Spoilers follow for the first three seasons of Prime Video’s Invincible. Season 4 debuts on March 18.
Invincible is back for Season 4 on Prime Video, and without getting into any spoilers for how the season kicks off, it doesn’t waste any time jumping back into the action. Thankfully, it hasn’t been that long since Season 3 aired – only a little over a year versus some of the longer gaps in early seasons that led to a lot of fan griping. But with so much going on all the time in the world of Mark Grayson (voiced by Steven Yeun), you might need a bit of a refresher before the Season 4 premiere.
More: Invincible Season 4, Episodes 1-6 Spoiler-Free Review
Hey, that’s what this is! It’s a recap of everything you need to remember before Season 4 streams. And while we won’t break down every single event that’s happened leading into the epic fourth season of the adaptation of Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley’s best-selling Image Comics series, we will give you the broad strokes, all the way from the beginning of Season 1 up until the end of Season 3. Ready? Okay. Then let’s get [smash cut to title card] Invincible.
A Normal Teenager and an Omni-Man
Going back to the beginning, Mark was a pretty normal teenager except for one, big, honking difference: his father is Omni-Man, aka Nolan Grayson (voiced by J.K. Simmons). Omni-Man is essentially the Superman of the Invincible Universe, albeit with “only” the powers of flight, strength, and near-indestructibility, versus the freeze breath/heat vision/having small versions of yourself fly out of your hands (read a book, kids) powers that Superman has. Still, everyone loved Omni-Man… Up until the world discovered that he had killed the Justice League/Avengers analogue known as the Guardians of the Globe.
Before we wound up there, though, Mark got powers of his own, and bonded with his dad while training, taking on the identity of the costumed superhero Invincible. There were a lot more twists and turns in the first season, but the main thing you need to know is that Omni-Man wasn’t just revealed as a murderer to the whole planet, he also had a knock-down, drag-out, highly destructive and deadly fight with his son that left Mark nearly dead, and whole cities destroyed. The reason? Omni-Man is an alien from the planet Viltrum, and his whole goal was to have a son – that would be Mark – who would help him conquer planet Earth and add it to the Viltrumite Empire.
To Kill or Not to Kill?
For reasons that have become more and more apparent over subsequent seasons, Nolan backed off from killing Mark (more on that in a moment), though Mark has spent the time since wrestling with whether he will become his dad. And nearly constantly, the show has thrust problems Mark’s way that put him in a position where he needs to decide whether to kill someone or let them live and potentially cause destruction another day. That became readily apparent not just through Mark’s frequent conversations with the morally grey Cecil Stedman (voiced by Walton Goggins), the head of the human-staffed Global Defense Agency and the folks who run the Guardians of the Globe, but also in particular once Mark accidentally killed multiverse-traveling villain Angstrom Levy (voiced by Sterling K. Brown) at the end of Season 2.
Angstrom, by the way, survived having his head completely split open in Season 2, and did come back to plague Mark in Season 3. That’s mostly been the pattern with this particular plotline… Mark was bereft after he thought he killed Angstrom, and Angstrom came back. His fury and frustration over the event led to him losing it and killing the nearly unstoppable Viltrumite warrior Conquest (voiced by Jeffrey Dean Morgan), except again, Conquest is actually alive and being held captive by Cecil when Season 4 begins. The only person Mark actually killed was an insane version of the hero The Immortal (Ross Marquand) from a possible future version of Earth; and Mark only did that because Immortal begged Mark to do so.
Still, this progression is important to point out because as Season 3 ended, Mark made a turn, deciding that he’s not going to hold back anymore… If someone threatens Mark’s family, he will kill them dead (even if that hasn’t been as permanent as one would expect in the past). And it’s a surprising turn, too, as Angstrom’s plan in Season 3 involved bringing a series of evil versions of Invincible from throughout the multiverse to attack and destroy Earth. So the entire planet has seen Invincible(s) murdering people and blowing up cities. One would expect Mark to be presented with this and go the other way, particularly now that the whole world hates him; instead, he seems to be leaning into the MO of the evil Invincibles.
Atom Eve (and the Rainbow Goo)
One other important thing to know about Mark? He’s finally gotten together with fellow superhero Atom Eve (voiced by Gillian Jacobs), who has totally normal parents (she has a complicated backstory that was detailed in the Atom Eve Special, which isn’t important to know right now), they’re having a lot of sex, and something weird seems to be going on with her matter manipulation powers (after taking off Mark’s clothes in the finale, they melted into some sort of rainbow goo).
As Season 3 ended, Mark made a turn, deciding that he’s not going to hold back anymore… If someone threatens his family, he will kill them.
Wow, that was a lot! Good recap. Just kidding, there’s so much more to know about this extremely busy show where 50 different threats are bubbling at any given time.
Omni-Man Hits a Low Point
Let’s turn things over to Nolan, who left Earth after kicking the shit out of his son (this show is so fun, you guys) and has since then been on a journey of the soul. Or rather, a journey of the getting his bone on, as he ditched his Earth-wife Debbie (voiced by Sandra Oh), who he horribly compared to a pet, for an insect lady named Andressa (voiced by Rhea Seehorn). Andressa and Nolan had a son who looks more human than insectoid, later named Oliver (voiced by Christian Convery). Oliver came to Earth with Mark after Nolan was captured by some Viltrumites, and is rapidly growing into the same powers as Mark and Nolan, as he ages more quickly than humans (and is also purple). Oliver has taken on the identity of Kid Omni-Man, much to the concern of everyone around him, and also seems to feel less compunctions about killing than Mark.
Hey! That was about Oliver, not Nolan! Yeah, but it set up that Nolan hit his lowest point when he was captured by the Viltrumites and was ready to die for betraying their “might makes right” cause, as well as for betraying Debbie, Mark, Andressa, etc. Except he was imprisoned next to the strong-but-not-as-strong-as-a-Viltrumite and extremely friendly, one-eyed Allen the Alien (voiced by Seth Rogen). Allen’s earnest and chipper demeanor led to him eventually convincing Nolan to help him escape prison, rather than dying. In the process, they also freed the unstoppable and bloodthirsty Battle Beast (Michael Dorn), who was thrilled to be killing Viltrumites and was last seen heading off to do a little more murderin’.
Viltrumite Revelations
But this prison break also led to two surprising revelations. The first is that there are less than 50 Viltrumites left in the universe, meaning the Coalition of Planets – the organization Allen belongs to that is fighting against the Viltrumite Empire – might actually have a chance. And the second revelation is that when Nolan was a sci-fi author on Earth, he secretly seeded ways of defeating the Viltrumites in his novels. So though Nolan isn’t fully on board with the Coalition cause as of yet, Allen has two key pieces of information that could turn the tide.
To stick with the Coalition for a second: First, they are led by a guy named Thaedus (voiced by Optimus Prime… Sorry, Peter Cullen) who is secretly a defected Viltrumite himself. And second, there’s a mole in the Coalition. Who is the mole? We’ll have to wait and see, though eagle-eyed viewers probably already have a fair idea. And last thing, Allen has a girlfriend named Telia (Tatiana Maslany) who is a high-ranking officer in the Coalition. So ya know!
On the other side of the equation, there’s a few Viltrumites who have popped up before. There’s Conquest, who we already mentioned. In addition, you have the cyborg-eyed General Kregg (voiced by Clancy Brown), who captured Nolan on the planet of the bug-people. And there’s Anissa (voiced by Shantel VanSanten), who was sent to Earth to check on Mark’s progress in conquering the planet (spoiler: he had not done that yet). The last one you need to know about has been mentioned, but not introduced: Thragg, the head of what’s left of the Viltrumite Empire, who is voiced by Lee Pace, in a big stretch from his role as the Emperor over on Apple TV’s Foundation.
Odds and Ends
But wait, there’s even more. A few more odds and ends you need to know include the status of the Guardians of the Globe going into Season 4… After getting decimated by the Invincible War (the thing with the multiversal Invincibles of badness), including the death of hero Rex-Splode (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas), the heroes of the Guardians have built themselves up as a team again, with Robot (also voiced by Marquand) renaming himself Rex in Rex’s honor (it’s a whole clone thing, don’t worry about it). There are also more secrets than Conquest hiding in the GDA, including the Reanimen, corpses reanimated by a formerly evil scientist named D.A. Sinclair (Eric Bauza) who are nearly as strong as Invincible. And Debbie has been dating a normal real estate agent named Paul (voiced by Cliff Curtis).
Without giving too much away, there are four other plotlines you probably need to know about because of the whole “not wasting any time” thing. First, there are alien mind-controlling squid things called Sequids that took over the brain of an astronaut named Rus Livingston (voiced by Ben Schwartz) that have been building an army in the sewers. We’ve previously been told that if even one of them gets to Earth, it’s game over for humanity, so that seems pretty bad. Second, there was a plotline with crime boss Machine Head (voiced by Jeffrey Donovan) taking over a Legion of Doom-esque organization called The Order and agreeing to leave fellow crime boss Titan (voiced by Todd Williams) and his family alone after they manipulated Invincible into taking out a third crime boss named Mister Liu (Tzi Ma) who can turn into a dragon. Similar to the whole Invincible-killing-characters-but-not-really thing, Machine Head thought he killed Liu, but he’s actually very much alive. Third, there’s a race of aliens called The Flaxans who keep attacking Earth, despite the fact that they’ve been beaten back every time; they also age rapidly because time moves differently on their home planet.
Last but not least, the mid-credits scene on the Season 3 finale teased an entirely new storyline, one that Kirkman never got to do in the comics. Demon detective Damien Darkblood (also voiced by Brown), who was banished to Hell by Cecil back in Season 1, summoned his master, a decrepit demon voiced by Bruce Campbell, and the two discussed that Damien had encountered a being of incredible power who could help them in their cause. Is Invincible headed to Hell for his final Friday? We’ll find out in Invincible Season 4…
What other important plot points need to be revisited in preparation for Season 4? Let’s discuss in the comments!
