On Thursday, February 6th, Invincible season 3 premiered with three episodes to kickstart the new season. It was a great watch, comparable to the previous seasons, and filled with action-packed scenes that elevated the experience. The season also included a romance plot line between Mark Grayson (Invincible) and Samantha “Eve” Wilkins (Atom Eve). Action scenes and teenage drama weren’t the only things I noticed. From these episodes, I’ve gathered a compelling theme that wasn’t as prevalent before: How do we define what is right and what is wrong?
In the first three episodes, Mark finally sees what Cecil Stedman has been doing with the villains he’s put behind bars. Cecil is the director of the Global Defense Agency, and he has been using villains for his own benefit under the guise of saving the world. Mark is outraged because these aren’t just your run-of-the-mill villains, they’re murderers who tried to kill him and his family. For example, D.A. Sinclair is a vicious scientist who modified humans by tearing out their organs and replacing them with machinery to surpass humanity’s limitations. Sinclair has kidnapped many people to fuel his experiments, one of whom was a friend of Mark’s. When Sinclair is finally captured, instead of facing life in prison or some form of punishment, Cecil recruits him into his organization. Cecil values the power of Sinclair’s mutations, and instead of using live specimens, Sinclair is ordered to use corpses.
Cecil Stedman is cold and calculating when it comes to heroism. He doesn’t believe in the idealism that Mark presents and instead believes there must be a degree of “evil” to heroism. These ideas are meant to provide a moral dilemma for Mark. Cecil is doing all of this horrendous stuff, but if he’s saving the world, then isn’t it right? As he puts it, “You can be the good guy or the guy who saves the world. You can’t be both.” To be the one who saves the world, you have to understand that some decisions require a steely resolve. There will be choices that can’t be solved with pure hearts and naivety. You have to allow a degree of “evil” to ensure humanity persists.
In the beginning, Mark goes against this idea. He believes that people like Sinclair are meant to be condemned. They cannot and will not change because they will always be monsters. However, as strongly as Mark pushes this point, he’s a hypocrite. His father, Nolan Grayson, destroyed cities and massacred millions of people. Nolan created so much destruction, but over time, he repents. Mark is hesitant to believe him, but he sees that Nolan has really changed for the better. Even Mark himself has killed someone, a villain, but a person nonetheless. For all his talk about punishing murderers, he doesn’t give himself the same treatment. Eventually, Mark faces situations where he has to do what he believes is wrong in order to do the right thing.
In the fourth episode of Invincible, Mark is asked to kill the Immortal, a hero. It was the Immortal who requested to be killed by Mark because he had lived for too long and had become corrupt. Mark doesn’t want to do it, but he’s forced by the Immortal. With a final push from the Immortal, Mark kills him. It’s a devastating moment for Mark because he killed a former hero who turned into a mad tyrant. Mark no longer knows what is right or wrong. For the Immortal, it was what he wanted, so it can be seen as the right thing to do. But murder is still wrong, and Mark struggles with this morality.
In future episodes, I believe we’ll see Mark face similar situations that challenge his morality. This is speculation, but I think it will culminate in a change in Mark’s ideology, where he starts agreeing with what Cecil says or at the very least, becomes less hesitant to use extreme force as a means to an end. This shift is already evident from Mark’s character development from season one to season three. In season three, Mark is more inclined to kill than his season-one counterpart. Perhaps by the end of season three, we’ll see Mark become what he was once so against: an eager murderer.
