Is he Invincible yet?

By Erik McClean

By Ryan Mullen

What would usually be a safe name for a superhero show, is oddly unfitting for a show where the titular character often walks out of the season finale looking like he’s been in a car accident.

The show’s new season continues to make Invincible (Steven Yeun)'s life relatable and believable by having his life as a superhero stand side-by-side with the mundanity of his family life. Taking the forefront of this is Invincible is confronted with the issue of being a good example for his little brother; both as a superhero and a person. The addition of Oliver Grayson (Christian Convery) adds another layer to an already complex and well-written character.

The show has strayed away from the former “villain-of-the-week” format it used in its first season, beginning to focus on the looming threat of an impending “Viltrumite” invasion, showing this by starting the season with a training montage and exposition dump. Despite this, it does nothing to stifle the momentum built by the prior season’s final episodes, rather it feels a sensible next step after seeing the beating put on the main character in them.

The season's first episode sets up multiple plotlines. It sets up a prison break by Invincible’s slowly-reforming father Omni Man (J.K Simmons), a trip to the future to retrieve the declaration of independence stolen by newly-introduced villain Fightmaster (Xolo Maridueña), the wedge driven between Invincible and long-time ally Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins), but most prominent is the focus on Invincible’s half-brother, who struggles with his inherently violent nature.

All of these slowly unfurl across the first couple episodes, with another introduced at the end of the third- the return of the dimension-hopping Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown) that teases what’s to come later on in the season.