Invincible season 2 uses its multiverse to teach us more about the characters we already know
Multiverses are everywhere, from the Oscars to The Flash; they’ve defined Rick and Morty for years, and of course they’re all that’s left of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With the return of Invincible for its second season, yet another superhero story has ventured into alternate realities — but this time around, the series is actually doing it right. After just the first episode of season 2, which premiered on Friday, Invincible is already using its multiverse to teach us new things about the characters we already care about.
[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for Invincible season 2 episode 1.]
The opening of Invincible season 2 starts with a shocking display of Omni-Man and Invincible destroying a major city together and killing dozens of people as the new rulers of Earth. It’s quite a shock after the season 1 finale, but it’s all quickly resolved when the show reveals that Angstrom Levy, a new character introduced this season, is actually a super genius who’s gathering all the versions of himself from every universe to work together and save the world from the versions of Mark and Nolan that take over Earth.
Invincible’s writing is often clever, but its best moments say more with what the characters leave out than what they actually say. And it’s the same here, with the implication of Angstrom’s plan: The fact that almost every other version of Mark joined his father and helped take over Earth means that our Mark is extra special, and that our Nolan is more complicated too. They’re not just another pair of Marks and Nolans in the infinite universe; they’re different, specifically in a way that we couldn’t really know about without the multiverse coming into play.
This is a fascinating departure for the kind of
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