To say that fans of the hit animated superhero Invincible have had a long, arduous wait since the season one finale would be a gross understatement. I am one of the more fortunate few who came to the show a year or so after it first aired, yet the prolonged gap between seasons has proven difficult even for me. The show is just that great.
Yet that greatness comes with expectations, and while the first four episodes for season two, which aired throughout November, deliver on the show’s sustained excellence, fans were, let’s say, nonplussed about the second half of the season releasing at a then-undisclosed date in 2024. The delays have largely been attributed to troubled production and, of course, the strikes, while they also ditched CG animation, which was used in the first season but only served to hamper production even more. Mercifully, last month an official release date of March 14 was announced for the season’s fifth episode, and a new trailer sheds light on the upcoming events of the season, which has proven to be as informative as it is tantalizing, particularly to those like me, who have never read the Robert Kirkman comics and avoid spoilers like the plague.
As such, I apologize to any readers who already know what’s to come, as I understand the show has been pretty faithful to the source material, naturally making changes where it makes sense for the TV medium, such as revealing Omni-Man’s (J.K. Simmons) true intentions earlier on (the end of the first episode, in fact), and the depth they add to Debbie’s (Sandra Oh) temporary spiral after the revelations of season one. I even understand that there is at least one controversial plot element that will be coming into the latter half of season two, so it will be interesting to see how the portion of the fanbase who have read the comics will react to it.
For those of us blissfully in the dark, this trailer certainly has a lot to offer. While there are numerous sharp cuts that can make it difficult to pick up every minutia of detail, it also means that they can pack more hints at the story to come. What is perhaps most impressive is that those behind the show, which includes producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, have shown patience of their own in developing plot threads that have been in stasis since the first season, expertly pacing its ever-evolving stories. Most notable in the trailer is the pending arrival of the mind-controlling entity Mark encountered on Mars. It’s been gestating for quite a while, and the trailer makes it clear that Mark will have to finally face the being once and for all, even as he loses at least Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs) and Rudy (Ross Marquand/Zachary Quinto) to its control.
This comes after Mark has barely returned to Earth, having first helped rebuild Thraxa, in addition to looking after his extended Thraxan family after Omni-Man is captured by his Viltrumite superior, General Kregg (Clancy Brown). Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Mark, the villainous Angstrom Levy continues to pull cross-dimensional strings to exact revenge upon Invincible after his originally altruistic experiment went awry and drove him insane.
And then there’s the mysterious resurrection storyline of Donald (played by Canadian actor Chris Diamantopoulos), where he is only really shown for a split second near the beginning of the trailer, but the look on his face as Cecil (Walton Goggins) is reflected in his glasses is all that was needed to know that more shocking revelations are to come. Speaking of resurrections, we also see Alan the Alien fighting The Immortal, so it will be interesting to see how Alan can return to the narrative fray after how things were left with him.
The rest of the trailer demonstrates plenty of the hard-hitting, bone-snapping action set-pieces the show has been acclaimed for, while it ends on a very solemn note as the heroes are shown at the funeral of an unknown character, hinting at a major death in this part of the season.
However, it’s also worth noting that parts of this trailer are likely designed to mislead us, as the first teaser for season two shows Omni-Man saying, “You should have died at birth,” which is meant to seem as though it’s being said to Mark when in fact it was Rudy, in an alternate universe no less where Omni-Man is looking down on his original disfigured form.
Honestly, I’m going to be dissecting this trailer a lot more between the release of this article and the airing of episode five, as I cannot wait to see how the numerous enthralling plotlines of the show coalesce in the latter half of this much anticipated season.