So I finally finished the 4th season of Invincible.
My delay in finishing this season should not be construed as me no longer being enthused by or interested in this season.
Invincible remains one my of favorite comic book adaptions.
When the eight-episode fourth season dropped between March and April, my time was consumed with shows that were heading for series finales that I needed to stay on top of in real time: Outlander, The Boys and Hacks.
Necessitating me having to back burner Invincible whenever I was in a TV viewing time crunch.
Which is remarkable to me that as a person with no friends or a social life, I can actually have something called a "TV viewing time crunch".
Enough of that. What about season 4 of Invincible?
After a mid-season side quest to Hell to actually help Satan (who is voiced by Bruce Campell so he can't be all bad), Mark Grayson is looking for some down time with Eve. Eve is looking for the right moment to tell Mark she's pregnant.
She thinks she's found it...and NOPE! Moment lost.
Nolan has returned.
The erstwhile Omni-Man, Earth's greatest super hero turned Earth's greatest traitor and destroyer, has come back to Earth along with Allen the Alien to recruit Mark for war.
Nolan has changed quite a bit since he left Earth and is looking to atone for the evil things he did for his Viltrumite masters.
The Coalition of Planets led by Thaddeus, another Viltrumite who turned against his people, are ready to go to war and end the Viltrumite threat once and for all.
Mark relunctantly agrees to join the war effort and is accompanied by his young brother Oliver. Allen also recruits Zoe Thompson aka Tech Jacket. Her alien tech armor and weaponry is strong enough to take on Viltrumites.
(We meet Zoe's dad Ed who is voiced by Bobby Moynihan. not Patton Oswalt as I originally suspected. This mix up will occur again. See this Saturday's Movie Time.)
Over the course of the next episodes, the battle is joined and it ain't pretty. Invincible gets into a knock down drag out beat down with Conquest. Mark manages to kill Conquest but not before the psycopathic Viltrumite has beaten the unholy crap out of Invincible including pulling out his intestines.
Instestine pulling happens a lot. Usually that's a good sign someone is dead but Mark does get better. Over time.
Working on this show must be kind of weird.
Producer: So you want to be an animator on Invincible?
Artist: Oh yeah! I really love the comic and the show!
Producer: It says on your resume you worked on Spongebob Squarepants?
Artist: That's correct.
Producer: Have you ever had to animate someone punching another person really hard in the gut and pulling out their intestines?
Artist: Well, there was this one time Squidward really had it up to here with Mr. Krabs and...
Producer: Really?
Artist: Yeah, but (sigh!) it didn't make the final cut.
Producer: Those bastards at Nickelodeon?
Artist: Damn right those bastards at Nickelodeon never let us have any fun.
Producer: Jeff Bezos really likes the intestine pulling scenes.
Artist: Wow!
Producer: Welcome to Amazon and the Invincible animation team. I think you'll like it here.
So the war goes on and on until Invincible, Omini-Man and Thaddeus lead a triple prong strike on the planet Viltrum and shatter the damn planet to pieces.
The 37 Viltrumites who are left are really pissed off and despite being small in number still have a significant edge in raw super power.
Oliver gets badly hurt. A Viltrumite tears... OUT his INTESTINES?! Nope, his arm gets torn off! (Don't worry, the Coalition will grow him another one.)
Thaddeus gets killed!
Tharrg, the Viltrumite leader, has Mark dead to rights and is own the verge of killing him....
But Tharrg and the Viltrumites choose to vanish.
Where did they go?
Marks susses out they've gone to Earth.
A planet for a planet, eh?
Which brings us back to the season finale.
Mark, Nolan and Zoe return to Earth to find the Viltrumites do not appear to be there. But that doesn't stop Mark from having hallucinations of Tharrg showing up out of nowhere to engage in some good ol' fashioned intesting pulling on his mom, Debbie, his girlfriend Eve, even on that detestable bastard Cecil.
Mark has been off world for a year and he finally connects with Eve who finally tells Mark she was pregnant.
Was?
Eve says she had an abortion.
With Mark gone for who knew how long (he was gone almost a year) and with her father being a judgemental prick, Eve felt alone and desperate and made a choice to end her pregnancy.
Which just means more angst for Mark Grayson. My God, this show never lets up on this poor guy, do they?
Artist: Can we put in an intestine pull here?
Producer: Settle down! Now is not the time.
Artist: Damn it!
Jeff Bezos (watching at home): No intestines? Damn it!
Flying around to clear his head, Mark sees Tharrg. Fuck it! He ain't in the mood for another hallucination.
Problem: it's not an hallucination.
Well.. fuck! The Viltrumites are on Earth.
But Tharrg isn't there to fight. (Sorry, no intestine pulling.)
Artist: Fuck!
Jeff Bezos: Fuck!
Tharrg wants to make a deal. He and his Viltrumites will live on Earth, do nothing to hurt anyone and live their lives.
Which will include mating with Earth women. Which they know from the existence of Mark Grayson will produce Viltrumite powered offspring to replenis their diminished numbers.
And Mark will let them do that.
After everything they've done to hurt, terrorize and kill people across the galaxy and Mark thinks they can't get away with that.
Then he remembers everything they've done to hurt, terrorize and kill people across the galaxy and his own hallucinations of how they could do that to Earth....
And...
He acccepts the deal.
I can imagine that will not sit well with Nolan or the Coalition of Planets.
But that's a problem for season 5.
And that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
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