‘Invincible’ Season 2 Part 1 Ending Explained — What’s Next for Mark?

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Invincible Season 2 Part 1.

The Big Picture

• Invincible Season 2 takes storytelling to new heights, revealing the true nature of Mark’s father and introducing a formidable new enemy.
• Debbie Grayson faces her own struggles as she grapples with the abusive nature of her marriage and seeks a fresh start.
• The diverse cast of superheroes in Invincible deals with personal issues, showing their vulnerabilities and making them relatable.

Part 1 of Invincible Season 2 takes a page from its titular hero’s book and levels up, not just in its animation but in its ambitious storytelling. Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) has been at a crossroads: he learned that his father Nolan (J.K. Simmons) wasn’t the benevolent hero he claimed to be but the scout for an alien invasion. In the process, Nolan brutally beats Mark, leaving him and his mother Debbie (Sandra Oh) scarred. Mark attempts to pick up the pieces by loaning out his superhero services to Cecil Steadman (Walton Goggins) and the Global Defense Agency, while also juggling time at college and his relationship with Amber Bennett (Zazie Beetz).

But in the same vein as the Image Comics series the show is based on, Mark’s life gets a major upheaval. Not only does he find that balancing college and superheroics is tougher than he thought, but he makes a new enemy in the form of Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown), an interdimensional traveler who makes it his life mission to ruin Invincible’s life. Mark isn’t the only person struggling with his place in the world; throughout the first four episodes of Season 2, other superheroes and civilians have their own trials to deal with.

Invincible Learns How Deadly the Viltrumite Empire Really Is in Season 2

Invincible Season 2 delivers its biggest shocks in its third and fourth episodes, titled “This Missive, This Machination!” and “It’s Been A While,” respectively. Mark is approached by a race of insectlike aliens (who mimic his favorite comic book character Seance Dog) who tell him that they need his help in saving their planet. He agrees and winds up learning that the planet’s emperor is none other than Nolan himself — who even married one of the insectoids and had a son with her!

Though Mark is understandably upset over being near his father again, Nolan reveals that their confrontation on Earth has changed him. But he also says that the Viltrumite Empire is out for blood — his blood, in particular — and that he needs Mark’s help to stop them. Mark ends up battling a trio of Viltrumite soldiers… and the end results aren’t great. While Nolan was far stronger than Mark, he still had tethers to humanity. The Viltrumite soldiers aren’t as forgiving. They consider anything that can’t stand up to them weak, and therefore worthy of death.

Mark is eventually paralyzed, while the Viltrumites take Nolan prisoner. Before he’s carted off, Nolan tells Mark, “Read my books.” In his civilian identity on Earth, he was a successful sci-fi novelist — and that piece of advice may hint that Nolan hid a way to defeat the Viltrumites in the pages of said books. After all, what’s better than hiding in plain sight?

Debbie Grayson Has Her Own Trials in ‘Invincible’ Season 2

Mark isn’t the only Grayson dealing with lingering trauma. Debbie is struggling to reconcile the twenty years she was married to Nolan with the fact that he considered her to be little more than a pet — and said as much during his fight with Mark. The biggest moment for her comes in the second episode, “In Six Hours I Lose My Virginity To A Fish.” Throughout the episode, Mark and Debbie often have to jam one of the cabinets in the kitchen closed, a design flaw from when she and Nolan first moved into the house. After a particularly stressful day, Debbie goes into the kitchen and starts repeatedly slamming the cabinet door closed until it breaks, and then she breaks down sobbing. It’s a small but powerful scene that shows how much she is suffering (and the fact that she had to deal with a couple where the husband was clearly abusive triggered some deeply buried emotions).

Though Debbie tries to find an outlet with a support group for those who’ve lost their superhero spouses, it goes south when she meets the partner of the Green Ghost — one of the former Guardians of the Globe whom Nolan brutally murdered. It also doesn’t help that prior to this she dropped off Mark at college, and the two at least have had each other to lean on. After words of encouragement from superhero tailor Art Rosenbaum (Mark Hamill), Debbie decides to move — even selling off Nolan’s books (which may prove to be a problem for Mark later on).

The Guardians of the Globe and Atom Eve Have Some Major Hangups in ‘Invincible’ Season 2

Invincible isn’t the only superhero out there; over the course of the first season, he encountered a number of caped crusaders including Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs), Rex Splode (Jason Mantzoukas), Dupli-Kate (Malese Jow) and Robot (Zachary Quinto). Robot was tapped to form a new version of the Guardians of the Globe, with Rex and Kate joining him; Eve decided to put her matter-manipulating powers to use solving world hunger and rebuilding Chicago after Nolan pummeled Mark through half of the Windy City.

But though they might be able to save the world, these heroes have their own hangups. It turns out that Robot isn’t actually a robot; he is a man named Rudy Conners who sought the help of the malevolent Mauler Twins (Kevin Michael Richardson) to clone a body using Rex’s blood. During a battle, Rudy experiences an unwanted emotion: fear. This, combined with lackluster results, leads Cecil to put the Immortal (Ross Marquand) in charge while also adding some muscle in the form of Bulletproof (Jay Pharoah). Eventually, a new hero joins the team in the form of the metamorph Shapesmith (Ben Schwartz), who is secretly a Martian that stowed away to Earth during one of Invincible’s earliest missions. Rudy even starts to form a bond with Monster Girl (Grey Griffin) due to their similar experiences.

Eventually, friction builds between the Guardians when Rex catches Kate in the shower with the Immortal — despite the fact that he did the same thing with her while he was dating Eve. As for Eve, she learns that her actions may have consequences: an attempt to recreate an apartment building leads to said building collapsing under its own weight. During a fight with Killcannon (Fred Tatasciore), she ends up diving into the lake to save an elderly couple when one of her blasts sends their car careening off course. Not only do these scenes help flesh out the large cast of characters, but they also make these superhumans feel truly human — a feat that very few entries in the superhero genre accomplish.

Allen the Alien Pushes ‘Invincible’s Scope Beyond Earth

If there is a breakout character in Invincible, it is Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen). Allen first encountered Mark, thinking he was evaluating the champion of Urath — until Mark pointed out that he had come to Earth. Allen would later return to tell Mark about the Viltrumites, unaware that the young hero had survived his battle with Nolan. Allen had his own connection to the Viltrumites as they decimated his planet of Unopa and scattered his people against the stars. He was one of the few who could stand up to them due to genetic enhancements giving him great strength and durability.

When Allen returns to the Coalition of Planets, no one takes his endorsement of Invincible seriously — save for the Coalition’s leader, Thadeus (Peter Cullen). Thadeus reveals that a mole may be feeding information to the Viltrumites, and that suspicion proves correct when the Viltrumite soldiers that Mark and Nolan battle ambush Allen while he’s on a date with his girlfriend Tellia (Tatiana Maslany). Allen suffers some gruesome wounds but appears to pull through… until Thadeus shuts off his life support.

That’s one of the many threads the show leaves dangling. Not only does Mark have to contend with the fact that there are Viltrumites more vicious than his father, but he may have lost the one ally who could help him in his upcoming fight. Not to mention that the brain-changing Sequids are charting a path from Earth to Mars, the Lizard League and the Maulers are on the loose, and Levy is crossing dimensions hellbent on vengeance. When the series returns in early 2024, Mark will definitely have to live up to his chosen moniker.

Invincible is currently available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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