Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show I’m your host Paul aka the Mad Titan who wouldn’t wanna make Titan mad and this video we’re breaking down episode 5 of Invincible.
There’s a lot of change ups from the comics but also some cool call backs and easter eggs that I think are definitely worth talking about. The ending of the entry leaves a lot to talk about to and it’s a big deviation from the source material.
The episode itself pulls heavily from Issue 19 of the comics however it expands far beyond what happened in that to give us a far more grounded look at Titan and exactly what he’s fighting for. You may remember him as being the first villain that Invincible took down in Episode 1 and whereas in the source material he merely met with Mark and the two decided to take down Machine head, here it’s a much more involved look at his family life and home.
We’re gonna be breaking it all down but if you’ve been enjoying the coverage so far then I’d massively appreciate the thumbs up and don’t forget to subscribe to keep up to date with our videos on the show.
INVINCIBLE EPISODE 5 BREAKDOWN
Now we open with Titan who is named after the moon of Saturn. This very much speaks to his power set and the character is able to encase his skin in stone. In the comics we learn that this is very similar to the way that Johnny Storm does it but instead of saying Flame on, Titan says Rock on. Now in addition to this I feel that the anti-hero is very similar to Luke Cage and we watch as this almost Invincible man ascends through the ranks of organised crime taking out the villain Machine Head at the expense of others.
The opening action scene isn’t anywhere to be seen in the original work and it leads to a skull splitting moment that shows how brutal of a bad guy he could be.
There’s also a moment where a thug shoots at him and the bullet ricochets back and kills him. I feel this is very similar to the moment at the beginning of Iron-Man when Tony is escaping the cave and it paints him out as completely indestructible.
From here we jump back to another returning figure and after Invincible busts up the bad guy from the ending of the first episode again we watch as Amber waits on Mark. In the comics the pair had quite a strained relationship because he wouldn’t reveal his secret and this led to her constantly questioning what he was really up to. He tries to make things right by bringing her a japanese cheese cake and I just wanna point out a corretion from last time. In episode 4 we said he likely bought the $800 chest but as many of you pointed out Mark probably flew internationally in order to get it for a much cheaper price.
Though Amber said he only went across town to get it he could’ve gone abroad as the guy can travel around the planet in mere seconds, travel around it stealing stuff ammirght.
Cut to Titan exiting a burning building that he’s just set fire too and we see the home owners angered over him destroying their homes. Though he gives them money this very much juxtaposes the following scene in which we see Mark saving people from being crushed in their homes. The public love him and he also fights a woman that I think may be based on Cheetah from DC.
Though he’s beloved it becomes clear that the hero life is causing havoc on his real one and in addition to being late to meet Amber he’s also late to work and this leads to him quitting. In the comics he was actually mid shift when this happened and he was worried that his father wouldn’t approve of him just quitting his job.
However the character did it anyway to focus on being a hero and Nolan was actually happy about this which was the first clue that we got which hinted to him believing that he was above humanity and their rules.
From here another parallel scene happens in which we see Titan dangling a man over the edge of a building by his foot. This is mirrored in Mark and Nolan who do something similar with a super villain but whereas Titan pulled the person in, they let him go.
Omni-man shows a complete disregard for human life and we don’t actually see him saving this person though it is taken that he does. However the show cleverly cuts away from revealing this as in our minds it further paints him out as someone who has a much darker side to them.
Back at High School Mark is stopped in the corridor by Principal Winslow who’s voiced by Reginald VelJohnson aka Sgt. Al Powell from Die Hard. Be careful there Mark, we all know how this guy shot a kid and Winslow himself does pop up throughout the story. Some minor minor minor spoilers here that you might wanna skip ahead 30 seconds for butttt…..have you gone yet if you care….ok…Winslow actually becomes the Dean of the College that Mark attends so it’s nice that they have a conversation at this point about him attending it because it sort of foreshadows their future.
Phew…ok spoiler bits over.
INVINCIBLE EPISODE 5 COMIC REFERENCES
Titans reign of Terror continues and we watch as he steals a microchip and intimidates the security guards into firing in the air so it looks like they tried. Turns out this device is for Machine head, a Black Mask esque villain who we learn in the comics controls crime across the entire country. Here it’s scaled down to the City but either way he’s a very powerful individual.
Titan has been indebted to the character and has been acting as an enforcer in order to settle his debts but the autonomous autotuned android head has other plans.
He threatens the characters family to keep him working for him and we actually see Titan’s homelife. In the source material he merely meets with Invincible, fills in what’s going on and the pair then fly to his office where we see the big fight play out that ends this entry.
I loved these closer looks at the character as they carry with them a lot more information and really show him in a far more complicated light.
It turns out that the microchip was actually a quantum probability device and in laymens terms this allows the bearer to see all eventual scenarios and outcomes from a certain starting point. It’s pretty much a fortune telling device that means Machine Head can plan for the attack at the end which we’ll talk about towards the final part of the breakdown.
In space Mark is meant to be meeting Amber’s Mother but he arrives late after being side tracked with training and stopping an asteroid. Amber is clearly frustrated by his constant lateness and just as he’s about to tell her that he’s a superhuman, he bites his tongue.
On his walk home we see him kick a stone which takes off the top of a roof and this moment signifies that though he wants to live a normal life it’s almost impossible. His father calls him to take part in some crime stopping and it cements that this will always be the direction that he is pulled towards because of his abilities. He must sacrifice the things he loves in order to be a hero and this is mirrored in Titan who returns home to his family.
His wife hates the fact that he’s having the sacrifice the things that he loves in order to be a villain and the pair are really opposites of the same coin. Titan is living on the breadline whereas due to Nolan being a hero that worked alongside the government, he’s been funded to the point that his family can live a comfortable life. Titan is down in the gutter whereas Mark is on high and this is showcased in the former and his daughter watching Invincible flying high with a villain that I’m calling the elephant man.
Elephant man actually appears in Issue 8 of the comics so it’s nice to see that scene get some lip service here.
Neither have the perfect homelife though and in her cupboard, Debbie discovers Darkhold’s notebook which is based on the Necronomicon from Evil Dead.
We did theorise last time that this might contain the means to bring the dark detective back but all it has are clues that send Deborah off on a path to discover her husband’s bloodied costume. This is a complete diversion from the comics and the reveal that he was behind the death of the Guardian’s completely blindsided her when it was revealed. I much prefer her actually having some agency and piecing together things on her own as it shows how much Omni-man has lost the trust of those around him.
Cut to Atom Eve who too is having issues at home and we see how her parents are angry that she broke up with Rex because he cheated on her. They worry that she’s not someone who can protect herself and would rather see her with Rex than on her own. It really speaks to how everyone undervalues her and in the comics she reveals that she doesn’t even bother wearing a mask because even in her personal life no one sees her as anything more than an average girl.
However Eve is actually one of the most powerful people in all of the Invincible universe and as she says she’s able to rearrange atoms on a molecular level. Similar to Scarlett Witch, the character can alter almost anything and she’s frustrated over being held back.
Later she meets Mark and Amber and after he dives out the pair bond whilst helping out at a homeless shelter. Now this differs highly from the comics as they never really had a moment like this together. In fact the only real quality time that the pair shared was in Issue 31 when Mark and Amber went to meet Eve at her home in Africa. Here Eve talked to Mark about how he and Amber would never really see eye to eye because he was literally and figuratively up in the clouds whilst she was down on Earth.
However due to the many changeups here you realise that Eve has much more of a respect for her and she clearly yearns to experience the normality that she has.
Mark meets with Titan and we learn the inner workings of Machineheads operations as well as his petner in crime Isotope who has the ability to teleport.
Mark has been focusing so much on the high level crimes he’s completely overlooked all of this and he sees that in order to be a true hero he can’t just focus on the bigger picture. We discover that Titan is using Mark and this is initially pointed out by his father who doesn’t want him to help him. Nolan again only cares about participating in things that threaten the world’s security and this very much speaks to how he’s willing to let the people on the planet tear each other apart as long as the planet itself is ok.
People who’ve read the comics will know exactly what this means and if you wanna learn more about what’s going on with the character then check out our Omni-man explained video.
Debbie is clearly struggling seeing her husband in this new light and she says people aren’t who they appear to be. This clearly suggests she knows the truth about Nolan and she is the one who talks him into helping titan.
At the Guardian’s headquarters we see a scene that isn’t in the comics. The guardians are just chilling out and they clearly don’t take things seriously which annoys the original member Black Samson quite a lot. He tells them that they fight as six individuals rather than as a team but this falls on deaf ears which bites them in the butt later on.
Another change up is that Monster Girl says she’s 25 whereas in the source material she’s 29. Pointless detail but just thought I’d point it out.
She says that she’s lost a week and in the comics we discovered that everytime she turned into a monster, she actually became younger whilst it grew more and more grotesque.
This inspired Robot to find a cure for her which further led him to attempt to enact his own plan which I’ll discuss later on.
He eventually ends up recruiting the Maulers cementing that they’re skipping over the bit about resurrecting The Immortal and now going straight to the storyline involving Robot and the thing we saw in the tank at the end of the last episode. One thing to bear in mind here is that the cloning process we see the Mauler’s enacting makes a complete duplicate of someone’s mind. This means that it’s not transferred or shifted across and instead it’s simply a copy.
This is something Robot wants to exploit and throughout he shows a lot of humanity towards Monster girl. When she later gets badly beaten up it’s clear that he’s in agony over it and we see another side that solidifies his objectives.
Now we discover that the Lizard League were the people that they were fighting against and these are inspired by the Captain America villains The Serpent Society. This fight scene itself actually appeared in issue 9 of the comics where Mark went head to head with them. Saved by Atom Eve I appreciate that they showed the incompetance of the new Guardians rather than just having it be something that shows Mark once more.
Cut across to Debbie and Nolan arguing and we learn that the former was version much the one that instilled humanity into him. It very much speaks to Viltrumite culture that he had none of the kindness or warmth that we’ve seen him display until he met her. We know there is a much darker side to him and you can sort of start to see the pieces fall into place as we learn more about them
From what Nolan told Mark, Viltrum was a society that went planet to planet throughout the galaxy making them align with their ways. They said they had achieved the height of civilisation where there were no wars, murders or crimes. They wanted to pass this order onto every planet and as we know Nolan came to Earth to try and instill those values into us. However, because of this he hadn’t experienced certain sides of humanity and these two cultures are very much embodied within Mark.
Debbie gets Nolan out of the house, perhaps inspired by Cecil who last week tried to send him into space so that they could investigate his dealings whilst he was away. She gets him to fly to Europe and discovers the bloody clothes Implicating him further.
The episode wraps up with a big battle between Titan, Invincible and Machine Head’s syndicate. Amongst these are Battle Beast who in the comics is described as the Scourge of Twin Galaxies. He’s a master at combat and can travel across galaxies. We also have Magnattack, Krusk, a russian secret weapon with Electricity Powers, Frunace who we’re told just looks cool, Magmaniac a living furnace and lastly the Tether Tyrant who I feel is a play on Doctor Octopus a bit.
Not really but looks a bit like tentacles and with this many arms I’m sure the guy is good at reaching.
INVINCIBLE EPISODE 5 ENDING EXPLAINED AND REVIEW
Now like the comics, the syndicate completely kick the crap out of Invincible and Titan, leaving the latter at deaths door. The Guardians arrive and Battle Beast still easily bests them and leaves, realising that they’re no challenge and it’s pointless even wasting the energy. However where things change up is that we see Omni-man looking over this and though he could step in, he allows it to play out.
With this event coming much earlier than it did in the comics, they’ve reordered it to show Nolan is willing to see his son suffer in order to prove a point, further showcasing how bad he can be.
The action once more is awesome and there’s some super gory moments including Black Samson getting absolutely pummeled by Battle Beast.
Monster girl is also left with her skull on display and this causes Robot to quoute unquote break character and display emotion.
Now this changes up things a bit from the comics as it wasn’t Monstergirl and instead it was Bulletproof who ended up getting his head smashed in. However I think they did this to tease to us something else was going on with Robot and it also showed how much he cared about Monstergirl.
He fires a full blast out of what I wanna call his Arc Reactor and the Guardians go super sian, easily defeating the majority of the syndicate by working together as a team rather than as separate individuals. Black Samson and Monster girl do survive but it’s clear that Robot is gonna be pushed into helping her in order to bring her back from the brink.
Now with Mark being badly injured hes unable to help Amber and earlier in the episode he did ask for one last chance. I can see him having some explaining to do next episode as he likely won’t recover from this any time soon and will probably have finally decide whether to divulge to Amber about his extracurricular activities or just keep them a secret.
At Machine Heads office Cecil and the GDA cleanup team arrive and he removes the Quantum probability chip. At the end of the entry we discover that the GDA are actually studying Mark’s blood which they take at this scene in order to find out weaknesses for the Viltrumites. Neither of these moments are in the comics and I feel that the former is done so that Stedman can work out the best strategy to take Omni-man down. A catchphrase in comics is that Batman can beat anyone if he has prep time and that of course includes Superman who the Dark Knight has beaten on several occasions.
Thus I think Cecil will be doing something similar and working out all possible eventualities in order to beat him and they will prepare his Kryptonite through studying Mark’s blood. Like I said this is completely ommited from the comics and he doesn’t discover the truth about Nolan until it’s too late. Here the Agency feel like they have a lot more…well…agency and I can see Debbie possibly helping them to fight against him.
At Machine Heads office we see that Titan has now taken over the position of a crime boss and alongside Isotope and his family, he now rules over the city.
This is of course similar to the ending of the final series of Luke Cage and there are moments in which he seems very Kingpin-esque.
Now we will be talking about some spoilers going ahead involving Robot so if you don’t want anything ruined then I recommend that you turn off now.
Ok so last week we saw a strange looking humanoid in a tank that Robot bowed to. This is actually robot himself and his true name is Rudolph Connors. Rudy controls these drones and in the comics after hearing Monster Girl’s plea he decided to fix his condition. With help from the Maulers he was able to clone Rexplode and then he duplicated his mind into that body so that he could live a somewhat normal life.
Robot eventually ended up reversing Monster girls condition too but with the way things are I think he potentially could carry out the cloning process on her too. She’s badly beaten up and that would make the most sense to me as he could also fix her condition through this method.
Now I’ve done a full breakdown on Robot’s mission in the comics if you wanna check it out after this and obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode too.
As a thank you for interacting with the video you’ll be entered into a prize draw on the 30th of April in which we’re giving away three copies of Zack Snyder’s Justice League in 4k. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video, make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a comment below with your thoughts on the episode. The winners of last months competition are on screen right now so if that’s you then message me on twitter @HeavySpoilers
If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of the What If Trailer which will be linked on screen now. We break down the entire thing so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace
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