Every ‘Invincible’ Episode Ranked!

Invincible Season 2 wrapped recently. Based on the original comic and the words of the series creator and Invincible comic writer, we’re about a quarter of the way through the story of Mark Grayson.

Fans are hoping there won’t be another 2+ year gap ahead of Season 3 like there was between Seasons 1 and 2. Still, good things come to those who wait, and the two seasons so far have been very good.

Invincible captures the aesthetic of the comic and then raises it with exceptional casting. Serialized comics are an episodic medium where not every issue can reach the same heights. Invincible, in both forms, is no exception.

Here are our rankings for every episode of Invincible released thus far!

17. In About Six Hours I Lose My Virginity to a Fish (Season 2 Episode 2)

Invincible Season 2 Episode 2, “In About Six Hours I Lose My Virginity To A Fish,” shows the complications of transmuting hour-long TV episodes from 20ish-page-long comics.

The comics could afford to be standalone and silly for a whole issue. A whacky superhero adventure like Invincible going to Atlantis and narrowly avoiding an arranged marriage? Perfect. As a TV episode? It’s not enough.

Even the least Invincible episode isn’t bad. The episode hangs together thematically with a focus on consequences. Mark (Steven Yeun) is dealing with the fallout of his dad killing the Guardians of the Globe during Season 1, while Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs) learns fixing things isn’t always easy.

16. Neil Armstrong, Eat Your Heart Out (Season 1 Episode 4)

What’s a superhero series worth without the occasional outer space adventure?

Invincible Season 1 Episode 4, “Neil Armstrong, Eat Your Heart Out,” features such a yarn when Mark travels to Mars on a rocket ship to rescue astronauts. Along the way, he makes contact with the native Martians and fights the parasitic Sequids — which become very important later.

Mark deals with the classic Spider-Man dilemma of going away on superhero business and having to lie to his loved ones. While Invincible is away from the action, the season’s threads of everyone growing suspicious of Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) keep coiling.

All-in-all, it’s a necessary stopover episode, but also proof that even the lesser Invincible episodes have great titles.

15. You Look Kinda Dead (Season 1 Episode 6)

On Invincible Season 1 Episode 6, “You Look Kinda Dead,” Mark and friends go college touring. But at Upstate University, they meet mad scientist D.A. Sinclaire and his mutilated cyborg Reanimen.

The Reanimen are some of the series’ more disturbing villains. Still, the episode is further proof that the one-off supervillain plots can’t help but feel like business as usual when they’re part of a larger episode, not the core of a comic issue or two.

And yet, such stories are needed; Mark/Invincible is a superhero and sometimes, he just needs a bad guy to punch. Ultimately, the episode’s B-plot, where Debbie (Sandra Oh) finally realizes the truth about Nolan, is the more vital part.

14. This Missive, This Machination (Season 2 Episode 3)

Invincible Season 2 Episode 3, “This Missive, This Machination,” goes a galaxy away. Recurring character Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen) is the star of this one, as the episode showcases what life is like in the Coalition of Planets.

The audience meets Allen’s boss, Thaedus (Peter Cullen), and has it hammered in what’s at stake should the Viltrumites triumph.

Mark’s plot, where an alien Thraxxan comes to Earth asking Mark come help save his planet, is less memorable than Allen’s. Especially if you’re familiar with the comics, you’ll know what’s coming, and the plot feels like table-setting.

However, the scenes where Mark fights the Thraxxan disguised as his favorite superhero, Seance Dog, does add a fun spark.

13. This Must Come As a Shock (Season 2 Episode 5)

Invincible Season 2 Episode 5, “This Must Come As a Shock,” was the series’ return after Season 2’s halfway break. Thus, it has the unenvious task of both picking up where the mid-season finale left off and moving the story forward.

Still, it gets the job done without any real hiccups. The episode’s first half is slower and quieter; Rhea Seehorn’s guest turn as a Thraxxan mother comes to a touching close when she sends Mark’s half-brother back to Earth with him. 

Then the action picks up in the second half. Mark, Eve, and half of the Guardians of the Globe fighting the Sequids is exciting enough, but Rex Splode, Shrinking Rae, and Dupli-Kate’s disastrous battle with the Lizard League outshines it. 

The action in Invincible is always best when it remembers that superheroes aren’t, well, invincible.

12. It’s Not That Simple (Season 2 Episode 6)

Invincible Season 2 Episode 6, “It’s Not That Simple,” flips the structure of the previous episode. Action-packed opening, resolving the two clashes that were left cliffhanging in “This Must Come As a Shock,” then a more low-key second half.

The highlight of the episode is a sequence where Mark and Amber both, individually, seek relationship advice from his family friends, Art Rosenbaum and Eve, respectively. The cross-cutting lets both conversations flow like a single scene, culminating in split screen shots.

This scene construction also mimics the formal structure of a comic book, where panels in different locations can be placed side-by-side.

11. Who You Calling Ugly (Season 1 Episode 3)

Invincible Season 1 Episode 3, “Who You Calling Ugly,” is the most transitory of the series’ episodes up to this point. The individual beats of the episode stand out less than the story’s place in the season’s arc.

Mark hooks up with Amber — to Eve’s disappointment, Damien Darkblood continues his investigation into the Guardians’ deaths while leaving Debbie suspicious of Nolan, and Cecil (Walton Goggins) forms a new Guardians team. These are essential developments, but this isn’t an episode one can appreciate in a vacuum on its own terms.

More of Kevin Michael Richardson as the blue-skinned mad scientist cloned Mauler Twins, though, is always a highlight.

10. Here Goes Nothing (Season 1 Episode 2)

Invincible Season 1 Episode 2, “Here Goes Nothing,” ramps up the superhero action as Mark learns the ropes. The episode inherits two great ideas from the comic. One, the hero is trying to follow in his father’s footsteps — only his father is the greatest superhero in the world.

And two, the alien invaders, the Flaxxans. They’re defeated not with force but because it turns out that time in their dimension runs differently, and they age at a faster rate on Earth. Superhero comics can often glaze over how aliens might differ from Earth, but this is far from that.

The Flaxxan plot culminates with Omni-Man razing their world single-handily, the blood-red lighting complementing this terrifying show of force.

9. A Lesson For Your Next Life (Season 2 Episode 1)

Every superhero needs a nemesis, and Invincible Season 2 Episode 1, “A Lesson For Your Next Life,” gives Mark his.

The episode opens with a clever bait-and-switch, depicting an alternate dimension where Mark joined his father, so Omni-Man and Invincible have razed Earth. This recaps Season 1 without retreading it while setting up the conflict for Season 2.

Dimension-hopper Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown), though, winds up disfigured and vengeful after trying to absorb all knowledge from across the multiverse.

The episode shows how Invincible sometimes improves on the comics with greater character depth. The season beginning here explores Debbie’s trauma of Nolan’s lies in more depth than the comic afforded. Angstrom also comes off as more tragic; his initial goals are utopian, not mere personal ambition.

8. Invincible: Atom Eve Special

Atom Eve is a great character, but she’s been sitting on the sidelines so far. This will change once the show gets to the part where she and Mark start dating, so their lives intersect more. Until then, though, Eve fans were tided over with a special episode between Invincible Seasons 1 and 2.

The Atom Eve Special chronicles her origin story while expanding on established details, from her incredible power to manipulate molecules to her disapproving “normal” parents. Young Eve’s pluckiness is endearing, and you truly feel for how lonely she is.

The special proves that in another universe, Atom Eve could be just as compelling a protagonist as Invincible. 

7. I’m Not Going Anywhere (Season 2 Episode 7)

Invincible Season 2 Episode 7, “I’m Not Going Anywhere,” is one of the show’s saddest. Mark and Amber (Zazie Beetz) are finally making their relationship work. Until the Viltrumite Anissa (Shantel VanSanten) crashes their date, reminding Mark how outclassed he is with one of the series’ most brutal fights yet.

The couple accepts that Mark will never be able to prioritize Amber as she deserves and tearfully call it quits. The one thing Invincible can’t stubbornly overcome? Dating woes. 

Even on this dramatic episode, the show finds room for humor. It impressively repurposes the comic’s best meta-joke, about how artists sometimes recycle panels to save time, with a demonstration of the show’s animation shortcuts instead.

6. It’s Been A While (Season 2 Episode 4)

Invincible Season 2 Episode 4, “It’s Been A While,” reunites Mark with his father. The shaken Nolan has become king of the Thraxan’s world and is slowly learning to appreciate “lesser” lifeforms after Mark opens his eyes.

In a great touch, the episode bridges the gap in Nolan’s story, showing him floating through space scored to Leonard Cohen’s “Avalanche.” Such a montage wasn’t and couldn’t be done in a soundless comic.

The rest of the episode is good, though it falls short of the comic. Mark hugging his dad hits softer without a page turn and the animation fails to capture the detailed violence as Nolan and Mark battle Viltrumites. 

This boils down to differences in the medium; some images hit harder without motion.

5. It’s About Time (Season 1 Episode 1)

Invincible Season 1 Episode 1, “It’s About Time,” starts the series off with a bang. Dare I say it? It pulls off the Omni-Man bait-and-switch even better than the comic.

The episode opens with the Guardians of the Globe, all voiced by actors from Robert Kirkman’s last show, The Walking Dead, foiling the Mauler Twins when they attack the White House. Surely these will be the figures Mark spends the series in the shadow of?

Nope! In the end, they’re all killed by Omni-Man to soften Earth up. Even for fans who knew this was coming, the series animates it in greater, gorier, and longer detail than the comic did.

Plus, having this scene at the end of the pilot, not the mid-season point, is a brave series hook.

4. That Actually Hurt (Season 1 Episode 5)

Of the standalone villain episodes, the strongest by far is Invincible Season 1 Episode 5, “That Actually Hurt.” This time, Mark isn’t just defeating the villain by punching.

Instead, he teams up with mob enforcer Titan (Mahershala Ali). Invincible is convinced Titan, who can turn his skin unbreakable, is only being blackmailed into crime, while together they can take out his boss Machine Head. 

Instead, Invincible only replaces one boss with another; he gets beatdown from feline alien Battle Beast (Michael Dorn), too. Titan is one of the series’ best villains, and “That Actually Hurt” shows why Mark needs to couple his great power with great responsibility. 

3. I Thought You Were Stronger (Season 2 Episode 8)

Invincible Season 2 Episode 8, “I Thought You Were Stronger,” is the season finale and the climax of Angstrom Levy’s slowly-escalating revenge. Taking Debbie hostage, Angstrom throws Mark into dimension after dimension.

The episode has fun with the parallel universes — Mark meets talking dinosaurs, the copyright-friendly “Agent Spider,” and a mostly unseen caped hero implied to be Batman. Still, the episode never forgets how dire the stakes are, cutting back to Angstrom and Debbie as often as possible.

The episode’s climax, when an enraged Mark beats Angstrom to death and, shocked at himself, despondently says the five words of the episode’s title? That’s Steven Yeun’s best acting on the show thus far.

2. We Need To Talk (Season 1 Episode 7)

The big pay-off finally comes on Invincible Season 1 Episode 7, “We Need To Talk,” when Omni-Man finally reveals his true intentions, kicking off a war with Cecil where Earth’s defenders are hopelessly outmatched.

The whole season has been ratcheting up the tension about how disastrous and terrifying Nolan’s snapping would be. The results don’t disappoint.

To make it extra painful, there’s some dramatic irony where Mark is the last person to learn this. So, Omni-Man and Invincible get to do something father and son super heroics before Mark learns his whole life is a lie. 

“We Need To Talk” is the jab, followed by the knockout punch of the Season 1 finale.

1. Where I Really Come From (Season 1 Episode 8)

Invincible Season 1 Episode 8, “Where I Really Come From,” sees Mark defying his Viltrumite destiny. Unlike our hero, I have no choice — but to rank this the best Invincible episode so far, anyway.

The first season concludes in a bloody and somber fashion. Nolan’s slow-boiling menace culminates, and his father-son relationship with Mark is destroyed.

You may have seen the out-of-context scene where Omni-Man asks a beaten Invincible to “think” — “What will you have after 500 years?!” The moment’s become a meme, but that can’t undermine how raw the emotions are.

Steven Yeun’s delivery of Mark’s answer, “You, Dad. I’d still have you”, is heartbreaking — it definitely shatters Nolan’s. An effective beat in the comic becomes a devastating one thanks to the voice acting and animation, allowing the viewer to see all the subtleties of Nolan’s reaction in motion compared to jumping from one panel to the next in a comic. 

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How does our Invincible ranking compare to yours? Share your picks with us in the comments below!

Invincible streams on Prime Video.

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