Warning: The following article contains spoilers from the Invincible series, now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Amazon Prime’s Invincible series ended its very first episode with a dramatic twist when the Superman-inspired character, Omni-Man, betrayed and murdered the superhero team the Guardians of the Globe. Prior to this, Omni-Man had been depicted as a purely heroic character, saving people and mentoring his son Mark Grayson, who had just manifested his own superpowers.
Omni-Man (who uses the human name Nolan Grayson) explains to Mark that he is from the planet Viltrum and that Viltrumites travel to various worlds to help uplift different planetary societies. However, the truth is far more sinister.
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Invincible was created by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Cory Walker. The murder of the Guardians takes place in issue #7 of the series, creating a slow build-up as Omni-Man is otherwise presented as a loving father, devoted husband and exemplary superhero. At the end of the 10th issue, one of the Guardians who was killed, the Immortal, lives up to his name when he returns to life and attacks Omni-Man. Mark arrives on the scene just in time to watch his father rip the Immortal in two, killing him once again.
Omni-Man explains that while he really is from Viltrum, their culture and mission differ greatly from what he originally claimed. The Viltrumites engaged in a planet-wide war to wipe out all weakness among their populace, killing half of their own species so that the survivors would be among the strongest beings in the universe. This eugenics-based obsession with strength led them to expand their empire beyond their own planet, conquering one world after another and destroying any who resisted.
As the empire grew too large to manage, the Viltrumites were spread thin. Omni-Man took a mission to infiltrate and observe a small backwater world on the very edge of the empire, Earth, where he joined the superhero community and married Mark’s mother while learning to fit in. His decision to kill the Guardians was to help weaken the planet for his fellow Viltrumites. His new life as Nolan Grayson has left him feeling conflicted as he genuinely cares for the people he has made his family and friends on Earth. However, his mission is clear. He asks his son to join him, but Mark refuses.
This results in a gruesome battle wherein Nolan beats his son to a bloody pulp. Nolan stands over Mark’s broken body and explains that his son will outlive every person and thing he cares about on Earth. He demands to know what Mark could possibly have had on such a world. Mark says he could have had his father. Nolan raises a fist to strike a killing blow, then stops himself, and flies off, tears in his eyes as he leaves the Earth behind. This moment–as much as his past violence–defines him.
But his story is not over. Nor is that of the Viltrumites. In truth, there is another reason they wanted to conquer Earth. A deadly plague ravaged their species, killing the majority of them. This led to the eugenicist Viltrumites finally breeding with other species–something previously unthinkable to them. Humans were one of the most genetically compatible species and they hoped to turn Earth into a breeding planet. Nolan’s presence on his adoptive planet was meant to just be the first step, but his time in the world changed him. He learned to care for others outside his species, and this growth took him past his initial conditioning.
He eventually returns to Earth and fights to protect the world from the Viltrumites. Over the course of several heart-rending conversations, he makes up with both his wife and his son, as Nolan takes responsibility for his past actions while working to atone. He has also had another child with an alien race on a different world, who joins his family on Earth. Together, the family fight to protect the planet from the other Viltrumites, even taking the fight into space. Although Omni-Man originally only pretended to be a defender of Earth, by the end of his story his fiction becomes fact with him becoming a real protector of the planet.
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