This is the Invincible Podcast on TV Podcast Industries, and this time we're talking about Invincible Season 3, Episode 4, You and My Hero. You have ten seconds to explain. We need you to help us overthrow our king. We saw you before. We realized all the stories were true. You're the only one strong enough. What are you even talking about? Also, if it's a time machine, can't you come back later? Or earlier? We only have enough power for this last trip. You have no idea how many people died to make it happen. Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to the future with you, if that's even where you're from. You're lucky we're on a date, or I'd be taking you both to prison. Maybe you're not the hero we thought you were.
Guess not. Really thought that line would work. God, you're an idiot. Welcome back, fellow guardians, to the Invincible Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. And this time we are talking about Invincible Season 3, Episode 4. You are my hero. I am one of your hosts, Chris. And I'm your other host, Derek. Welcome back. Back to weekly episodes of Invincible now. Oh, I know. It's so good. It's great, isn't it?
Yeah, it's nice to wake up and go, do you know what I have something to do today? Something to look forward to. Exactly, exactly. And they did their wonderful split episode this week. They started in season two, wasn't it? Yeah. When we were a market together, and then they split the episode and do an Alan the Alien episode. They will not show schmutt. There will not be any animated schmutt on this channel. You can have as many arms ripped off, you can have as many curse words as you possibly want to, people being ripped in half, people being shot to pieces, everything, but how dare they possibly show people making love, Chris? No. Bumping the two uglies, doing the evil. I know we did get to see Rex Boud's bare arse in the first episode, but that was it.
No, I know. That's just, you know, that's just for all the Jason Manzoukas fans. There you go. I think it's just because I'm really terrible about showing penises. Well, to be fair, they are terrible to look at. I'm speaking for myself. Yes, exactly. Speak for yourself. Speak for yourself. We are back to talk about this episode and I am not going to beat around the bush too much because there's a lot to talk about in episode four. But before we get to that, we do have some feedback from the first three episodes. Here we have some feedback from Coffee and Vodka who had this to say. Greetings, fellow First Flight defenders. Nice for us all to be back with the whole gang on both sides of the screen.
Not a single out-and-out baddie in the episode, with everyone, including Doc Seidman, justified in their motivations. Mark's progression and snap into absolute justice over great practicality, with Darkwing and Tony, he's coming, was golden. Didn't seem to be the smallest waste of time or plot space. So far, so awesome. Off to episode two. 4.5 faulty, favourite, fingers, flying purple people, protectors, and safe spaces out of five.
Peace and take care. Coffee and vodka. Thank you so much. I'm so happy that you kicked off and that you like this episode as much as we did. Absolutely. That was a really great kickoff for the season. It does feel like the enemy this season is going to be Mark's own morals, doesn't it? Yes. Will he push the boundaries? Will he stray into the grey areas rather than just being so black and white about everything? Only time will tell, I guess, as the episode's gone.
Exactly, exactly. But thanks so much, Coffee and Vodka. And Kate, wait to see what you think about episode two. And I've got some feedback in from Dr. Bob Phillips on the first episode of season three of Invincible. He says he's back, he's bloodied, his emotional life is just as messed up as before. And Cecil is preparing to get back into the child labor market as well as the evil undead hordes game. Plus, Alan is getting even more jacked in a junk shop prison and we learned that volcanoes are the true home of kaiju centipedes. Not a bad way to reopen the unhinged cartoon world of Invincible. And do Kate and Paul have any other siblings? Facts, Emily?
Perhaps. Very good, Dr. Bob. That would be a pretty good and unknowing Robert Kirkman maybe later on in the series. He may have Fax Emily in there somewhere as well. I was thinking maybe Identical might be another option. But they are all based on the Marvel character, James Madrox, who is multiple man in Marvel. So they're a little bit more creative, actually, when you think about it that way. Thanks very much for your thoughts on the first episode, Dr. Bob. And we have some feedback in from Coffee and Vodka on episode two. He says, greetings, fellow fed-up defenders. Very much a how we got here.
slash you and I are not so very different episode with a battle of wills without any winners I'm relieved in that I thought the trailers had given away the entire season but it turns out may have just been the first three episodes if I had to guess this season's arc is about Mark maturing into a more fully rounded person though the relationship he just ham-fisted his way into has all the earmarks of some massive foobar soon to roll over Eve much like what happened to the Guardians once he asked for their help in his drive to satisfy his own desires like being a hero he's become the fly in the organizational ointment so yeah best if he grows up before becoming a full-on Sabine for now at least I'm team Cecil how about you for submissive cellmates silly questions and guys that save the world out of five peace and take care coffee and vodka thanks coffee and vodka I said it last week when we were talking about this episode, I am Team Cecil. I see the practicality and the pragmatism, I suppose, a little bit more in Cecil, and he does try to explain himself. I think there's an optimism that's there in Mark, and it would be great if the world worked like that, but when you're facing threats from all across the galaxy, especially one Viltrumite that could destroy an entire planet, you may have to take some greater decisions like we see with Cecil.
100%. I am Team Cecil, but I want to be Team Mark. The optimist in me, the person that wants to see a beautiful rainbow in the morning when they get out of bed is Team Mark. The pragmatist who wakes up, opens the curtains and sees Ireland's grey skies and goes, I'm going to get soaked today, is Team Cecil. I also think it's a little bit easier to be Mark on Team Mark because he has the powers of a Viltrumite, so he can just choose to say, I'm not getting involved with that and I will beat anybody to a pulp who doesn't agree with me. Cecil kind of has to make the decisions that Mark...
Doesn't have to make, right? He's trying to protect under her, but Mark can pick and choose the battles he gets involved in as well. So I guess it's a little bit of that too. Exactly. Thanks, Coffee Vodka. Thanks so much, Coffee Vodka.
On the second episode, Dr. Bob Phillips says, Episode 2 takes the chance to highlight the moral ambiguity of Spycraft, set us up for a Guardians of the Galaxy Globe Civil War, and let us see how Mother and Son are both a bit rubbish on dates. Plus, lashings of blood, twain tearing, disemboweling, dismemberment, and the extensive cleanup that goes with Mark getting a bit annoyed. Perhaps we should club together to get him a calm app subscription. But the main question is, who is the dark-haired architecture student who sat next to Eve, and will she steal her heart instead of Invincible? Ooh, very interesting, Dr. Bob. I guess only time will tell on who the dark-haired architecture student is later on in the season. You never know. Maybe...
that'll be the option, but I don't think so. I think, honestly, Eve and Mark are destined for each other. One of those kind of pairings that you'll probably see together forever, or at least until one turns evil. Thanks, Dr. Bob. Over on episode three, we also got some feedback from Coffee and Vodka. Greetings, fellow babysitting defenders. Great to see Art and the Maulers again. Not going to call the latter dead if Andrew comes back, although it's hard to expect Oliver to stick around too long with the Damien Wayne streak in him. I like Vince Boy's new look and Debbie's new relationship status. Pretty much everything in this episode outside of Oliver.
For Paul, the wine guy's brought packs and late first dates out of five. Peace and take care. Coffee and vodka. Thanks, coffee and vodka. Yeah, look, most people by the end of this season are going to be on the fence about Oliver. And I think it will be that kind of like, yay. Oh, he's back. He's like a fine wine. He matures on you. You kind of get used to the taste of that initial.
is a bit like... So you don't like wine, Chris? I love that first taste of wine. It's great. It's a tannins. It's a tannins. I do like Oliver. I like the complication that he brings to it. And it is, as we mentioned in the podcast, it's like Mark having those powers at six or seven years old. He was exactly like Oliver was, but just couldn't do anything about it because he didn't have the powers. And there was one thing I noticed in the clip that I picked from the episode in the discussion between Oliver and Debbie, where she's telling him, you know, about...
Other people have family members that they care about just like you care about me. Shouldn't they deserve to live? I didn't realize his response to that was actually the Maulers didn't have any family members. Oh, sorry. Yeah, okay. I get what you mean, Mom. So once again, he does seem like he's probably going to push this a lot further as the seasons go on. So there's loads of little touches of that in the episodes. Oliver is a difficult character and difficult to get in control. So how do I do it? That's a big question. It's a good analogy with the Damian Wayne, though. So Damian Wayne is Batman's son, and he was brought up by, for the non-comic book readers, he is Batman's son, brought up by the League of Shadows, essentially a bad kid, likes to kill people.
Believes in killing people. Thinks it's the right thing. He was Raj Al Ghul's grandson. So my granddad is the leader of the League of Assassins. So kid is bad news.
but became a really good Robin depending on the writer and the reader it's going to be that it's very much like that with Oliver it can be yeah let's hope let's hope Mark's going to be able to get him to check I guess as his sidekick as the season goes brilliant stuff thanks so much coffee vodka thanks coffee vodka also on episode 3 Dr. Bob Phillips says the cold open storyline wordlessly ripped a hole in my heart super parrot folks trying to do the best they could in the face of the grinding evil of landlords and gentrification follow this with untamed viltrumite rage in the body of kiddo And maybe we're heading where the Grapes of Wrath ended up. Or is there a way of saving Oliver from his inherently murderous ways? And cute architecture girl returned. My theory is growing legs. Very good, Dr. Bob. You keep an eye on that for us in case I forget to look out for it. But I do hope there are ways to stop Oliver from going all murdery. Hopefully, Mark and his mom will be able to sort out something to stop him from going absolutely mental and killing everything in his path. Let's hope anyway.
Thanks, Dr. Bob. And finally, on episode three, Karen Shee says, wow, those first seven minutes of just piano music in the opening of this episode. Brilliant. And oof about Oliver. With great power comes great responsibility. But how do you expect a child to abide by that? No, I'm not just talking about a certain world leader. Cecil's line of you can be the good guy or you can be the guy who saved the world, but you can't be both is definitely the theme of the season. And I'm here for it. Damn, what a great start so far. Brilliant, Karen. Yeah, I think you're totally right. You can be the good guy or the guy who saves the world, but you can't be both. Yeah, that's the mantra that Cecil took from his mentor, I guess, in the GDA. And he's taking it on and passing it down the line to the people who follow him, like Mark. And as we said, yeah.
probably breaking apart Mark's moral code as we go on throughout the season also seems to be the big move for Invincible himself and for Mark himself this season as it goes on as well. So really glad you're enjoying it, Karen. I'm glad everybody's enjoying these episodes. And thanks everybody for your feedback. If you want to send in feedback to us, email us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or pop on over to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash tvpodcastindustries where we have a spoiler post up for each of the episodes for the season of Invincible. Pop in your thoughts there and we'll read them out on the next podcast. Let's jump into the episode details and the full discussion of...
Episode 4 of Season 3 of Invincible, you were my hero. Derek, do you want to kick us off with the episode details? Absolutely, of course. The show is based on the comic series written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Corey Walker and Ryan Otley. The show is developed by Robert Kirkman and produced by Robert Kirkman, David Alpert, Casper Boinder, Simon Recioppa, Margaret M. Dean, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg. This episode was written by Tanya Leosha. She is a producer on Invincible and also wrote on The Witcher. She wrote Season 3, Episode 4. So we have discussed Tanya Leosha before. Great stuff. So a Witcher writer over here on Invincible as well. It's kind of cool.
Yeah. The episode was directed by Ian Abando. This is the third episode he's directed of Invincible after season two, episode two. My favorite named episode of all time for Invincible. In about six hours, I'll lose my rigidity to a fish. And season two, episode seven, I'm not going anywhere as well. So that was a penalty episode of last season. So he's done some great episodes. No, definitely. And Chris, do you want to tell us what they gave us with your synopsis for season three, episode four, You Were My Hero? Sure. When Mark finds yet another drone spying on his family, he breaks into the Pentagon to confront Cecil. But the GTA aren't spying on Mark, at least not with that technology.
Mark leaves without committing treason and makes it just in time for his date with Eve. But they are interrupted by time-traveling brothers, Fightmaster and Dropkick. They need Invincible's help in the far future to overthrow the dictatorship of the King of Earth. Mark fights his way to the King and learns it's actually the immortal who has been doing everything to get his attention. In his time, Invincible left the immortal in charge of Earth, but it's been thousands of years and every single person immortal has ever known is dead. He persuades Mark to finally put him out of his misery. With his obligation fulfilled, Mark is brought back to his own time.
While Mark and Eve consummate their relationship, we travel across the galaxy to the Vultrumite prison, where Alan the alien and Omni-Man are being held. Omni-Man continues to refuse to join Alan's cause, but when his executioners arrive, Nolan is taken away. But Alan has a plan. He frees all the prisoners to cover his escape attempt, including the brutal Battle Beast. As the Vultrumite executioners get their hands on Alan, Omni-Man finally stands up. As the Vultrumite executioners get their hands on Alan, Omni-Man finally stands up, and with their combined strength, they destroy the Vultrumite. Omni-Man reveals they are now both free.
No reinforcements are coming as there are less than 50 vulture mice left in the whole galaxy. Ooh, big, massive reveal there. I love that reveal. I remember reading that and going, oh my God. Like, you really, if you think like, wait, Nolan is number 51. Mark is 51.5 because he's a half-breed. And it also gets so, it's so interesting to think about.
what does this mean? Is it actually still an evasion coming? But then you also can see what one man or one omni-man can do to a planet. So you're like, no, no, it's still a bad thing. It's still a bad thing, but I kind of love the idea. At least they're not facing off against an entire planet of Viltrumites. They seem to be spread very thin, I guess, is what's happened here. And that's probably why Nolan was left on Earth as long as he was. He was left there a very long time, as we know from the previous season.
Yeah, they just spread out across the galaxy with the threat of having a massive army and the ability to take out entire sectors of the galaxy. But there's a very small number of them. And as we see in this episode, the combined powers of Omni-Man and Alan can take out one Biltrumite between them. That's pretty cool. So now we just need them to replicate themselves 50-fold. And then they can do stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Should we jump into our discussion on this episode?
absolutely let's get into our top points we're gonna start off with our point number one the everlasting king and really the story of what's happening with mark and i guess what happened with the brothers fight master and dropkick i'm so glad we mentioned them there's so many things we didn't mention about episode one two and three but i'm so glad we mentioned uh the two characters of fight master and dropkick so when they appeared back up here i was prepared i knew they were i knew what they i knew what they'd done i knew what episode they'd been in the past so uh so we know what they're back for and here they kind of bust in on uh on mark and eve's first date um to drag him into the future uh to help them take out the king of earth this is a cool story i really like this I love this. I love this. And also, I love how they explain why they stole the Declaration of Independence, because there was a rumour that apparently the ink could be a poison. Now, we've previously seen in flashbacks about Immortal that he looked like Abraham Lincoln. So I love this connection, that this weird rumour that he's immortal and that the ink of the Declaration of Independence, because he wasn't there, maybe he was. It's just a fun thing. But what did you think of the reveal that it was immortal?
Did you think it was going to be him? No, not at all. I really thought it was going to be a Viltrumite that had come down and taken up Earth. The reveal is a really interesting one. The idea that actually what the immortal is doing, these horrible things that he's visiting on every bit on Earth, on his planet, effectively, is just a way of sending out a signal to get Mark there to kill him. It's brilliant writing. It's so interesting. It means that the immortal himself isn't technically evil.
He just isn't sending the right signal out to get Mark to come and kill him earlier before he has to do the things he has to do. So again, a villain justifying their motivations and their villainy by saying, well, it's kind of your fault. If you just responded to the first bad thing that I did, then we wouldn't have had to have gone as far as we went. Now kill me. You also shouldn't have left me in charge is kind of the indication there for Mark. So I really liked it. I really liked the idea. I absolutely loved it. I actually thought back when I first saw this. So I actually read this because this is from the comic books and I knew it was coming. I was actually expecting they might change it slightly, but they didn't. So I'm even happier for it.
I thought this was going to be Mark when I was reading this because we know vulture mites have such an extended lifespan. Yeah, exactly. And Omni-Man has said, Nolan has said to Mark that now that his vulture mites have kicked in, he's going to age slowly. He is going to be there for the longest time. Yeah. Well, that was the warning he gave him to not fall for any humans, not to fall for anybody around him because they will all be dead at some point in the future and you will live a long, long life. So that is the warning that he's had. And now here we have immortal experiencing. So similar to the other...
piece we talked about with Oliver experiencing what it would have been like if Mark got superpowers at five or six years old here we have Immortal living out the life that Mark could be living out he could be living for thousands of years on his own with nobody around him so yeah and it's fun to see that the man is losing his mind he is going crazy but his way to get the attention of Mark in his time was to go like he was like I just need you to stop me I'm doing these things just stop me kill me to get rid like I can't control myself I wasn't the right pick and it's so interesting to see again we're getting Mark having to kill but for a justified He doesn't wonder. He keeps pushing back. And that fight scene, I know we talked about in one of the last episodes how the fight scene seems slightly off. This one doesn't. This one, you can actually hear the crack from the sound effects of the actual punches. I was like, okay, you made up for it. Cool, you invested some of the money here. I get it. I just really enjoyed this reveal. What did you take away from some of the...
pieces that Immortal said to Mark. Did you take any hints or any thoughts? Yeah, the idea that Mark left Earth undefended and left Immortal behind to take care of it and watch over it because he's the best man for the job, the best man he's ever known, I thought that was really interesting. Firstly, because Mark and Immortal have always had a challenging... time against each other so at some point in the future they'll be best friends best friends enough that mark will leave him behind to mind earth while he's gone but also why did mark leave earth is the other big question why would he why would he leave the planet that he's protecting the planet with his family on it that's uh that's also really interesting um the questions from mark of you know um asking him who's duplicated because the last time he'd met immortal um they had just gotten engaged so he thought you must be someone massively important to him and here he is thousands of years later and he can't even remember duplicates name who was that because he's married so many times and they've all died he's all been he's completely alone so um yeah that's the kind of stuff that i thought was really interesting in their in their conversations and again it is the fulfilling of that prophecy almost from uh from nolan that was given to mark that this is how you're going to live out your life if you stay connected to these people on this uh on this limited lifespan planet um they will all die yeah and so we joked about the two twins and kind of hope they're important because they're gonna most of what ryan and the rest of them all do when they they write this comic book or wrote this comic book and now adapting it to you none of it's for
Like everything meant something. So you're right. Like this is a direct reference back to that Omni-Man conversation because it goes so far. Like there are threads that, and we're like self-referential kind of comments from the first 20 issues of the comic that in the 135th comic. are you're like oh my god you're just doing a call back to that yeah yeah whoa like come on and like that's what we're getting now but it's also we're back to this gray conversation this gray area conversation which is he's now euthanizing essentially immortal yeah so he's killing again but in this case it's for the right reasons yeah but he's still breaking the code i don't want king and kill anymore exactly and we're back into that what this is it's mark maturing into that gray area superhero. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So again, I guess that continues throughout all the story and writing down those fundamentals of what Mark believes is right and what he can and can't do and what lines he can and can't cross. Here's the one here killing one of his other super friends, I guess, one of the other guardians. So I guess the immortal is not going to be immortal after his head got ripped off by Mark. As long as they keep the parts separate, he won't come back. That's what he says. Yeah, does Mark bring the head back to...
Earth with him? Back to his time with him? That's one way. But think of the crazy paradoxes. You see his own head. A mortal touches his own head and he's like, what happens? He just explains he becomes not immortal anymore. I also thought it was really interesting that we had Mark pushing away.
Fightmaster and Dropkick, saying, no, I'm not going to go with you. And then they still take him anyway, even though they don't have any power to bring him back. So they're so desperate that they have to show him how bad it is in their time. So you wonder, have there been other times in the past that someone has tried to go back there to take Mark from a different time or a different place to go there and he's refused them? But here they just take him. And this is why timey-wimey stuff hurts my head. Yes, absolutely. That's why I usually enjoy just the basic time.
machine stories, so your standard ones, because when you start getting into these, do you think they tried before? But what does this mean? Is this the prime timeline now? Are they getting into variants? Are we getting into MCU level here? The timeline is branching. We need to prune them. What happened to that mark who left his clothes? He took his clothes back, but what about that other mark who's going forward? Are they the same? So many questions, it hurts my head. As a lifelong Doctor Who fan over 50 years, almost 50 years, not over 50 years, almost 50 years, I'm pretty good with time travel stuff. It's my favourite stuff, so I really like it here as well. Really cool first point, though, The Everlasting King. Let's get on to our second point, point number two.
Everlasting love. Love's in the air. Mark and Eve finally going out on their first date. I really like this, again, the development of this relationship between the two of them. We knew it was coming, but I like that we have a pause where the two of them get some time together, get some time to kind of chat out what their relationship is like. The reason why Amber broke up with Mark was because she can't possibly take the situation where she doesn't know where he is. He could be dead. He could be out fighting on another planet, another galaxy for months at a time. But he's experienced a lot of that, so she...
She knows what it is for Mark. She understands that he may not be able to make it two dates exactly on time. That's something they just have to put up with, which is pretty cool. I also like after he returns from his battle in the future, killing the immortal, they agree to kick each other's arses if either of them try to take over the Earth. And I wonder, again, because it's the show that it is, is that foreshadowing? Will it be Mark versus Eve when Eve goes evil or Mark goes evil in the future? You never know. I do, but I can't say anything. I just love this.
The flights, the music, the conversations, the, it's your lowest lane, Superman, lowest story, but for another generation where it's like, they were star-crossed lovers somewhat. It's Wonder Woman and Superman, really, isn't it? It is, but if you tell anyone about that who doesn't like the New 52 run where they got together, it's really, it's not, most people go, no, there is no Diana and Clark. But they've been together for ages and many stories. Yes, yes, in the good ones, in the New 52 and then in Kingdom Come and New Kingdom and all those other films. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just love this story. I love this piece. And I love that it jokingly ends on the consummation. And you get that fourth wall breaking narrative or narrator who, it's just fun. It's a fun setup and it's a fun break. Yeah. I like the base. I feel like there's going to be a point that we're going to get one in a future season where the continuity announcer is going to be called off guard and he'll be rifling through his notes while he's trying to run to cover up what's happening on screen. It's a good running gag, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Super sex on planet Earth can't be seen by anybody. No. No. But it will. They'll do a point.
where like they'll show it and not show it, but they'll do that kind of floating with flying consummation with kind of like the blankets strategically. kind of falling over areas so that things are covered and they can get away with their age rating. But you still cannot just not assume and know what's going on. But that's the thing, they have the same age rating as the boys, right? And the boys would show significantly more. But again, the boys is a show that shows more violence than sex. Yeah, absolutely. So I don't need to see it. I'm not looking for porn in Invincible either. Invincible Hentai! So it's a running gag, so I guess that's the way they're going to go. And there was a little bit, I just wasn't...
particularly sure of i know they kind of um they go through the the discussion uh between mark and eve about you know they'll get through this together the two of them are going to work really well together and then we see them um traveling across the world i couldn't remember whether that was flashbacks to things i'd done before or whether it was at the time where they're traveling across the planet the reason why i say it is just because they fly over egypt together and i think they both have the costumes on and they didn't have the costumes when they left and so there's just some weird moments where i was going is this them together in a relationship or is this them flashing back to other times when they've been together? And also, Egypt has a specific significance because every time they've flown over Egypt in the past, the mummy character appears and they've released them accidentally in the background. And I was expecting a little bit of that here. I was expecting that mummy to be released once again and covered up as they flew overhead, which didn't happen this time. I took it as the same date. Now, remember, Eve can change the molecules. So she has put on costumes and taken off costumes. So that's why I just went, they went on a date. They're doing some high-flying acrobatic kind of flirting. So I just took it as all in one.
kind of long date but they're just crossing that kind of sun line and sunshine break at like sunrise just consistently they're just crisscrossing which is interesting because mark can fly significantly faster than eve so i was just like like it's still gonna take an hour or two for them to fly over the Atlantic. But we'll just not talk about that. It's fine. Unless they go up. They go up to come down. And he could have carried her as well. At the moment, we didn't see the entire flight. He could have carried her and had to get there quicker. I just want the Disney lawyers to close their ears and we'll just do, I can show you the world. That kind of like really cheesy, like Aladdin level one. Give me that. Give me that cheese. That'd be cool. But also, I suppose.
The whole thing with Amber, when he was taking her on a date, he had to take her to Vegas instead of going to Paris, whereas we see the two of them sitting in Paris, don't we? Yes. So I guess Eve's neck won't break if he takes her at higher speed because she's quite powerful. She can just cover herself in one of her big protectables as they travel across the Atlantic. We go on to our final point, Chris. Yes. Everlasting battle is what I've called this one. I like that. Only because I needed something with everlasting, but it's the everlasting battle. The battle between Alan and Nolan seems to be going on for eternity.
I love that we do a catch-up between the scene of Mark telling Evie loves her already, telling Mark that she loves him, and in the travel across the galaxy, we get a catch-up of what's happened with Alan trying to convince Nolan to join his cause, how he's gotten there. Just in case you don't remember what was going on, I thought it was a really good catch-up to see why. Alan's given everything over to try and get a Vultramite on their side and thinks there is a little chink here in the armor of Omni-Man and they'll be able to get him in. I think that's really good to kind of put all those pieces together because a lot of these took place in post-credit scenes and towards the end of episodes last season. So pulling them all together as to why Alan's still trying to convince Nolan to come on his side, I think it's really good. I agree. The relationship between these two is an important thing because it's going to, like, it goes on. Like, we've seen them now having this kind of back and forth in this banter and it can, for me, it's, if this didn't feel organic, I feel like it might have just, some of the pieces might have fallen flat. But for example,
Alan getting and letting himself get beat up enough. Yeah. And until that point where Nolan then feels the need to, to act. And then like later, you did. Oh, you didn't need me. Yeah. And like that kind of fun back and forth, because again, also it helps that Alan is voiced by Seth Rogen. So you do have that almost stoner laugh in the background as well. So I just, I love, I love the two.
relationship, the bromance. Yeah, the dynamic between the two of us is great, isn't it? It's just the idea that Nolan basically is just sitting there knowing now, as we know by the end of the episode, there's only 50 members of the Viltrum House society left, effectively, and they're going to have to send a few over to give him his punishment. He's got a long time to wait and he knows it probably more than Alan does. And Alan's taking every single minute of that time trying to convince him to join their cause. So it's kind of like a waiting for God thing. It's Nolan just sitting there knowing there is going to be a point at some point in the future and Alan just talking to him constantly going, join my cause, join my cause, join my cause. And Nolan knowing he's just going to have to refuse him because he's going to go along with what the Viltrum House want to do, which is execute him. So it will happen at some point in the future, but...
He'll let Alan talk away in his ear and wrap it away for as long as he wants to get off his nose. But as you say, in the post-credits last week, we saw Alan have the massive laser shot at him and Nolan being a little bit concerned, which gave Alan a little bit more cause to continue to push for Nolan to join their group. So I thought that was really good. And then, yeah, his big gambit, allowing himself to get beaten enough that Nolan will turn on the Viltrumites and the two of them killing a Viltrumite together in a pretty brutal scene. Again, we see the eyeballs popping out and the brain popping out the other side. That one's definitely dead, isn't he? Yeah, that one's beyond repair.
And if not, that guy just will not be flying in circles. I guess so. But I don't know. We just can't tell with this show. Everybody's come back. Is the crushing head? It's the brain destruction. For me, it's brain destruction. It's like zombie rules. So it's Robert Kirkman. It's the same rules as The Walking Dead. Someone will come back unless you destroy their brain. Pretty much. Yeah, that's the best way. Very good. But...
Again, I knew the big reveal was coming. And your thoughts on the massive bomb that was dropped at the end of this episode in between that there's no reinforcements. They don't need to worry. There are a whole host of a whopping 50, 5, 0, Fulton. It's not just in the galaxy, none of this, but in the entire universe. All that is left of the Fulton. It's really interesting because we've now met quite a few of them. We've met about 10, I think, so far since the series started.
Firstly, it must have been massively important to kill Nolan, if they were going to send two all the way to the prison to kill him, if there's only 50 left. Secondly, I'm wondering why they haven't closed ranks and brought everybody back to their home world, if there's 50 of them. Do they think they're willing by the fear that there's more of them? Maybe that's the case in the other places that they've been? Well, yeah, it's a real surprise. It doesn't seem as insurmountable as it has seemed for the first two seasons of the show.
couple of arcs of the show. Having 50 of them, even though they can each kill an entire planet, if you have the right strategy. And I think the whole thing about the weapons that could kill vulture mites, that whole storyline hasn't been picked up yet, that Nolan had written into his travel books and into his books on Earth from Ark, that hasn't been explored yet. But if they have those weapons and they have the right strategy, 50 of them doesn't seem unkillable. So it's a really interesting twist, I suppose. Because I did feel we were going to have wave after wave of vulture mites, so it's instrumentable, right?
Yeah, exactly. And that's the carrot on the end of the stick for this storyline, which is, you're right, it's not insurmountable. The odds are not forever not in their favor. Exactly. These Hunger Games are winnable, if you will. And I think that's why you can go, you can start ticking down, like, well, hold on, was that Voldemort one of the 50? So then it's 49. And we've seen other ones be pretty badly hurt. Absolutely. So it is doable. I remember the first time I was like, oh my God, what does it mean, 50? Give me more. So trying to, I look forward to when they...
they really get into that. And we'll start to see more, I think, hopefully in episode five, but more than likely kind of, they're going to string this one out. I think this is the big one. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever characters like Fightmaster and Dropkick coming in and coming back for a storyline like they did in this episode. I think the reveal of the Vultramite having 50, that's probably enough of the big Vultramite story. Even for this season, we may not see anything massively play out for the rest of the season, but the Vultramite's probably the last couple of episodes, maybe.
It's not going to end. It's not going to all end with Viltrumites at the end of the season. I can't imagine that. Season three will finish off that storyline. I think that's going to continue on for a little while longer. But it's a massive reveal. Very interesting. The other thing that was a bit of a reveal in the episode is when Alan's letting out all the prisoners on the space station, on the prison. He lets out Battle Beast, who we saw back in season one. This massively brutal character who almost killed Mark back in season one. And here he is sitting on a Viltrumite space station, obviously captured by Viltrumites, awaiting his own execution. Now he's released.
Which is pretty massive, isn't it? Yeah, because he's a crazy man. Yeah, no, look, Battle Beast is a fun character. I never fully understood the appeal. I'm not going to lie. For me, he's a secondary character. He's a white kitty cat that likes to get covered in blood. Well. He's the Goliath. He's the Titan. He's the barbarian style. He's that D&D character that just...
put me in the fight. I must kill it. See, to me, he kind of strikes me as the Klingon from Star Trek. He's the character that's going all out for the battle and the glory of the fight. And I suppose good news then for you, Chris, if you missed the announcement, there is a Battle Beast one-off comic coming out this year from Ryan Atlee and Robert Kirkman this year. So coming out pretty soon, I originally thought the announcement was that that was the special for this year after we had the Adam Eve one last year that we were going to have a one-hour special just about Battle Beast this year. But at least they do the comic book. Maybe it'll be translated into a one-off special for the TV show as well. So this is why I thought like,
they announced that comic book. Because I was like, oh, okay. So he's going to be in the public consciousness again this year. Makes sense. Right. I want to give the people what they want, but I'm not sure who wanted this. So I'm going to read it with an open heart and an open mind. And it's Robert Kirkman and Ryan Notley, so I know I'm probably going to like it, but I'm still kind of in that like, okay, sure, there are some, in my view, better characters that I would like you to explore and introduce and talk about and do one-off comic books. But you proved me wrong. You proved me wrong, Bobby.
Well, I think what I have learned about the Invincible fandom after covering the show now for three seasons, the fandom of the comic books, if a character appears on a page, they have a fan. Like, there's a fan of that character if they've appeared in one panel of one page of the Invincible comic books. Partly, I guess, because the comic book series has finished, and when that happens, people fall in love with them and read them over and over and over again and pick out individual character traits. And partly because of the writing that you talk about, Chris, where something happens in issue two and then it's picked up again in issue 120, and then you go back and read issue two again, so suddenly that becomes your favourite character from one interaction that they have later on in the book, and you go back and read what's in the background and what's going on. So I suspect Battle Beast is one of those characters that was picked up later or had a really good issue where it was a big battle.
like we saw in season one where his big fight against Mark proves that Viltrumites aren't completely invulnerable or invincible we can have another character from a completely different species come in and almost kill them so that kind of makes him a big character in his own right because nobody else really has gone toe to toe with Viltrumites in the past other than Alan now as we've seen and other Viltrumites so I guess that makes him an interesting character so I'll be intrigued to see what it'll be like to have his own comic book when it comes out cool to see him literally just going through everything and everyone and then through the side of the ship to get out of the prison Do you think he can breathe in and out of space? Well, we're going to find out. Exactly. Great stuff. Any notes for this episode? I just want to mention the opening of the episode. We see Mark once again seeing those spy drones outside of his house, grabs it out of the sky and then brings it in to Robot and Rudy to try and investigate it to see what the spy drone is and see if they can determine what it is. And they're kind of saying, well, there's no way to find out exactly who's behind it. And once again, Mark just assumes it's the...
GDA, so I go straight back to Cecil again, telling him, you know, I told you to keep out of my life, I told you to keep out of my family's life. He's killing, once again, all of the Rhianna men all around him as he goes through and fights his way in there. They try to push him back, saying it's a felony to break into the facility, but nothing's working, Mark. We'll, you know, do everything within his power to stop them from breaking the deal, I guess, that he has, that they need to keep away from his family. I thought that was really interesting, and then they kind of revealed at the end of it that Cecil has no idea who it is that's monitoring.
but they are still monitoring and I hope Mark will never find out about that. I thought that was really good. A bit of a surprise, but I guess he's always going to be monitoring and he's always going to be watching over him because this is the asset that is Invincible, right? Yeah. No, it is. And I love that. That was my fun part. It was just the way he says it. And you're like, that means they're still doing it. Yes. Oh my God. God help them. If people find out. Yeah. Yeah. No, I enjoyed that. My only note is that I wish this was a video, like full video podcast between us because literally every time we've mentioned the word Invincible in my head.
you don't even hear the word you just flash cut to the to the title card that is now so ingrained in my psyche and that is just such a way because every now again they do it and i'm like oh my god it'd be best time to just do that in the show now as well just kind of like but it's not invincible and like do you remember there was like these there was every now and again there was this kind of piece in the 90s early 2000 films where you have someone ending a sentence with that last word best example i can say is the awesome powers film international manifestories where you have someone talking about a rocket that goes up into space and the last word of what the sentence was going to be it opens with a new word so it's just like it's continuing this long sentence but it's just brilliant edit i would love if they did that which is like it'd be like me saying i really hope you don't think i'm invincible and then literally that word is Invincible, what did I tell you about getting up on the chair? Is that kind of smash cut? I like to think it'd be fun. They've done a few of those little ones, but I love how they played with it. There was a great one last season where there was a guy on his morning run who gets interrupted on the morning run and he goes, oh, this morning run makes me feel and then on screen comes up Invincible and it cuts back to him and he goes, absolutely awful. So they've played with that quite a bit. No spoilers for later on in the season, but they do an absolutely...
Excellent version of exactly what you're saying, Chris, as they use the credit cards to cover over every time the word invincible is mentioned. It's really good. No spoilers, though, for anybody who obviously hasn't seen the episode yet because it hasn't been released yet, but it's a really good one. And I will absolutely admit because I do edit the podcast. I did toy with that in the past that I would edit it every time we said invincible. If not possible, I'm never going to do it. I don't have time enough in the world or coffee enough in the world to keep me editing for that. Do you have any other notes for the episode before we close it out, Chris?
No, just to get my, I wanted to just call out the animation again in some of the fights, especially the Voldemort fights towards the end of the episode. Just absolutely fantastic. They really kind of, this is where they pumped in, I feel they pumped in some of the animation budget because they really made, and I think whatever they did, I want to call out that down department because again, on the crushing and the cracking of bone and then the crushing of concrete in the immortal fight, it was crunchy. Does that make sense as a sound? It just really was just very visceral and you could hear the as it was kind of smashed in. So I really felt like they kind of went that extra mile in this episode. I just want to call that out. Yeah, and I think the balancing act that you have to do when you're doing a TV show rather than a movie is, well, what's important? Where is it important to spend the budget? Is it important to spend the budget on every single Rhiannon man when Mark's killing 40 or 50 of them? The point to get across is there's wave after wave of them and Mark will kill everyone that's in his way, which is why that particular fight didn't need to be as important. But this episode, having the reveal that Immortal is effectively living out his life like Mark was warned he was going to live out his life, he goes crazy and has to be killed by Mark, that is much more visceral. That's much more important. And having the Viltrumites go up against Alan and Omni-Man.
massively important scene especially now knowing with only 50 left that there's hope for the galaxy I guess so those are two big important moments that will probably be replayed multiple times in the future whereas yeah I guess rending apart multiple Rihanna men is not going to be replayed over again Mark will just kill more and more of that stuff and it continues each episode as we saw this episode exactly great stuff Derek to wrap this all up give me your final thoughts on Invincible Season 3 Episode 4 You Were My Hero I really like this. This has the good balance of Invincible that I really like. A kind of one-off story, but that affects the overall idea of what's behind Mark and the choices that he's making in his life. The relationship stuff that's going on with even Mark is really good. And then having the actual split this time, and we have a second half of the episode dedicated to Alan the Alien and Nolan, actually, in the middle of my prison. It was really good. I really enjoyed it. I think it was a top-level episode of Invincible. The kind of ones I like. So I'd say about a 4 out of 5 if I'm going to score it. How about yourself, Chris? Ken, absolutely love it. For all those reasons you've kind of put out, but also for me, it's just seeing...
A lot of this every now and again will come down to nostalgia, which is terrible, but it's a hell of a joke. It's seeing something that I animated in my imagination for the first time reading this comic book and then kind of just re-seeing it come to life. But beyond that, being and seeing your reaction to some of these big reveals, like now having a moment to relive. that moment where I read this, I was very solo reading it. I had a few friends to talk about, not to this level where now we have this audience, multiple people can tell us what they thought of, oh my God, immortal. Like, imagine like living for hundreds of thousands of years or thousands of years and like going mad and becoming the mad king of earth. Like having these conversations back and forth is fantastic. So yeah, episode, strong, good, ticks all the right boxes, stepped up on the animation, stepped up on the sound design. Like, not that they were terrible the last one, just kind of noticed it a bit further on the side you said.
the more crunchy because it's not just a wave of anime. So really enjoy this. I'm looking forward to episode five. Excellent. Excellent stuff. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode. We will be back next week, of course, with Invincible Season 3, Episode 5. This was supposed to be easy, the name of that episode, coming out next week. Myself and John will also be going to the cinema because we're going to be going to see the next Marvel movie, Captain America, Brave New World. We know Chris is away, so unfortunately he's not going to be able to get to the cinema and join us for the podcast on that one. But we'll find out his thoughts as well. I'm sure you're as excited about it as we are, though, aren't you, Chris? Oh, I am. It'll be so good to see an actual Marvel movie again. Yeah. The last Marvel movie was The Marvels, which we had such good fun when we went to the cinema and saw it. It was a really good movie. And then for the last year, we've had this crap craven.
and Venom and Madame Web. Oh, just absolute trash. Like, yeah, okay, now they're coming in and streaming at home, I've actually been able to see all of them. And, you know, apart from the ones that I've fallen asleep at, which is two of those three. Guess audience, guess which ones. Guess which ones. Yeah, they're just bad. So I'm really looking forward to seeing a great Marvel movie from the MCU featuring major characters that we absolutely love and have enjoyed over the past 20 movies or so. We've had Sam Wilson for about 20 movies.
or at least that time period yeah over a decade yeah but around since Winter Soldier so he's been there for a very long time so now he's finally getting his moment in the sun as Captain America in a brand new world looking forward to it should be good yes 100% this is going to be really interesting from a plot point perspective like this show this film is introducing so many new elements okay Hulk vibranium Giancarlo Esposito just him like that he's just interesting and the leader the leader is back so it's going to be fun so much to see so much to understand can't wait to try and wish I could go with you guys but maybe next time and we'll undoubtedly be interested to hear what our fellow defenders have to say about this film. So make sure if you've seen it, get your feedback in to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. And if you want to support our movie going, but more importantly, our TV discussion, you can head on over to patreon.com slash tvpodcastindustries and you can support us for any ongoing monthly amount or you can head on over to buymeacoffee.com slash tvpi and buy Derek Coffey as he twirls away the wee hours editing.
what I have to say, which is a fair few amounts of edits. Try to find every Invincible side of the podcast and edit it out. I'm not doing that. It's not happening. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll talk to you again next week for episode five. Yes. Thank you, fellow Defenders. Keep watching, keep listening, and keep being invincible. Bye.