A lot of the conversation about Invincible revolves around a spoiler whose impact, in my mind, is diluted once you're looking for it. To that end, I'll only say that it exists, that it was just as effective as you've heard it is, and that it caught me so far off guard the first time I watched it that... dang it. Now I've ruined it for you.
Anyway. Invincible seems, on the surface, to be a classic, if "realistic" superhero story in a classic superhero setting. Mark Grayson finally inherits his father's superpowers upon getting old enough, and from there tries to maintain work-life balance, as sinister forces move in the background.
But, at the same time, I think that calling it formulaic does it a disservice, because if anything it skillfully manipulates the superhero format in subversive ways without breaking it, a true and artful reconstruction. Mark is, in many ways, a Failure Hero. More of his superhero activities fail than succeed during the show, and when he does succeed it's typically at great cost, and the result of his own impatience and inexperience, but it never comes across that way, because it's his unbreakable desire to help people that makes him a hero. Even when he considers quitting, it's because he doesn't know if being a costumed adventurer is helping, not because of the toll it's taken on his personal life.
For that matter, the whole cast is great and emotionally complex, from Mark's family and friends to the other superheros, all of them perfectly striking the balance between being flawed and having redeeming qualities anyway, which is very human writing. Special mention to Cecil, the government bureaucrat in charge of hero-adjacent black-ops. I was expecting something in the vein of Amanda Waller from the movie version of Suicide Squad, and instead I got my favorite character in the entire show; someone who actually comes across as likable and sympathetic in a role all-but hard-coded not to be either. Atom Eve also explores something I hadn't seen before but in hindsight is so obvious I'm shocked I haven't, though I guess going too far there is also spoiler-y. The voice-acting bringing them to life is also incredible, given many of them are not necessarily career voice actors.
It's also a gorgeous-looking show, with good character models and fluid fights, with some of the best flying I've seen since Rise of the Guardians. While the violence is sometimes graphic and shocking, I appreciate that it's always supposed to be, that it's treated as a storytelling tool rather than an end in and of itself, and that the importance is how the violence impacts the characters rather than the characterization informing the violence, though that's not to say the actual action isn't pretty rad too. Perhaps this is why the lengthy denouement at the end of the last episode of the first season doesn't come across as Ending Fatigue, despite objectively being a bunch of slow-paced emotional scenes and montages following an explosively violent and horrible catastrophe; because we the audience are here for the characters and not for the catastrophe.
I have a few criticisms, none of them knitpicks even if they don't detract too much. While the close-up facial animations are well-done and capture a lot of subtle and nuanced emotions, you can tell when less-vital scenes skimped on the animation budget, resulting in occasional blank expressions from less-important or further away characters who're emoting pretty heavily. Rex Splosion's voice actor in particular turns in such an energetic performance that the animation never seems to catch up. Surprisingly few of the villains have much depth at all. And the teenage love drama subplot, while not a total Romantic Plot Tumor, sometimes leaves all parties looking unsympathetic.
In the end, though, this is the kind of Darker and Edgier superhero fare I think people actually want, rather than the cynical Rated M for Money they usually get. Fiercely human, entertaining, tragic but never depressing, violent but never depraved, idealistic but never corny, and ultimately, has a whole lotta heart in all the right places. Recommended, if for older audiences; I wouldn't show this to anyone who wasn't at least past puberty.
WesternAnimation Fantastic. This is how you do a Darker and Edgier superhero story right.
A lot of the conversation about Invincible revolves around a spoiler whose impact, in my mind, is diluted once you're looking for it. To that end, I'll only say that it exists, that it was just as effective as you've heard it is, and that it caught me so far off guard the first time I watched it that... dang it. Now I've ruined it for you.
Anyway. Invincible seems, on the surface, to be a classic, if "realistic" superhero story in a classic superhero setting. Mark Grayson finally inherits his father's superpowers upon getting old enough, and from there tries to maintain work-life balance, as sinister forces move in the background.
But, at the same time, I think that calling it formulaic does it a disservice, because if anything it skillfully manipulates the superhero format in subversive ways without breaking it, a true and artful reconstruction. Mark is, in many ways, a Failure Hero. More of his superhero activities fail than succeed during the show, and when he does succeed it's typically at great cost, and the result of his own impatience and inexperience, but it never comes across that way, because it's his unbreakable desire to help people that makes him a hero. Even when he considers quitting, it's because he doesn't know if being a costumed adventurer is helping, not because of the toll it's taken on his personal life.
For that matter, the whole cast is great and emotionally complex, from Mark's family and friends to the other superheros, all of them perfectly striking the balance between being flawed and having redeeming qualities anyway, which is very human writing. Special mention to Cecil, the government bureaucrat in charge of hero-adjacent black-ops. I was expecting something in the vein of Amanda Waller from the movie version of Suicide Squad, and instead I got my favorite character in the entire show; someone who actually comes across as likable and sympathetic in a role all-but hard-coded not to be either. Atom Eve also explores something I hadn't seen before but in hindsight is so obvious I'm shocked I haven't, though I guess going too far there is also spoiler-y. The voice-acting bringing them to life is also incredible, given many of them are not necessarily career voice actors.
It's also a gorgeous-looking show, with good character models and fluid fights, with some of the best flying I've seen since Rise of the Guardians. While the violence is sometimes graphic and shocking, I appreciate that it's always supposed to be, that it's treated as a storytelling tool rather than an end in and of itself, and that the importance is how the violence impacts the characters rather than the characterization informing the violence, though that's not to say the actual action isn't pretty rad too. Perhaps this is why the lengthy denouement at the end of the last episode of the first season doesn't come across as Ending Fatigue, despite objectively being a bunch of slow-paced emotional scenes and montages following an explosively violent and horrible catastrophe; because we the audience are here for the characters and not for the catastrophe.
I have a few criticisms, none of them knitpicks even if they don't detract too much. While the close-up facial animations are well-done and capture a lot of subtle and nuanced emotions, you can tell when less-vital scenes skimped on the animation budget, resulting in occasional blank expressions from less-important or further away characters who're emoting pretty heavily. Rex Splosion's voice actor in particular turns in such an energetic performance that the animation never seems to catch up. Surprisingly few of the villains have much depth at all. And the teenage love drama subplot, while not a total Romantic Plot Tumor, sometimes leaves all parties looking unsympathetic.
In the end, though, this is the kind of Darker and Edgier superhero fare I think people actually want, rather than the cynical Rated M for Money they usually get. Fiercely human, entertaining, tragic but never depressing, violent but never depraved, idealistic but never corny, and ultimately, has a whole lotta heart in all the right places. Recommended, if for older audiences; I wouldn't show this to anyone who wasn't at least past puberty.