Invincible season 2 gave new meaning to meaningless comic book death

polygon.com:

Invincible’s reputation for hyper-violence is well earned. The Prime Video show’s season 1 massacre of the Guardians at the hands of Nolan/Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) is harrowing, and it sets the tone for the show’s commitment to realistic superpowered gore and destruction. And few scenes in television history are as gnarly or horrifying as the destruction of a train and everyone on board in the first season’s finale.

With all that carnage, you would think the repeated exposure to seeing Dupli-Kate die on the show would numb the effect when what seemed like her actual death came. But no! It’s brutal in the way only Invincible can be, all blood and guts and sinew. It could be easy to skate past the impact of all that death and destruction and just focus on the spectacle. And yet, season 2 of Invincible took a step back and focused on the varied ways death profoundly changes us, using death not just as a narrative event to push the season’s plot forward but as a thematic throughline the characters have to grapple with.

Big, impactful deaths can happen at a moment’s notice on the show, but that doesn’t mean Invincible moves on just as quickly. Dupli-Kate (Malese Jow) has repeatedly experienced death throughout the show via her cloning powers. It’s the basis of her relationship with the Immortal (Ross Marquand), who himself has died many times (it didn’t take). Despite their massive difference in age, it’s one of the most sincere relationships in the show, as they can uniquely relate to each other’s many experiences with life and death. It might be the least problematic age-gap relationship in fiction.

That’s why it hits so hard when Dupli-Kate appears to die for good in the midseason premiere, “This Must Come as a Shock.” This death is given room to breathe, with a funeral the next episode as the team mourns. The Immortal is hit particularly hard by her death — even harder than previous loved ones he’s lost — because of their strong connection over how many times they’ve