Mark struggles to come to terms with his father's true nature after their brutal battle while the Mauler Twins are recruited for an experiment that will alter the course of the multiverse.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Context Change: In the comics, Angstrom's motive for revenge was for the Body Horror he suffered and his mind being screwed with from the procedure being interrupted, becoming obsessed with killing Invincible after each failure. It is only far later that he belatedly realizes his animosity had been fueled by the memory merge conflating his understanding of this Invincible with the majority who turned on humanity, a Heel Realization immediately followed by Redemption Equals Death. Here, that element is introduced from the start and given more focus, to the extent that being disfigured distresses him less than his grief at his numerous alternate loved ones killed by an Invincible, and he asserts that he considers all his alternate experiences to be his even when the situation is explained to him prior to choosing vengeance.
- Adaptation Expansion: The brief sequence in the comic where an evil Invincible and Omni-Man kill the Immortal and are prevented from killing Angstrom by a portal is expanded to include an attack on a rebel hideout with Rudy and Eve, which further demonstrates the two Viltrumites' cruelty and Angstrom's outrage.
- Apologetic Attacker: Angstrom apologizes before siccing the Maulers on Invincible.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- The opening has The Immortal and Invincible fighting, which will catch those who haven't read the comics off-guard while those who did believe it to be the confrontation due to the former's distrust of the latter. Then Omni-Man shows up and the two brutally murder the superhero before moving on to a ruined cityscape revealing this to be an Alternate Universe.
- The episode plays with the series' running gag of Smash Cutting to the Title Card whenever someone is about to say "Invincible" with it only properly happening at the end of the episode.
- Olga briefly implies that she might have poisoned Debbie's food in revenge for Omni-Man killing Red Rush. She was kidding. She doesn't actually blame Debbie for what happened.
- Bank Robbery: A pair of supervillains start one during Invincible's morning routine, but the prospect of a fight that could potentially result in widespread collateral damage triggers guilt-induced flashbacks to the damage that was caused during his confrontation with Omni-Man, prompting him to back down and let the GDA handle it.
- Body Horror: After the destruction of the machine, the surviving Mauler has half his body melted while Angstrom gains his oversized brain from the comics.
- Bullying the Disabled: Alternate Omni-Man shows his Social Darwinist beliefs when he tells the deformed Rudy that he should have died at birth.
- Call-Back: Bulletproof is introduced wearing the first suit that Art tried to give to Invincible.
- Commonality Connection:
- Todd tries to connect with Mark about their fathers and how losing them can hurt even if the father was terrible like Todd's is.
- Olga tries to connect with Debbie about the "deaths" of their husbands. Olga knows that Omni-Man is still out there, but for the Nolan that Debbie knew, Olga thinks That Man Is Dead.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Both Alternate Omni-Man and Mark treat killing people with complete banality. Before they kill the resistance fighters, Omni-Man casually says that he missed lunch and feels hungry. Mark performing Neck Snaps on a bunch of protestors a week prior was odd to Omni-Man, but not unusual enough for him to ask about it.
- Corrupted Character Copy: Todd's role as a riff on Flash Thompson is further highlighted when tries to console Mark, much like similar scenes in Spider-Man media... only to insist to the onlooking students right afterwards how this shows he's not an asshole.
- Cruel Mercy: Alternate Omni-Man and Alternate Invincible both refrain from finishing off Alternate Rudy and Alternate Eve, the former allowed to die more slowly and painfully, and the latter given a Fate Worse than Death that he seems to still consider a mercy.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- As Invincible and Omni-Man # 646 are raiding the Resistance hideout, they take out Robot and Eve despite the latter trying their hardest. Nolan easily slices Robot's drone apart, tanks the null energy beam from his blaster like it's nothing, and effortlessly rips and smashes the suit holding Rudolph's main body before leaving him to die. Invincible, meanwhile, nonchalantly backhands and blocks Eve's energy shots, shatters her shields, and snaps her neck; she's not dead, but she probably wishes she was.
- During his morning sweep of the city, Mark defeats The Elephant and stops a high-speed chase within seconds each.
- Deader than Dead: Alternate Immortal meets his final end when his head is chopped off and then crushed for good measure.
- Deer in the Headlights: Rudy freezes up when he's about to be crushed by The Giant. He can only describe the physiological symptoms, and Monster-Girl has to explain to him that he just experienced fear of death, having previously never fought on the front lines.
- Defiant to the End:
- Alternate Rudy and Alternate Eve both continue resisting Alternate Omni-Man and Alternate Invincible even after their last hope weapon proved ineffective. On the brink of death, Rudy gives Omni-Man one last barb, while Eve insists to Invincible that death is her preference. Unfortunately for her, Invincible doesn't respect that wish.
- Before he gets pulled out from his dimension, Angstrom defiantly tries to stand up to his Invincible and Omni-Man; he swears that justice will come for them, and they'll pay for the lives they ruined. Mark and Nolan don't care all that much, however.Alternate Angstrom: Justice... Justice will come for you, for all the friends we lost to your senseless cruelty, for all the families you've torn apart, you will reap what you-!
Evil Omni-Man: Let's do this, Mark. I missed lunch because of that riot in Bangkok.
Evil Invincible: (with a big smile on his face) Yep, way ahead of you.
- Dissonant Serenity: Evil Invincible shows a complete absence of care towards the deaths he has caused against humanity. He remains relaxed in his announcement to conquer Earth for the Viltrum Empire and is nonchalant on executing all of the human resistance.Alternate Angstrom: Don't touch me!
Evil Invincible: (Holding his hands up in a "Calm Down" gesture) Hey Buddy, you sentenced yourself to death when you joined club resistance. - Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Mauler twin's "You told us we were special!" reaction to learning Angstrom was working with alternate Maulers despite his claims otherwise brings to mind a reaction to romantic infidelity.
- Dramatic Pause: Played for Laughs. A Running Gag throughout the episode is multiple characters seeming to tease the Show's Title Drop (which is always accompanied by a switch to said title whenever the word is said)... only to not do that and instead just have them say "Invincible" after a notable pause with no explicit reasoning why. It's implied to be an acknowledgement of how weird the usage would have been in prior episodes from an In-Universe perspective.
- Drowning Their Sorrows: Debbie has been drinking heavily to cope with the events of the season 1 finale, which Mark seems a little concerned about but doesn't press her on.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Played for Horror with Alternate Invincible and Alternate Eve. Alternate Invincible still has feelings for her, and doesn't want to kill her so he paralyzes her so he can still visit her and ensures that there are people who will care for her. The tone of his voice is rather somber despite his grotesque and entitled actions. It's not unlike how Nolan described Debbie as being a pet, something he loves but also something he owns.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Maulers are shocked at how in other universe Omni-Man and Invincible teamed up to take over the world.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite disliking Invincible and being irritated by his interference with Angstrom's experiment, not to mention in considerable pain from the fallout explosion of that, the scarred and disfigured Mauler Twin actually speaks up in his defense when the mutated Angstrom starts blaming Invincible for his new deformity, pointing out it was Angstrom's own decision to take off the helmet that was more to blame and realizing that he's getting his memories mixed up with his alternative selves when he starts babbling about Mark going on a killing spree in the millions. Even if Mark's reputation as Omni-Man's son has put him in a bad spot with the public, the Mauler Twin won't unfairly blame him for actions he hasn't done. It helps that the Mauler Twin has had half his body fried by Angstrom's stupidity, so he's in no mood to be charitable.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
- Evil Omni-Man regretfully expresses that he doesn't understand why a long-lived being like the Immortal wouldn't share the same perspective on the disposability of humans.
- Evil Invincible is unable to understand Eve's hatred towards him and believes her to be unreasonable. Although Invincible doesn't want to kill Eve, he is willing to snap her neck and leave her paralyzed permanently without caring what she truly feels.
- Eye Scream: Shrinking Rae kicks The Giant in his eye.
- Fate Worse than Death: The alternate universe Eve has her neck snapped by her universe’s Mark in such a way that she doesn't die but is paralyzed. Alternative Omni-Man realizes that his son was specifically practicing this technique on some protesters they decimated earlier, so Mark could make sure not to accidentally kill her. Mark says that it’s so that he can visit her, despite her making it clear she hates him.
- Faux Affably Evil: Despite Alternate Mark's insistence that this is for the good of humanity, he and Omni-Man are flippantly cruel about slaughtering humans.
- A God Am I: The payment the Mauler twins want for their service is a dimension with no superheroes, good food, and a population that considers them gods.
- Good Counterpart: This actually bites Mark in the ass here (But what else is new?), as it's mentioned that Invincible remaining a heroic figure is actually an outlier amongst the various alternate universes, and most of his alternate selves are actually destructively evil in the same vein as Omni-Man, if not worse. As an example, the evil Mark seen in the episode's beginning still has feelings for Eve, which he shows by giving her a precisely-calculated Neck Snap to leave her alive but paralyzed, so he can keep visiting her, despite her clear hatred for him. As a result, when Angstrom gets the memories of his alternate selves merged into his current body, he undergoes Identity Breakdown and comes to believe that our Mark is just as evil as the majority of his counterparts, despite the scarred Mauler Twin even telling him how little fault Mark actually had in his transformation.
- Identity Breakdown: Made worse by the identity in question being the same person. Angstrom trying to stop the violence between Invincible and the Mauler twins gets him turned into a Body Horror mutant with a brain so large it grows down his neck and over his back, as a result of his brain being meshed together with all the alternative versions of himself he was connecting to. This results in their memories getting mixed into his and Angstrom losing track of which universe his current body is actually from along with all the trauma his alternate universe counterparts experienced all at once in mere minutes, believing that the Invincible that interrupted his experiment is just as bad/the same Invincible as his Evil Counterpart in other dimensions. This leaves him with a burning desire for Revenge against him despite Mark being pretty blameless for his current condition, as the scarred Mauler Twin points out.
- Innocently Insensitive: Todd makes a half-assed attempt at consoling Mark for his fathers supposed death by saying Nolan must have been a great guy. Todd has no idea that Nolan is Omni-Man and thereby making Mark feel even worse.
- Ironic Echo: In the final confrontation of season 1, Omni-Man crushes a pilot's skull, splattering a horrified Mark with blood. Here, Alternate Evil Mark casually crushes The Immortal's skull, splattering himself in the same way but with a Bond One-Liner as his only reaction.
- Irrevocable Order: Due to the design of Angstrom's machine, once the Maulers activate it, the process can't be aborted without potentially killing him. When he removes the helmet to save Invincible, he winds up being turned into a mutant.
- It's All My Fault:
- Despite Amber's reassurance, Mark blames himself for the deaths that occurred during his fight with Omni-Man.
- Despite Monster Girl's reassurance, Rudy blames himself for the suboptimal performance of the Guardians of the Globe.
- It's Personal: Alternate Angstrom has a burning hatred towards Evil Invincible for the atrocities he's committed, reacting with outraged disgust when he attempts to lay hands on him* and ranting at the duo that Justice Will Prevail even as they're utterly unimpressed by his opinions. Even knowing that the Invincible who crashes the experiment is a multiversal doppelgänger of his Invincible (and presumably being aware that this Invincible didn't join up with Omni-Man) the sight of Mark makes him shoot a loathing-filled Death Glare at him, apparently only not taking action because he's restrained in his chair. Ths sentiment unfortunately transfers over to Prime Angstrom when he's mutated and gets his memories mixed in with his alternates, being so overwhelming that it apparently overrides any others to compel the disfigured scientist to take Revenge against Invincible.
- Kick the Dog: Plenty from Alternate Invincible and Alternate Omni-Man, but special mention goes to Alternate Invincible performing a Neck Snap on protestors just to practice his ability to give Alternate Eve a Fate Worse than Death.
- Major Injury Underreaction: The surviving Mauler twin gets half his body severely burned. He takes it pretty well all things considered. The strongest reaction is when Angstrom leaves him there and he gets annoyed and sarcastic in response.Mauler: Fine, go! Don't worry about me. Just had half my body melted helping you mutilate yourself!
- Mistaken Identity: Mark is alarmed when the Immortal approaches him at night, confusing him for Omni-Man. Once the Immortal floats into the light, Mark relaxes.
- Mood Dissonance: Evil Invincible and Omni-Man engage in a lot of weirdly casual conversations as they brutally subjugate their world, from Nolan complaining he missed lunch to put down a riot in Bangkok to Mark explaining he learned to paralyze people by breaking their necks without actually killing them by practicing it on protestors like an athlete talking about a new move they made. It's like how they'd regularly banter while fighting criminals or supervillains... but replace the bad guys with innocent people, and you can see the problem.
- Neck Snap: Alternate Mark snaps Alternate Eve's neck in a way that leaves her alive but paralyzed, leading Alternate Omni-Man to realize that's what he was practicing with the protesters last week.
- Never My Fault:
- Alternate Evil Mark casually states the destruction and death he and his father have inflicted on the Earth is the fault of those that resisted them.
- Angstrom blames Invincible for the disaster, when in reality he was the one at fault - something the surviving Mauler actually points out. Invincible arrived to stop the Maulers, and was on fairly even footing fighting the two of them, until Angstrom escalated things by summoning alternate universe versions of the Maulers and things escalated to the point where Invincible was outmatched and could potentially die; at this point, Angstrom tries to take his cap off - despite being told at the beginning of the process that he couldn’t do so - in an attempt to stop the violence, but in doing so causes the explosion and his own physical transformation. Partially justified by the process being incomplete and Angstrom not being able to identify which alternative memories are actually his own, which means that he remembers all of the deaths caused by the evil versions of Invincible as if they were his own.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Mark tells Cecil that he will follow his orders. Cecil telling Mark to stop the Mauler's device ends up nearly getting Mark killed by alternate Maulers which directly led to Angstrom's fuck up.
- Angstrom refuses to let the alternate Maulers kill Mark, saying he doesn't want his utopia to be built on innocent blood. However, he stops the experiment, which unleashes a massive power surge killing all of the alternate Angstroms, and turning him into a deformed and insane supervillain looking for revenge.
- No-Sell:
- Alternate Omni-Man is briefly surprised and pushed back by the Wave-Motion Gun that the rebels thought was their last hope of defeating him, but swiftly emerges unscathed from the rubble before Rudy can fire another shot.
- Alternate Invincible effortlessly swats away Alternate Eve's energy constructs and crashes through her barriers without even slowing down.
- Not Afraid to Die: When Alternate Robot uses his last words to tell Omni-Man that he will die one day, even if he shrugged off the resistance's best efforts against him, he somewhat chipperly affirms this, showcasing that he's unafraid of his own mortality as per his Social Darwinist beliefs, and further demonstrating this when he retorts to Robot that he's somebody who "should have died at birth", leaving him to slowly die from his life-support being broken. Of course, Nolan's lifespan far exceeds any normal human and he's Nigh-Invulnerable, so his flippant reaction makes sense given how far off that fate is.
- Not Helping Your Case: When trying to convince Cecil that he's emotionally ready to return to the field, Mark slams his fist on the restaurant table, denting it with his super strength.
- Not Worth Killing: Alternate Omni-Man showcases his contempt of the deformed and helpless Robot's true form when he renders his exosuit broken beyond repair and the tank that sustains Robot's health cracked and draining, refusing to strike the final blow to quickly finish him off whilst mocking the malformed Rudolph as somebody who should have died at birth from his condition, leaving him to perish from the natural environment instead as per his beliefs.
- On Patrol Montage: Mark is shown stopping crimes and saving people set to Radiohead's "Karma Police".
- Percussive Therapy: Implied by Mark's positive reaction to the Maulers goading him into fighting them.
- Pet the Dog:
- Todd tries to console Mark about his father supposed passing. While it was partly to make himself look less like an asshole, he does make an attempt.
- Rex tries to comfort Mark about the outcome of the Mauler fight when he sees Mark beginning to freak out about the blood on his hands.
- Despite being furious at Angstrom Levy for causing his disfigurement, the surviving Mauler tells Angstrom that he needs to go to a hospital rather than getting violent.
- Poor Communication Kills: When Invincible goes to the Maulers, the Maulers don't bother explaining how dangerous stopping the experiment would be, rather just goading Invincible to fight them. Cecil is likewise unconcerned and just tells Mark to shut it down and not ask questions. Angstrom also just tells Mark what he's doing is for the greater good, without explaining further (though being connected to a thousand other minds likely impacted his communication skills). This leads to Mark nearly getting beaten to death by alternate Maulers, then Angstrom stopping the experiment, causing a massive explosion that kills all of the alternate Maulers and Angstroms.
- Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: Evil Omni-Man and Invincible go the extra mile with the Immortal. Omni-Man decapitates him, then Invincible crushes his severed head to make sure he has no chance of reviving.
- Running Gag:
- There are multiple moments throughout the episode where it seems like they’re about to smash cut to the show’s title… but they just say the name/word Invincible instead. We don’t see the title until Angstrom’s declaration of revenge at the end.
- The title itself carries on the same running gag from last season with the blood splatter from prior episodes still covering it, only for this time to get hit with a blood wave so large, it absolutely obscures any other color and leaves just the blood-red letters of Invincible hanging in a black background...which then has a crack appear in it like it was a brick wall taking damage from an offscreen fight.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The Angstrom from the alternate universe in the beginning was part of a resistance fighting Omni-Man's rule. Omni-Man and Invincible found his base and then proceeded to slaughter everyone. Angstrom was saved by his alternate version, only to later be killed when the experiment goes awry.
- Shout-Out: The scene where the Maulers fire up Angstrom's machine gives us two in quick succession.
- First, just before pulling the final switch, one of the Maulers references Metallica, saying "Let's Ride the Lightning."
- After the mind-meld begins, Angstrom references Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", meaning it slightly more literally than usual.Angstrom: I… I am large. And I contain multitudes.
- Simple Solution Won't Work: Seeing the gigantic mind-melding contraption Angstrom has rigged up to combine his knowledge with that of his doubles, the Mauler Twins point out he could simply ask them questions. Angstrom explains that this won't work because he needs to be able to see the full scope of the multiverse to parse the information he needs, likening it to being able to see the entire puzzle instead of individual pieces.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Used to show how disconnected and unsatisfied Invincible feels with his routine of small-scale heroics.
- Stab the Salad: When Debbie first comes home, the audience sees a shot of a woman holding a kitchen knife. The next shot reveals that it's Olga, and she prepared her some dinner.
- Stumbling in the New Form: Rudy goes Deer in the Headlights the first time he experiences mortal fear, Monster Girl alludes to him having to adjust to using the bathroom, and Rudy blames adjusting to his new body for his poor performance as a leader recently.
- Technical Pacifist:
- Angstrom declares himself a pacifist, but regretfully orders the Maulers to attack Invincible to prevent him from stopping their machine. However, he refuses to commit Murder by Inaction when the Maulers intend to beat Invincible to death.
- Mark zigzags this during the montage of his heroics, going out of his way to use his superpowers in an indirect fashion to resolve many of the mundane emergencies, such as a raging fire or a high-speed gunfight, without needing to confront the relatively-fragile humans directly, whilst being willing to use his Super-Strength against the Elephant to knock him out swiftly. On seeing two super villains performing a bank heist in the middle of the city however, his PTSD memories of the devastation caused by his fight with Omni-Man make him freeze up and eventually leave dealing with them to the GDA. When he confronts the very-durable Mauler Twins in an isolated area however, he showcases excitement for a knock-down therapeutic fight against two individuals he can cut loose against without fear of civilians getting dragged into it.
- Tempting Fate:
- The alternate Angstrom believes the Immortal successfully led Invincible and Omni-Man away. Cue them bursting through the ceiling.
- Lampshaded. When one Mauler twin remarks that their machine is on track to work flawlessly, the other tells him not to say that. When the twin asks why, Invincible bursts in, and the other twin says that's why.
- That Man Is Dead: Olga asserts to Debbie that Nolan died when Omni-Man's true colors were revealed, and that she should mourn the husband she thought she had.
- There Are No Therapists: Debbie and Mark are clearly suffering from PTSD and maybe something else. But with all his power Cecil just tells Mark to wait for recovery. Debbie resorts to heavy drinking and tells Olga that her visit finally gives her someone to talk to, but turns down Olga's recommendation of a professional therapist. Mark is comforted by Amber, but she also has to push him to talk. Granted, it's not like normal therapists can deal with their issues, but you'd think Cecil would have someone on staff with the right clearance.
- Turn Out Like His Father: Mark always wanted to be like his father but now that he knows the truth, he lives in fears of becoming this despite his compassion already a clear indication of their differences. Cecil and Immortal also have these fears leading them to keep a close eye on him but are at least willing to give him the chance to prove himself.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Alternate Evil Mark and Omni-Man casually disregard Angstrom being sucked away by a portal.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Alluded to and defied by Angstrom, who declares that his utopia will not be built on blood when the Maulers are on the cusp on killing Invincible to protect their machine. He had already considered it a stretch of his morals to employee the Maulers at all, and to order them to attack Invincible.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The resistance's last hope was an energy weapon Angstrom acquired the power source for. Rudy blasts Omni-Man with it, knocking him deep into solid rock, but Omni-Man reemerges unscathed.
- What If?: What if Nolan successfully convinced Mark with taking over Earth for the Viltrum Empire, unlike what happened last season? The first six minutes show an alternate Invincible and Omni-man becoming an unstoppable force while stamping out any resistance like Immortal and the new Guardians of the Globe. The episode then goes to the current universe Mark still remaining a hero.
- Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: Evil Mark asks Eve why she made him kill innocent people, putting the full blame on her. On a broader scale, he places the blame for all the destruction and death he causes on the people rebelling against him and Omni-Man.
- X-Ray Vision: Robot scans through the street to identify that there's an underground parking garage they can drop The Giant into.
- Zerg Rush: Two Maulers are outmatched by Invincible. An additional eight all fighting as a team nearly beat him to death.
