Warning: SPOILERS for the Invincible episode “I Thought You Were Stronger” are ahead!
Invincible Season 2 is done, and the finale ended things on quite the intense note, even by this show’s standards. As fans who stream this Image Comics small screen adaptation with their Amazon Prime Video subscription will recall from last week, Angstrom Levy called Mark Grayson to inform him that he was hold his mother Debbie and half-brother Oliver hostage at their home. Naturally mark immediately flew over to confront the mutated, portal-creating villain, and let’s just say that things ended quite messily between the two of them.
On top of that though, Invincible, which is one of the best Prime video shows, also included a fun Spider-Man homage and Batman easter egg as a result of Mark being thrown around the multiverse. I enjoyed these two moments so much, but before we discuss them, let’s go over how Mark’s conflict with Angstrom ended.
Angstrom Levy Was Brutally Killed
Having been mutated by his machine blowing up in the Invincible Season 2 premiere and driven mad by the memories his variants from across the multiverse had of evil versions of Mark Grayson, Angstrom Levy vowed to kill his dimension’s Mark. First, though, he had to weaken the superhero, which he did by sending him to various universes. As Mark encounter challenge after challenge in these other realities, he tormented Debbie and Oliver, and even went so far as to break the former’s arm. Already exhausted by his experiences in these other universes, when Mark saw what happened to his mother, he flew into a furious rage.
Mark and Angstrom’s final clash saw them traveling to a few more universes, and the latter revealed that his body wasn’t just rebuilt, but improved, as evidenced by his super strength. That wasn’t enough though, and upon arriving in a desolate universe where it looked like humanity no longer existed, Mark beat Angstrom’s head clean off. Soaked in blood, Mark was understandably broken by the fact that he’d finally taken a life, which in his mind brought him one step closer to being like his father Nolan, a.k.a. Omni-Man.
The good news is that rather than be condemned to live the rest of his life in that other universe now that Angstrom Levy was dead, Mark was rescued by a future version of his dimension’s Guardians of the Globe, as they conjured a portal to take him back home. Before leaving, the future Atom Eve told her feelings for him and urged him to tell her present-day self how he feels about her one way or the other. Mark nearly did that by the episode’s end, but because of what had happened with Angstrom, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
Because Invincible Season 3 is already greenlit, we don’t have to worry about the aftermath of this devastating chapter in Mark Grayson’s life not being followed up on. Naturally we the viewers know that Mark is far from becoming like any of his variants who’ve enslaved Earth, but nevertheless, the fact that he snapped and killed Angstrom will surely weigh on him for a while. Between that, as well as Immortal learning that Dupli-Kate is still alive and Nolan and Allen being poised to team up, there’s already enough interesting seeds that have been planted for Season 3. But now that the heavy stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about how Invincible crossed over with Spider-Man and Batman… sort of.
Almost-Spider-Man And Basically-Batman Appear
In the comics, Invincible actually teamed up with Spider-Man in the pages of Marvel Team-Up #14. However, while it was easy enough for Marvel Comics and Image Comics to arrange for these two characters to meet, because Sony still owns the TV rights to Spider-Man for any live-action series and any animated series for episodes longer than 44 minutes, this crossover wouldn’t have been possible in the Invincible series. Luckily for us, an amusing workaround was used instead.
One of the first universes Mark Grayson was sent to in “I Thought You Were Stronger” contained a superhero named Agent Spider is battling a villain named Prof Ock. Voiced by Josh Keaton, who voiced Peter Parker in The Spectacular Spider-Man and various video games, this character is essentially Spider-Man in all but name and appearance, as he boasts the same power-set, including web-spinning, and also drops wisecracks. He even mentions to Mark that he has experiences with other dimensions, “especially lately,” meaning we’re welcome to envision Agent Spider being present for the events of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (which featured Keaton reprising The Spectacular Spider-Man’s Peter).
Then we had a Batman cameo in another one of Invincible’s universes, or at least it can be inferred as such. We never actually hear the name Batman uttered, and the only glimpse of the character comes from his distinctive cape flapping in the wind. Still, it’s obvious that this is supposed to be Batman, because while talking with this Caped Crusader, Mark says:
No, I mean you’re a man who dresses like a bat, and your name is… Well, I mean, like, don’t you think that’s kinda lazy?
See what they did there? That particular moment is ripped straight from the Invincible comics, so I’m thankful it was retained for the show, and that this Spider-Man substitute was created. This will be the closest we ever get to the show overlapping with Marvel and DC, but don’t count on it being the last we explore of its multiverse. After all, with all those evil versions of Mark out there, it stands to reason at least a few of them will eventually cross paths with our hero, right?
We have a ways to go until Invincible Season 3 premieres on Amazon Prime Video, but once concrete information on the next batch of episodes comes in, we’ll pass it along. Until then, use the 2024 TV schedule to plan what you’ll watch next.
