It’s finally time for the premiere episode of Season 2 of Invincible. It’s titled “A Lesson for Your Next Life,” and it starts out with us seeing Invincible and Omni-Man conquering the world.

I didn’t stutter. Invincible and Omni-Man are conquering the world.

Now, clearly this is an alternate universe, and literally all it is is a day in the life of Omni-Man and his son Invincible, who on this planet have actually managed to take over the world. There’s this very propaganda style video that plays and plays. “People of Earth, we know you all feel like we’re the bad guys because my dad and I took over your planet.”

Angstrom Levy and the Green Portals

In the end, we get introduced to a character named Angstrom Levy. He’s a very interesting character, voiced by Sterling K. Brown, so they’re definitely bringing some heavy hitters into this season. I really enjoy the character they’re presenting.

A portal opens up, a dude falls through, and Omni-Man’s about to kill him. Later on you find out this Angstrom Levy is actually the one from our Earth. I say our Earth. The Earth of the main Mark, the Invincible we’re actually following.

Angstrom Levy has the ability to open portals to other dimensions. Ironically, they’re all green portals. Just saying.

It turns out he has a very altruistic thing he wants to do. He helps break out the Maulers. He’s got thousands upon thousands of other versions of himself, as well as several in other safe houses, and they all have local knowledge. They all know something. He wants to get all of their knowledge and put it into his head, so that he can take the best from all these different worlds and ultimately bring it to bear on making our world better. Very altruistic. Not a bad thing to do.

Mark Is Going Through the Motions

Meanwhile, in our world, Mark’s going through the motions. He has suffered a horrific trauma and refuses to face it, and he’s trying to bury himself in work. He’s rescuing people, he’s saving lives, he’s averting disasters, he’s defeating enemies. But it’s literally just him going through the motions, trying to make himself feel something.

His mother is spiraling, because she’s got nobody to help her go through this. She and Mark aren’t touching base on the trauma they’re feeling.

At one point the red speedster guy’s Russian wife comes back and visits, and while she’s there she’s telling her, you need to talk about this. She really tries to connect with Mark’s mom, and she gives her a card and says, hey, this will help. We don’t know what that is just yet.

Full Disclosure, I’ve Read the Whole Thing

Full disclosure: after Season 1 I was so into the story that I did go out and purchase the omnibuses. Omnibuses, omnibi, omni whatever. So I’ve read the entire story, start to finish. I know what’s coming and what’s going to happen, and they’re doing wonderful. I refuse to spoil any of that for you.

But it’s an excellent series, and I think you’re going to really, really enjoy it. I’d definitely recommend picking up those comic books whenever you can.

Why the Immortal Doesn’t Trust Mark

There’s a brief moment where Mark gets to talk a little bit with Eve, and you find out he and Amber are eventually going to go to the same college.

Eventually he meets with Cecil and tells him, put me to work, man. I need to work. I need to do something. And Cecil’s like, no. You’ve been through a trauma. You’ve got to figure it out.

The problem is the Guardians of the Globe aren’t doing too great. So Cecil brings in the Immortal to lead the group. He’s there to train them and keep them up on their game.

And there’s this whole idea that the Immortal doesn’t trust Mark.

“Oh, hey, Immortal.”

“Cecil thinks you’re on our side. I’m not so sure. I’ll be watching you.”

Mrs. Know-It-All asked me, why doesn’t he trust Mark? And I had to tell her: he trusted that Omni-Man wasn’t evil for years and years and years. He won’t make that same mistake twice. So that relationship is going to have to be built up a little bit.

A Superhero Creates Their Own Villain

Robert Kirkman is feeding off of tropes. The whole thing is sort of a send-up of the superhero tropes and the ideals and whatnot, and at the same time it’s a deconstruction of Superman, with Omni-Man and that whole bit. But then you really get into this idea of the tropes of superheroes, because this is the beginning, and I won’t say of Mark’s villain arc, but this is the part where a superhero creates their own villain.

So Levy has the Maulers help him with his machine. Remember the two Maulers, when they sit down and copy each other? They copy their brain so that they both believe the same thing. The machine is based on that. Because he’s intelligent, he tried to build his own version of it, and it’s not working. That’s why he had to break out the Maulers and get them to help.

When it all comes down to it, they strap him down. He opens up portals to the other dimensions where these other machines are, and he’s plugged into about a thousand minds. The Maulers give him several warnings. One of them is, under no circumstance take the helmet off. The other one is, do not lose yourself. For a brief period he’s going to get lost in his own mind, and he’s not going to remember which memories are his.

So peace-loving Angstrom Levy gets into the thing, and all of a sudden stuff starts happening. Cecil finally calls on Mark and sends him in. He says, I don’t care what’s going on, you stop them, because whatever they’re doing, if it needs that much energy, it’s not going to be good.

Mark gets there and starts fighting the Maulers. Angstrom tries to tell Mark, you don’t understand what’s going on, you’ve got to let this happen. And then Angstrom opens up portals and brings in more Maulers. “Help your brothers.” Different Maulers from different universes, and they start beating the pants off of Mark.

Angstrom doesn’t want Mark’s death to be on his hands. He tries to take the thing off, and the entire machine explodes. He knew better.

One of the Maulers survives. But then we find out at the very end that Angstrom has survived too. He’s got kind of this, the Leader, that’s the guy from Marvel with the big brain, thing going on. His brain has expanded and become almost like a weird sort of back hunch. And he’s like, he did this to me. He killed billions of people.

The Mauler calls it quick. You did this to you. Right now you don’t know whose memories are whose.

Angstrom Levy doesn’t care. He wants revenge, and he wants it on Mark.

The Verdict

Invincible Season 2 Episode 1, “A Lesson for Your Next Life,” lands at an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.

I thought it was a great episode. It’s a good episode, man. It’s a good, solid start, and I’m giving it a solid 8. It works. I like it. I think they’re going in a good direction, and I can’t wait to see how they interpret the next coming chapters of this story.

Let me know what you thought of the first episode of Season 2 of Invincible. I know it’s a show that isn’t for everyone, with the mature themes and the swearing and whatnot, so obviously your mileage may vary. But we’d love to have that conversation. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.