Invincible S01E07 is the penultimate instalment of the first season of an animated superhero action-adventure TV drama streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The series is based on the Image Comic of the same name, created by writer Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) and artist Cory Walker.
S P O I L E R S
Entitled “We Need To Talk”, Invincible S01E07 is probably the best episode of Invincible so far. The whole season has been building up to this critical moment since Omni-Man massacred the Guardians of the Globe at the end of the first episode.
READ OUR REVIEWS OF INVINCIBLE SEASON 1 SO FAR.
Thus, the bulk of Invincible S01E07 is dedicated to Cecil Stedman’s efforts to stop Omni-Man, the most powerful superhero in the world. The rest of the episode presents the heartfelt subplot of Robot’s efforts to regain his humanity, in concert with the Mauler Twins.
The main aspect of the episode that resonated with us was a superb deconstruction of the Superman trope. If Superman went rogue, what could anybody realistically do to stop him? That’s what you get when an overpowered character like Superman (or Omni-Man) exists. Personally, we have never liked the Superman character – boring to the nth degree – and the only way to make Superman interesting is to make him dark – as Kirkman did with Omni-Man.
READ OUR ANALYSIS OF THE SUPERHERO MOVIE GENRE.
Of course, we still do not have a clue as to WHY Omni-Man is acting the way he is – his evil turn coming after twenty years of do-gooding! Throughout the entire episode, every other character is demanding from Omni-Man an explanation for his inexplicable behaviour. Which leads us to the final scene between Omni-Man and Invincible and the episode title.
Invincible S01E07 demonstrates once more what made superhero comics so exciting in the wake of Alan Moore’s Watchmen – an attempt to provide a realistic context and the ultra-violence is inevitable when you have such powerful actors existing in the world. Can hardly for the season finale!
Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
… still there’s more …