“Invincible” has become a staple series on Amazon Prime since the 2021 release of season 1. Season 3, which premiered on Feb. 6, proves again why that is the case.
For those yet to see the artistry, “Invincible” is an adult animated superhero show that follows Mark Grayson, a superhero known as Invincible. Mark is noted as the strongest superhero on the planet many times, yet he cannot avoid defeat for very long. For three seasons now Mark has been battered and beaten, broken physically and emotionally only for the next Earth-shattering event to be right around the corner. This season was no different.
While not the best animated, the show’s stellar cast and subsequent masterful voice work in combination with excellent writing makes “Invincible” one of the best shows out there to watch right now.
Picking up three months after the Season 2 finale, the new release truly takes on heavy topics and themes. At the forefront is the argument of killing villains versus letting them live and allowing them to be rehabilitated rather than arrested and punished.
The season is brilliantly done, and it is heartbreaking. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and some beloved characters are caught in the crossfire.
The voice acting brings the characters to life constantly. Many characters become so easy to love, while others remain so easy to hate they are nearly unwatchable and all are done excellently.
“Invincible” tries to maximize the impact of small moments as well, becoming famous for using licensed music perfectly. Radiohead’s “Karma Police” playing over a montage of a grieving Mark still being a hero in season 2 has become iconic. “Feel It” by d4vd playing through Mark with his girlfriend, again in season 2, makes you truly feel for their relationship. However, this season worked to hit the hardest. Billie Eilish’s “when the party’s over” echoes through the soul in a heartbreaking moment in episode 7 of this season, adding to the repertoire the show’s excellent soundtrack, which makes the hardest-hitting moments go just a little further.
The final three episodes of this season are simply excellent. Mark struggles with the events of his past, none of which were directly his fault but all bring extreme death and destruction. All have truly gut-wrenching moments, and due to this, the three have an extreme impact when watched uninterrupted.
The season’s structure is admittedly a little odd. The first few episodes focus on the dispute between Mark and Cecil, who is the leader of the Global Defense Agency (GDA) in the show. Mark finds out that Cecil is working with villains of his past, which leads to quite a confrontation. This almost works as a prologue of the season, giving background to the events that are to come. After this confrontation, there is barely any downtime. This argument is shown in real-time, as every episode features confrontations that test the moral limits Mark tries to stand up to. 
Watching Cecil’s backstory in the season simply adds depth to the argument and in turn the show as well.
“We can be the good guys, or we can be the guys that save the world,” Cecil said.
For the first two seasons, there is a heavy focus on Mark and his journey. To maximize the impact of this season’s story, however, side characters garner a heavier focus. Every character, whether they show up in one or multiple episodes, is fully fleshed out and written well. There was barely any fluff all season.
The animation, however, is not ideal. The final three episodes are very obviously better looking than the rest in this season, so the most impactful moments look great, but much of the season is not well animated. Some scenes seem static and almost as though there are simply photos on the screen rather than actual characters, movement just looks off sometimes and the quality shifts to an extreme degree. This makes it obvious which episodes were low-budget and which were not. There was only a little over a year-long gap in the release of Season 2 and Season 3, and this may not have helped.
Jeffery Dean-Morgan has a standout performance as Conquest, as well as Aaron Paul as Powerplex. They truly bring their characters to life through the ways they emote as those characters, Paul through pure grief, and Dean-Morgan by bringing a comically evil character to life.
They are not the only ones, though, with every voice actor bringing their A-game. Steven Yeun is once again the breakout star of the show, voicing not only Mark this season but alternate versions of him and bringing nuances to the table that make each of them distinguishable and their own.
“Invincible” remains one of the best shows coming out right now even with the idea of an adult animated TV series making most audiences immediately stop listening. Through supreme character work and intense themes, the show keeps audiences interested, and there is no sign of that changing.
