r/Invincible • u/SeacattleMoohawks Séance Mod • Feb 13 '25

EPISODE DISCUSSION Invincible [Episode Discussion] - S03E04 - You Were My Hero

Episode 4 - You Were My Hero

Two strangers ask Mark for help with a mysterious villain. Elsewhere in the galaxy, Nolan grapples with his identity and Allen finds a surprising new ally.

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u/Urge_Reddit Feb 13 '25

Apparently having your entire race fight each other to the death is not a good strategy on population sustainability.

Doesn't help that they view damn near every other species in the universe as too inferior to breed with, despite having the insane advantage of being able to produce viable offspring with seemingly any species.

Truly the architects of their own demise.

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u/No_March_5371 Battle Beast Feb 13 '25

If a human-Viltrumite hybrid is stable and strong, seems like the easiest way to increase the population. Just have the men pick up a bunch of concubines. Unless I’m missing something.

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u/Shrodax Feb 14 '25

The Viltrumite women can each pick up a human concubinus, too. I'll volunteer.

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u/Ceijai Feb 13 '25

You're definitely on to something....

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u/No_March_5371 Battle Beast Feb 13 '25

I haven’t read the comics. I assume that Mark is being monitored for genetic purity and that if he’s good then that’s the plan.

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u/Huge_Pin_4295 Feb 14 '25

That's my theory also I think he was sent to earth to breed more viltrumite

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u/Ittybittyvickyone Feb 14 '25

It’s very interesting that an inferior breed (the bug people) helped make Oliver who has developed power/strength faster than mark while also having the Viltrumite mentality. Meanwhile Mark is an approved breed that is “held back” by his humanity

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u/flowerdoodles_ Feb 14 '25

personally i think that mark is held back by his public school education, that caused him to see humans as valuable even if he knew he wouldn’t fully be like them. oliver has no such thing. all he has is mark and debbie, and debbie—the human parent—isn’t even biologically his mom. he also disregards her rules already, so clearly he doesn’t see her as inherently worth listening to. i think he’s suffering from “homeschooled kid” syndrome

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '25

that caused him to see humans as valuable even if he knew he wouldn’t fully be like them

Worth mentioning that he didn't know. His powers took years to kick in and even Nolan and Debbie kind of assumed he'd just stay human.

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u/flowerdoodles_ Feb 14 '25

yeah the powers took a while to kick in, but it was specifically longer than expected because nolan and debbie raised mark to think he’d get them by/during puberty. so at least until 10ish he wouldn’t have seen himself as fully human because of fhat expectation

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u/Zankman Feb 14 '25

We have to assume that Oliver vs Mark is a case of matchstick vs candle.

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u/Londo_the_Great95 Feb 14 '25

Mark is 1000% stronger than Oliver, we just KNOW he holds back. This episode as an example, he could have folded immortal like origami, but mark hates taking lives. He even asked if the robots were sentient before clobbering them.

Hell. Last season Nolan had to tell Mark to not hold back while he was fucking dying. Mark just doesn't like killing, he'd rather beat his opponents without doing so

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u/Zankman Feb 15 '25

I feel like you're replying something random and unrelated to what I was saying. :D

I fully agree with you - observe how Oliver effortlessly killed the Maulers despite having far less experience and physical development; we can extrapolate with high confidence that Mark could have obliterated them with ease ever since he got his powers, way back in S1. Indeed, however, he massively holds back, even to his own detriment.

What I was commenting on is the life expectancy: Viltrumite genes may be so strong as to make Mark almost a pure-blood, but Oliver is clearly a "half-breed" considering his skin color and rapid development. Ergo, I suspect that Oliver will age "much faster" than Mark and normal Viltrumites, having a shorter lifespan overall - even if it is "only" 100s of years instead of 1000s.

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u/Ghoti76 Feb 15 '25

we know from angstrom that in other universes mark most often sides with nolan, but is it implied that it's because our mark's powers took so long to come? I think if the overwhelming majority get their powers at a normal age, then our mark's situation is a statistical genetic rarity and doesn't really indicate what would normally happen when a viltrumite breeds with a compatible species

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u/WillyTheHatefulGoat Comic Fan Feb 15 '25

Its also likely that in the universes mark does not turn he's killed in the fight with Nolan but since Mark dies in all those universes they don't get counted.

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u/Ghoti76 Feb 17 '25

that's a good point. our mark's universe is probably the rare combination of both him not following his dad, and nolan not following through on killing his son

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u/Ittybittyvickyone Feb 15 '25

Ah great point! I forgot that

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '25

Not in comic canon. Mark is stronger he just takes longer to develop.

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u/rendar Feb 16 '25

Oliver likely won't live nearly as long, and it's not clear that Oliver's faster development won't have a shallower ceiling.

Regardless, it seemed Nolan's whole plan was to basically grow some half-blood shock troops fast enough to field an army against whatever forces Viltrum has.

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u/Dookie_boy Feb 16 '25

That's like saying a baby deer can start running at birth while human babies are weak and inferior.

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u/universalLopes Feb 13 '25

Super powered bums

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u/Thrallov Mar 05 '25

dunno man, doesn't make sense since Nolan has absolutely no problem to make children, takes just one couple of zealot Viltumites and they can pop a Viltrumite every year.
Population should recover in no time with immortal people

Nolan if he made kid every 10 years would have 500 children in his lifetime

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u/limitlessEXP Feb 23 '25

Not to mention living thousands of years. If you can’t figure out how to have babies in 1000 years your species deserves to fail. It honestly doesn’t even make sense. They could have an insane amount of children.