrawal: The decision to have a mid-season break for Season 2 has raised concerns among some viewers that it would damage the show's hype train, especially considering the two-year wait between Season 1 and 2. Sure enough, by the time the second half finally came around, the show had already fallen off the public eye with some online even expressing surprise that it had already premiered.
Base-Breaking Character: Amber. While her frustrations with Mark are understandable at first, as Mark constantly disappears without any explanation to go and do hero work, then comes Episode 7, where she reveals that she knew Mark was a superhero for a couple weeks now, which completely reframes some of her past moments of anger with him, and firmly splits the fanbase in two. On the one hand, there is a crowd of fans who still think she is justified in her anger at Mark, and who would still prefer to see Mark in a relationship with her compared to Eve or someone else, see how Mark is fighting to be in a relationship with her despite his hero work, and see her coming round at the end of the season as her redemption for the season's constant misunderstandings, and think of her positively for it. On the other hand, the other section of fans believe she is a toxic influence on Mark, constantly angry at him specifically because he put his duty as a superhero before her (despite the fact that him not standing her up would have resulted in the death of hundreds if not thousands of people which she is perfectly aware of), lecturing him about trust despite knowing he was a hero to begin with, and for only welcoming him back after Mark got beaten to a bloody pulp by Omni-Man. Then there are those in the middle who believe both sides are flawed. Amusingly even in the second season, where she's noticeably much more understanding and supportive toward Mark her character is still hotly debated. Now fans are split between being happy about her Character Development or being mad that the writers are apparently attempting damage control.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In episode 4, there is an extensive sequence of a cultist uncovering a tomb and finding a mummy called "Ka-Hor" that is resurrected. Then the tomb is immediately re-sealed and the mummy is not seen or heard from again. The tomb is later revised in the Season 2 finale, showing two women (one the daughter of the now dead cultist, the other a woman with low level super strength) encountering Ka-Hor, but it comes across just as random.
Cant Unhear It: By the time you finish the show and decide to (re)read the comic, you're probably now hearing Steven Yeun and J. K. Simmons as Mark and Nolan respectively.
Although it doesn't really do anything in the long run, seeing Omni-Man being beaten up by the Reanimen, Hail Mary, and the revived Immortal can be quite an enjoyable sight since it's the closest he has been on the ropes.
After DA Sinclair had been kidnapping various innocent people and turning them into his "reanimen" and had just been acting like a giant Jerkass in general, it's quite satisfying to see William, of all people, give him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and then see Mark punch him so hard he dislocates his jaw. And even moreso to see him being exploited and abused for his intellect by Cecil to make Reanimen ethically.
Diagnosed by the Audience: Atom-Eve is interpreted by some fans to be autistic, or at least autistic-coded, as, when she was younger, she could avoid eye contact for those who she doesn’t know.
While not an awful person, Cecil tends to get this treatment from the fandom pretty frequently. Fans generally praise the good/cool stuff he is responsible for while ignoring his more heinous actions of sending hopelessly outmatched soldiers into Nolan's home, teaming up with the morally unethical Sinclair, and refusing to call off Hail Mary's attack even when it goes after the morally upstanding Mark.
Amazingly (or rather unsurprisingly in hindsight), Omni-Man gets this. Sometimes given the Blue-and-Orange Morality justification, and sometimes done purely for his looks. The fact that he is a Jerkass Woobie and Tragic Villain doesn't hurt either.
While absolutely not overall as a character, being a morally upstanding guy who means well - Mark gets this for how the relationship with Amber ultimately went so South. Frequently called blameless and it even being said "Mark did nothing wrong". While his mistakes were understandable, he did still make several of them.
The Mauler Twins are very well loved due to being Laughably Evil thugs while still being legitimate threats. Their hilarious Running Gag certainly helps.
Doc Seismic also found a fan-base for being a Large HamPolitically Correct Villain. People were happy to find out that he had somehow survived his "death".
Donald Ferguson is very popular for being the level-headed assistant of Cecil, an overall Nice Guy as well as resembling Bobby Hill. The fact that he shoots Omni-Man, stands up to him, and blows up the house that they were in also gave him a reputation as a badass, and fans are saddened that he died.
Despite only appearing in a single episode, Machine Head is quite popular for his Hammy, Laughably Evil personality and Auto-Tune voice and there are fans holding out hope that he makes a return in later seasons.
Allen the Alien, for being such a lovable and funny Nice Guy to Invincible. This is unsurprising, as the character was widely beloved in the comic too.
Battle Beast, for being the very definition of a Boss in Mook Clothing, giving one of the most memorable fights in a show full of great fight scenes, and being played by a perfectly-cast Michael Dorn. Again, comic fans weren't surprised, as he made a big splash there as well.
Komodo Dragon saw an explosion in popularity with "This May Come As A Shock" due to being a Boss in Mook Clothing like Battle Beast and turning out to be a nightmarish monster in battle who kills Kate, cripples Rae, maims Rex, and just generally carries the Lizard League throughout the whole episode, to the point that King Lizard ends up blowing an easy victory near-immediately after Komodo dies. Many have hailed him as a great example of the series' toying with expectations (seeming like a generic brute only to really be a total badass who single-handedly turns a Breather Episode into a Wham Episode) and it's not uncommon for him to be jokingly described as the Hyper-Competent Sidekick of the Lizard League in general.
Agent Spider from the season 2 finale quickly became a fan-favorite for being the closest thing viewers will get to an adaptation of Invincible's crossover with Spider-Man and also being voiced by Josh Keaton in a technical Role Reprise of his portrayal of Spidey from The Spectacular Spider-Man. Some have even said that Agent Spider should even get his own spin-off series.
Epileptic Trees: The announcement that Josh Keaton will be part of the Season 2 cast has spawned rumors online that the show might do an animated adaptation of Invincible's crossover with Spider-Man, which was further supported by the confirmation that Angstrom Levy will appear. Come the final episode, Mark doesn't actually meet Spider-Man, but rather a Spider Man Sendup who nonetheless implies he has experience with alternate universes.
While Omni-Man is a horrible person, he's an awesomePerson of Mass Destruction who gets to show how awesome his powers are and how the audience should Beware the Superman. It's little wonder that his annihilation of the Flaxans quickly became a popular scene.
The Mauler Twins get this not only for their personalities but also their incredible strength and brilliant minds to complement it. Their ingenuity and ability to create all sorts of gadgets and devices from either junk or any kind of materials they can get their hands on is pretty damn impressive for a duo whom look like a textbook case of the Dumb Muscle trope. Their Leitmotifs being songs from Run the Jewels certainly helps too.
Episode 5 introduces Battle Beast. While an absolutely bloodthirsty combatant, his effortless curbstomping of Invincible and the Guardians of the Globe coupled with his Blood Knight characterization made him a memorable talking point. Him being voiced by Michael Dorn also helps.
D. A. Sinclair is a mad scientist who kidnaps and horrifically mutilates and lobotomizes people into Reanimen, in an attempt to improve humanity by increasing their lifespan and removing their physical restrictions. The Reanimen are shown to be capable of going toe-to-toe with Mark, which leads to Sinclair getting hired by Cecil despite his despicable actions. Taken even further when they manage to slow down Omni-Man for a bit.
"Discount Batman", "Discount Wonder Woman", and so on for the Guardians of the Globe, since they're obvious expies of DC Comics' Justice League.
Omni-Man is nicknamed Space Hitler or Super Hitler for two reasons: He has a similar mustache like Hitler. not to mention being an alien, racist Omnicidal Maniac and also because many viewers who watched the German dub of the show quickly noticed how his German voice actor make him sound like the Fuhrer, either accidentally or not, or more accurately, the Downfall version of him.
Donald Ferguson is often referred to as Bobby Hill due to him looking like a grown up version of the character.
As stated in the Cowboy BeBop at His Computer entry above, the kaiju Cecil uses to stop Nolan is given the nickname "Hail Mary". Cecil means to use the kaiju as a last resort, which is the meaning of the term "hail Mary".
Because Thaedus is voiced by Peter Cullen whose most famous role is Optimus Prime from Transformers, fans have given him the name Thaedus Prime.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Mark and William. Due to the latter being the most supportive to Mark in the 1st season. Even when William's boyfriend Rick was turned into Reaniman and held it against him for a little bit, he was still willing to be friends with him afterward. He was also the most concerned for him after Mark's battle with Omni-Man.
Due to being Amazon Prime-exclusives released around the same time and being Spiritual Antitheses of each other, Invincible has an audience overlap with The Boys (2019).
With King of the Hill due to the fact that the show has severalreferencesto the comic. Then there's also the memes involving Donald Ferguson's similar appearance to Bobby Hill.
With My Hero Academia, due to the similarities between Mark and Midoriya and both being focused on Western Superheroes.
With fans of WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, especially the latter due to its more serious approach to superheroes, similar to this show. The fact that Invincible dropped the week after Falcon began also helps.
With Dragon Ball Z, a carryover from the comics, due to Viltrumites being very similar to Saiyans in terms of being very powerful and violent aliens sending invaders to unsuspecting planets. This is heavily enforced in the Mexican redub of the show, since many of the voice actors worked in the dub of the anime adaptation, and the same goes double for Humberto Solórzano as Omni-Man since he previously voiced both Raditz and King Vegeta, both members of such race.
Genius Bonus: All the men from Viltrum have a mustache on their upper lip. The groove in your upper lip is called a “philtrum,” which is nearly a homophone of “Viltrum.”
Debbie and Nolan have many Sickening Sweethearts moments that embarrass Mark and make William jealous since they have such a healthy dynamic. They go on international dates, and she enjoys spending time with him while showing no fear about calling him out on his Innocently Insensitive moments. Season one ends with Nolan saying that Debbie was nothing more than a "pet" to him because he would outlive her...while she's listening via Cecil's remote drones. Cecil gets an Everyone Has Standards moment and apologizes that Debbie heard that. Debbie understandably ends the episode Drowning My Sorrows with Art, with both of them asking if they really knew Nolan at all.
Omni-Man telling the Flaxans that "you don't understand, Earth isn't yours to conquer" and then proceeding to completely destroy them, already a disturbing scene showcasing both Omni-Man's full, unrestrained power and how far he is willing to go, becomes this in light of The Reveal in the season one finale. Omni-Man wasn't trying to save Earth, he was angry that a bunch of aliens were trying to steal his conquest. Earth wasn't theirs to conquer, it was his.
Doc Seismic knocking Abraham Lincoln's head off of Mount Rushmore, in light of (a) the fact that Lincoln was actually the Immortal, and (b) his death by decapitation in the first episode.
A 2006 issue of Marvel Team-Up featured a crossover between Invincible and Spider-Man. Fifteen years later, Omni-Man would be voiced by Spider-Man's most vocal critic.
This wouldn't be the last time that Sandra Oh voices the parent of a main character, who dresses primarilly in green and acts distant to at least one of her children, while still caring for them.
Nolan and Art, especially the scene where Nolan treats him to beer. Art is terrified that Nolan is going to snap his neck the way that Omni-Man killed the Guardians, but Nolan overheard him promise Debbie that he wouldn't tell anyone, and casually persuades him to keep his word. It's notable that Art was spared, considering what Omni-Man did to Damien Darkblood to get him out of the way. After Nolan reveals his true colors to the world, Art spends his days drinking when not sewing costumes, and he shares his hard liquor with Debbie. They both commiserate over the fact that Nolan lied to them, and note that Debbie is Nolan's wife.
Mark and William. William being gay certainly helps, but that he's also one person in the show who isn't Mark's mom who truly accepts Mark for who he is definitely contributes, especially with him being the Gay Best Friend. And even then, the homoerotic tension in unrelated scenes certainly helps too. It's not uncommon in the fandom to see people shipping the two.
I Knew It!: Just like The Boys (2019), many Latin American fans suggested their own ideas for a hypothetical Mexican redub of the series, being Humberto Solórzano the main suggestion for voicing Omni-Man due to his similarity with J. Jonah Jameson, a character he dubs from the live-action films. Come 2023, and both things became true.
Informed Wrongness: After the reveal that Amber knew that Mark was Invincible, everyone treats it as though Amber's anger towards him was completely justified and that he has no one to blame but himself for his relationship falling apart. Never mind the fact that Omni-Man and Cecil put a lot of expectations onto Mark that none of the other young heroes have to carry (including Eve, who's in the "Amber was right" camp), but he's trying to keep his personal-life and hero-life separate for the safety of his loved ones. Furthermore, Amber knowing the truth and waiting for Mark to confess is supposed to be an indication that Mark didn't trust her and was wrong for not doing so, but Amber never tries to hint to Mark she's aware of the truth, so it comes across as Mark being told he's wrong for not being honest about something he didn't know she had already figured out, which results in Amber looking like a hypocrite to some viewers.
It's Short, So It Sucks!: Probably the most common complaint is that there's only eight episodes in the first season, while the 40-ish minute run time allows a significant chunk of events to be covered, it comes at the cost of many events becoming very condensed and skipped over as a result. Most evidently, Robot's desire to get himself a new body and cure Monster Girl is rather rushed compared to the original material.
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Omni-Man is from a powerful race who conquer planets across the galaxy. He killed the original guardians and when his son finds out, brutally beats him and kills several civilians to convince him how expendablehumans are, including his wife. He's also conflicted on his feelings for his family and mission. While there are fans who revile him (especially his abusive aspects, which can strike a more real life cord) many others sympathize with him or finding himbrutally awesome. There are, however, several other characters who the audience is supposed to sympathize with that gets more divisive reactions:
Amber, while in comparison a regular teenager who does a lot of altruistic community volunteering, receives a much harder time from the fandom. This is for her being very angry instead of supportive of Mark, after finally figuring out before episode 6 that the truth behind him lying and flaking for months was his being a bone fide Superhero. With her viewed as a hypocritical Secret Secret-Keeper, for not then confessing her realization herself and the teen’s anger being very controversial within the fandom.
This trope can also, with the "jerks" part played even more straight, be extended to three others on the show: the school bully Todd, who feels like a Corrupted Character Copy of Spider-Man's Flash Thompson who possesses none of the humanizing and redeeming features to keep him from being a pure Hate Sink until Season 2 gave him a Pet the Dog moment. Eve's repressive, unsupportive, emotionally abusive dad Adam Wilkins, who barely conceals his misogyny and Stay in the Kitchen attitude even towards his own daughter (whom he has to stop from accuing of "acting like a bitch" on one occasion). And Rex Splode, who prior to his Jerkass Woobie and Pet the Dog moments in the first season's last episodes spends his screen time as a massively egocentric, hotheaded, disrespectful and verbally demeaning Jerkass who manages to be even more unpleasant than his already heavily flawed source material counterpart and refuses to learn better due to a terrible case of Never My Fault, such as after getting caught cheating on Eve with Dupli-Kate or being chewed out by Black Samson multiple times. A lot of the villains Invincible fights give the viewer less reason to want to see their faces pounded in than these characters regularly do.
Rex Splode is an arrogant and cocky bonehead who constantly insults people, and cheated on his girlfriend, but he is implied to have a Dark and Troubled Past, with him claiming he never went to high school. When Robot copies his mind into a younger clone of Rex, Rex is understandably unhappy at this, claiming that looking at a kid version of him brings up bad memories. Eve later implies that Rex grew up homeless, which would explain a lot.
While Omni-Man is exceptionally evil, the seventh episode of the series shows that he's also something of a pitiable figure. His relationship with Debbie falls apart despite the fact he genuinely claims to love her, his plans come crashing down around him as his web of lies is cut apart, and by the end his search for Mark feels like a combination of wanting to fulfill his plans and just wanting someone, anyone, who will trust and believe in him. He even states that he doesn't necessarily want to be evil, and only feels that it's his responsibility to be so, treating his villainy as a burden rather than something desirable. This comes to a head in the season finale when, after committing mass murder and beating Mark within an inch of his life, Nolan breaks down over the realization that Mark still loves him, showing how much his dual life and loyalty to Viltrum has destroyed him.
Doug Cheston might be a drunk fratboy douche, but it's hard not to feel bad for him when he is turned into a Reanimen. The fact he kills himself after he returns to his senses.
Adam and Betsy Wikins may not be the best parents to Eve, but they've had their own share of tragedy from originally having to deal with their real child being stillborn, only being given relief from Eve being passed off to them as the same child having survived.
Just Here for Godzilla: It's safe to say a lot of fans were pretty much only there for the promise of gory superhero action, and rejected negatively to the show focusing on anything else. This bleeds into another Godzilla, in that some fans are only interested in Omni-Man and his part of the show, since he's typically a solid provider of the gruesome action scenes this part of the audience loves.
LGBT Fanbase: Omni-Man is pure grade-A bara material and it really shows in all the fanart, the Immortal also counts, and so could Mark. In short, the number of attractive and well-muscled males is really a plus for the series' gay male fans. Also William Clockwell could be seen as the audience surrogate for LGBT men. And then there's the giant muscle-bound anthropomorphic white lion-like alien, Battle Beast.
Rudolph "Rudy" Connors, aka "Robot", is an incredibly intelligent deformed man who seeks a new body of his own. Choosing the best heroes he can find to replace the Guardians of the Globe, after Rudy takes notice of Monster Girl and sympathizes with her condition, he sets out to create a proper body for himself. Breaking the Mauler Twins out of prison to make them clone a new body for him, Rudy sneakily takes a blood sample from Rex to be used in the cloning process. Doing what he must to ensure Monster Girl's survival out of genuine affection, once his new body is finished, Rudy transfers his memories over to the clone, knowing that he will die afterwards. Delivering some parting words to his clone, Rudy's clone handily betrays the Mauler Twins by sending out his drones and letting them get imprisoned again, afterwards assisting the Guardians in attempting to stop Omni-Man.
Titan is a superhuman enforcer for the crime boss Machine Head. Being forced to serve his boss in order to protect his wife and daughter, Titan only kills those who he feels deserve it, at one point even giving a man money to rent an apartment after burning his old one down. Seeing Invincible as a way to break Machine Head's grip over the city, Titan coerces Invincible into helping him take down his boss with the assistance of the Guardians, even getting his lackey Isotope to abandon him in return for power. Despite everybody suffering major injuries after Machine Head sics his supervillains on them, Titan easily swoops in to take Machine Head's place once he's apprehended, promising to help clean up the city with Isotope and his family by his side.
Though Komodo Dragon was ultimately just a mook that served the Lizard League, he is often complimented by fans as the one that did all the heavy-lifting to boost the Lizard League into such a dangerous position as villains, due to his actions of seemingly killing Dupli-Kate, debunking the Ant-Man vs. Thanos Theory by how he crushed Shrinking Rae to near-death with his own body, and biting off Rex's hand. In general, fans like to describe Komodo as "carrying" the Lizard League in a manner akin to the one good player in an online game.
Shrinking Rae turned into this after managing to survive the aforementioned Fold-Spindle Mutilation from Komodo and getting an awesome kill on Salamander. This is a surprising twist from her comic counterpart, who was pretty much The Load of the Guardians.
Darkwing is mocked relentlessly for his Too Dumb to Live strategy against Omni-Man, earning the name of Discount Batman, and many jokes about his death are quite common.
Mark/Invincible himself also gets a good dose of this due to the sheer amount of fights that end with him beaten to a bloody pulp, making many people to point out that his hero name is one hell of an Ironic Name, with some calling him "Vincible" as Allen the Alien lampshades in amusement.
Immortal is supposed to be one of Earth's strongest superheroes, but the battles he involves himself in are always filled with people that are tremendously stronger than him. As a result, anytime Immortal is losing to a battle, he is likely to be killed in each loss, giving him the reputation as to why he is considered an Immortal person if he keeps on dying.
Moe: Mark as a child is adorably precious with his wide joyous smiles and the missing teeth. Although the comparison cut between a young happy Mark as he is being lifted by his father after winning a baseball game to present Mark's bloodied and beaten face makes it incredibly tragic and heart-breaking.
There is ambiguity regarding the circumstances that led Omni-Man to murder the original Guardians of the Globe. There is a whole lot less regarding him refusing to intervene when his own son was being beaten nearly to death by Battle Beast despite him being present and witnessing the whole thing.
He retroactively goes even further over it by revealing that he killed the original Guardians to weaken Earth's defenses, then he proceeds to go even further over it by gruesomely killing a ton of people in front of Mark just to prove how fragile humans are. By the end, when Omni-Man's Conflicting Loyalty finally reaches its peak, even he seems to realize just how far past the line he's taken things, and Mark loses all respect for him with the only exception of him being his father.
Even if he didn’t cross it earlier, Omni-Man using his son’s flailing body to kill a train full of people, including children is definitely this.
DA Sinclair crosses it when he kidnaps Rick, removes his frontal lobe while making him a Reanimen, and forces him to kidnap an investigating William in turn as well as attempt to murder Invincible. And why? Because Rick told him off in biology class for being rude to the teacher and sexist. Unsurprisingly, when the tide turns in the fight, William subjects him to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, Mark dislocates his jaw, and Cecil says that he would also like to inflict bodily harm on the man.
Angstrom Levy crosses it when he starts deliberately injuring Debbie and Oliver just to torment Mark. For Mark personally, Levy crosses it when he breaks Debbie's arm, which causes Mark to cease any attempts at de-escalation and to stop pulling his punches.
In episode 7 The Immortal fights with Omni-Man, giving him bloodshot eyes. The end of the episode is supposed to be an emotional moment where Omni-Man turns to Mark to tell him the truth, but his eyes make him look stoned.
In general, the cut to the title Once per Episode is widely considered this, due to the fact that they come in at extremely sudden and jarring times. The best example is probably in Episode 3, where the sad and somber scene of the Guardians' funeral with Olga's weeping is commented on by Mark, only to cut away near the end of his sentence and return to the funeral immediately after.
When Omni-Man is hit by The Hammer a flock of crows falls dead. Even if you're not a bird person this scene would be fairly somber in theory... but all birds following the first are the same png copy-pasted ad nauseaum shown falling from the sky already splattered, making the scene feel somewhat silly.
Thaedus ripping off his beard to reveal himself as a Viltrumite is treated as a big deal for Allen, but to the audience, a character revealing themselves to be a Viltrumite through a beard rip looks too ridiculous to to take seriously.
Machine Head's voice. They opted to give him Auto-Tune, thus his threatening demeanor is undercut by making some of his words end up singing. A lot of people love this because it gives him a unique charm.
Thaedus dramatically ripping off his beard to reveal a Viltrumite mustache beneath is quite funny and fits with the generally comedic tone of the Seth Rogen-led Allen the Alien segments.
Never Live It Down: Amber's actions in Episode 6 have turned her into a Base-Breaking Character by revealing that she had known for several weeks that Mark was Invincible and was making him believe that she thought he was a coward when she was really angry that he hadn't confessed his secret identity to her yet. Even after season two, where she becomes aggressively supportive of him, many fans still hate her.
While Invincible has a Cast of Expies, as it's a work that depends on archetypes seen in both Marvel and DC works, some of its characters aren't inspired. For example, Donald Ferguson predates both Maria Hill (who debuted in 2005) and Phil Coulson (2008).
When it's revealed that Season 2 will be dealing with multiverses, some have accused the show of jumping on the recent "multiverse bandwagon" that other superhero brands like Marvel and DC were doing. This is despite the fact that the original comic, which was published more than a decade ago, did the same thing and the show is simply adapting it.
A fox named, "Chainsaw", is introduced in one of Angstrom Levy's many memories where there's montage of Evil Invincibles. Viewers unfamiliar with the comics and seeing Chainsaw for the first time, the animal is confused for a reference to the Chainsaw Man manga, though the fox is an adaptation of Chainsaw from the final issue of the Invincible comics.
Jon Hamm's security guard character (Steve), a good stepfather to a troubled teen that refers to him as dad after saving his life. He fires on a supervillain despite having no chance of survival or winning, and survives. As far as we know, he's still alive.
Justin Roiland as Doug Cheston, a drunk fratboy douche with a similar slurred speech as a certain nihilistic scientist, and the first of DA Sinclair's victims (that we see).
Josh Keaton as "Agent Spider" (a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Spider-Man), who apparently is in the know of multi-dimensional activities.
Popular with Furries: Battle Beast has garnered quite a bit of interest from furries who have watched the show. Thanks to being a giant anthropomorphic White Lion-like alien, whom also just so happens to be an absolute beefcake at that. In fact, his unapologetic bloodlust is a plus for certain fans or watchers, and it helps he was a popular character in the source material.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Dupli-Kate is a lot more likable in the show, lacking pretty much all the traits that made her a Scrappy in the comic. Her sleeping with Rex while he was with Eve is actually understandable here, as she didn't know they were still together and immediately apologizes to Eve when she finds out, then pointedly does not enter a relationship with Rex afterwards, instead calling him out for lying to her and cheating on his girlfriend.
Romantic Plot Tumor: While the show has been praised overall, it’s generally agreed that the relationship between Mark and Amber was not well executed and took up too much screen time away from more interesting storylines, making it one of the few low points of the first season. Episode 6 in particular is the biggest offender as very little of the episode is spent on dealing with Sinclair and the Reanimen. Gets worse in Episode 7, where Amber reveals she knows Mark is Invincible, which for some fans badly hurt her justification for her antagonism towards Mark.
Ron the Death Eater: Amber's reaction to Mark’s secret was a flawed one, as when she found out about it a couple of weeks before the break-up she stewed on it waiting for him to tell her - until it all bubbled up too much to an argument, where she angrily dismissed him after he finally confessed post break-up. Several fans have reacted by calling her worse than Omni-Man (a genocidal, colonialist abusive father who murdered his own friends) and claiming she was toxic the whole relationship, even going as far as saying she was abusing Mark by getting angry at his lateness. This is neglecting that she had only figured out he was a superhero a couple of weeks before the end of a six month relationship - and she was originally very patient and okay with minimal explanation (agreeing to wait for several weeks when Mark with only vague reasonings had to leave for Mars), before finally increasingly losing her patience months later after catching onto him lying for non-appearances. Her problem was also not him not making her the center of the world as some fans perceive (herself doing humanitarian work she tries to include him in), but rather stated to be that he was not honest with her about what he was doing. Amber herself also ends up apologizing to Mark and reconciling him, with both in-universe recognizing flaws that they need to rectify.
For those unfamiliar with the original source material, Omni-Man's brutal murder of the Guardian's of the Globe at the end the first episode, partially since the show did not skimp on the Gorn. Especially as the rest of episode leading to this point made Mark's story about being a typical Origins Episode.
After most of the second episode, where the Flaxans invading Earth keep the heroes on the ropes, Omni-Man arrives, drives them back, and follows it up when he decimates the entire species, rocketing through cities and annihilating them with his mere movement and ultimately dropping an island on the last of them. In case the message of Beware the Superman wasn't sold enough by the Guardians' murder, such a display of brutal, calm genocide demonstrates that Omni-Man is a No-Nonsense Nemesis.
In the fifth episode, there's Mark and the entire Guardians of the Globe being utterly mangled by Battle Beast, in part because of how it utterly defies the usual narrative conventions of a Big Damn Heroes moment, by having said big damn heroes try and fail to come to the rescue.
Many moments in the seventh episode. Robot transfers his mind into a clone of Rex, and the original Robot is euthanized. Omni-Man finds out that Cecil knows he killed the Guardians, and kills Donald. Cecil sends many weapons, the Reanimen, and a Kaiju to slow down Omni-Man, but none work. And finally, the Mauler Twins resurrect The Immortal who goes on a rampage to stop Omni-Man.
In episode 8 the train scene serves as this with many fans. Not only for the gore and lives lost, but also the fact Omni-Man is literally using Mark to massacre all of them, as his son helplessly flounders unable to stop this.
In a scene taken straight from the comics, Mark tearfully managing to convince his father that he'll still have him after 500 years, causing Omni-Man to finally realize how far he has taken things especially the utter Curb-Stomp Battle he gave to his own son. The heartbreak on Nolan's face is generally considered surprisingly beautiful.
Signature Scene: There's arguably many in the first season, but these two have the biggest claim to it.
In the second episode, Omni-Man proceeds to show what a Superman Substitute can do when they cut loose by decimatingthe Flaxan race. Particularly, the part where he goes so fast that the buildings he flies through just explode with the damage being seen from space.
Episode 8, the first season finale, delivers the scene where Mark makes Omni-Man question everything he's done and drives him away from Earth in only one sentence, which immediately became an instant fan-favorite, with many considering it the most emotional and impactful scene in the series.
Nolan: WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THIS?! YOU'RE FIGHTING SO YOU CAN WATCH EVERYONE AROUND YOU DIE!THINK, MARK! You'll outlast every fragile, insignificant being on this planet! You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and BLOW AWAY! EVERYONE and EVERYTHING you know WILL BE GONE! WHAT WILL YOU HAVE AFTER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS!?
Mark: You, dad...I'd still have you...
Special Effect Failure: The final battle in episode 8 is generally great, but there's one part of the battle where Mark crashes into a city and sends a crowd of people running away. Those people being poorly rendered 3D models moving with stiff, jerky animation, and in greater focus than the background extras of previous episodes, rather detracts from what is meant to be a serious moment.
Squick: A lot of fans expressed huge discomfort with the Immortal and Dupli-Kate becoming a couple in season 2. Even discounting the former's super-powers, there's a rather big age gap between them, making him look like a Dirty Old Man for pursuing her. Not to mention the inherent power-imbalance due to Immortal being the new leader of the Guardians and therefore Kate's boss. All of this is even called out in-universe by Rex, making the whole thing even worse for some fans, since this shows the writers were well aware of how grosslly imbalanced the relationship came across but still chose to go with it.
While most of the changes in Invincible's animated format is widely regarded as a beneficial thing, there are cases of Adaptation Deviation that some have felt there were opportunities that were missed. Most commonly, Robot's decision to get a new body seems very rushed, his confrontation with Rex about getting along with Monster Girl seems more like a case of Clingy Jealous Guy than anything else, and it brushes over his desire to help Monster Girl beyond one stray comment. Another group of fans also don’t like how Nolan was given a much darker and crueler portrayal to the extent new fans to the series compare him to Homelander, as in the comic he’s supposed to be one of the least cruel and sadistic of his race.
The Salvadoran Spanish and the new Mexican redub are interesting cases: While the new dub was well-received, many people felt redubbing the show was unnecesary, since, unlike the Salvadoran dub of The Boys (2019), which was widely reviled, the one from this show was better received, even if did had its own set of problems, through neither as severe as with the dub of The Boys at the eyes of many fans, and some people consider the only reason this show was also redubbed in Mexico was because the popularity of Mexican dubs and their voice actors, compared with the ones from El Salvador, which had a small voice acting industry, and replacing them just because of their mistakes from other shows doesn't help them in any way in developing their abilities as voice actors.note There's also the fact that Salvadoran, and by default, Central American and Caribbean Spanish (excluding Cuba and Puerto Rico) media outside music is mostly either ignored or despised in both Mexico and South America due to a mix of both xenophobia and classism against Central Americans and Caribbeans due to both regions are the poorest from Latin America, and thus, their mass media beyond music doesn't have the same power and popularity like the ones from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia and Venezuela.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Samson is portrayed as mildly cynical about how a Career-Ending Injury ended his time as a Guardian. Yet he is a good leader, and just because he lost his powers doesn't mean he lost his analytical skills or his big heart. In episode 8, he represses his reaction to learning that Omni-Man killed his former teammates in a bid to conquer Earth and would have slaughtered him if he had remained a Guardian because he's more worried about the collateral damage to the planet. It's obviously awesome of him to focus on the bigger picture rather than his own horror, but one hopes that in Season 2 he will be able to express the horror and grief about the situation since by default he is the Sole Survivor of the first team.
Too Cool to Live: Rather, too cool to stay on this plane. Damien Darkblood is rather cool and creepy, wearing a trenchcoat like Hellboy and not buying Nolan's story firsthand, pinning him as the primary suspect for the Guardians' deaths. Realizing that if Damien gathers all the evidence he will anger Nolan before the GDA is ready for him, Cecil apologetically takes him into custody on the pretense of Guardians blood being in his office, and exorcises him. All Damien can do is promise that Cecil is going to a place worse than hell.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Mark after he considers quitting being a hero. Eve tells him that it is a jerk move, since he will feel guilty about abandoning people just because he has had a bad breakup. The problem is that not only did he consider it because of Amber, there is also him nearly being killed by Battle Beast, Cecil and his dad taking complete control of his schedule, it damaging his social and personal life and pretty much everyone expecting him to instantly get it and be exactly like his dad. Not to mention William blames him for Rick becoming a Reanimen, and Mark is worried he's making things worse.
In relation to her being revealed to have figured out Mark was a superhero a couple weeks before he told her, some viewers felt that this made some of her complaints about Mark ditching her and lying unfair, because for the last couple of weeks she knew that he was out risking his life trying to save innocent people, and that she was hypocritical for being a Secret Secret-Keeper herself. A common point shared by detractors is that her reaction would be more sympathetic and understandable if she learned during the episode she confronts Mark about it, but because she's known for weeks, it resulted in her losing any sympathy, and made her look like a hypocrite.
For some viewers, while Amber going to console Mark after getting pummeled by his own father is well intentioned and shows that she has forgiven him, the fact that she kisses him while in such a vulnerable state came off as tone-deaf, especially since she was the one who broke up with him. Her saying “turns out I wasn’t the only one being lied to” in regards to Omni-Man has also been criticized, as the two situations (Mark keeping his Secret Identity a secret from her for five months at the most, and Omni-Man lying to Mark and his mother for their entire lives and planning on enslaving their planet) are hardly comparable, making her come off as Innocently Insensitive at best.
Mark during episode 6 for some. At this point some viewers were sick of him still stringing along Amber, as well as the fact that his refusing to take his own frightened best friend seriously and ignoring William's concerns, led to an already bad situation for Rick going even worse than it might otherwise have. On the other hand, this could easily be chalked up to Mark just learning to get used to his life as a new superhero and trying to figure out who to trust with his secret.
Eve during episode 7, when Mark goes to her for comfort and advice as the one friend who can understand his problems. Like William, Eve doesn’t console Mark at all, saying he should’ve been honest with Amber and shouldn’t have “dicked her around”. For some, this came off as cruel, as Eve herself is experiencing similar grief in her own home life, and she’s also one to talk about honestly given her own feelings for Mark which she keeps to herself. It also comes off as pretty thoughtless in hindsight, since Mark was very supportive of her during her break-up with Rex.
Watch It for the Meme: A lot of people got interested in watching the show because of the rampant "Think Mark! Think!" memes.
WTH, Costuming Department?: Atom Eve's symbol is supposed to be the female symbol with electrons orbiting around it. However, the reduced details (the lack of a third electron, and the rings appearing as straight lines in most shots) make it look like the female symbol is being crossed out.
Debbie Grayson. Her husband growing increasingly cold and harsh after their son's powers surface is just the tip of the iceberg for her. During the series, she has to deal with first her husband and then their own young son (despite their superhuman durability) being hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. Almost all the Guardians of the Globe, people she was friends with, get massacred except for her husband, and she later finds conclusive proof to her horror that her husband was the perpetrator of the entire massacre. When Nolan's true purpose on Earth is revealed, the man she loved for two decades and had her son with denounces her as simply a pet to him, while she hears everything via a live video feed, and when the dust settles, Nolan has left Earth after viciously fighting their son to the point that Mark is left with hospitalizing injuries. Is it any wonder she's sobbing in private at the season's end?
Mark also counts because of what happened to him in both finales of seasons 1 and 2.
an alternative rock song that plays when Omni-Man decimates the entire Flaxan race and planet to show how much of a monster he can really be.