I appreciate that they decided to come back to the Viltrumites after dicking around with the Multiverse and the B-Team relationship drama. But I’m mostly hung up on the endless appetite for gore, particularly when they’re so queasy about letting any given character die. You can only have so many Viltrumite Fights before ten minutes of two guys punching each other in the face runs thin. And when there’s no consequences to these fights, no significant emotional growth, and no plot advancement… I’m just watching an animated snuff film.
Powerplex was just the same tired extended slugfest minus the Viltrumite story arc. This, after they set up some genuinely curious plot hooks in the Nolan Sci-Fi books he left with Art. So much of that plot is just left on the floor, so we can have more extended scenes of people disemboweling each other.
It’s the same problem that The Boys runs into. It’s what made the conclusion of the Angstrom Levy arc so disappointing. The writers are so focused on doing Clockwork Orange style ultra-violence, intercut with awkward dinner scenes with people’s parents, that they forget to move the plot in any interesting direction.
Hardly a problem unique to Invincible or The Boys. It feels like every superhero show can run through the initial premise quickly and keep falling back into its own self-defined tropes to juice content. But Powerplex, as a character, is one more retread that Aaron Paul’s voice acting can’t save.
You say those story elements, like the stuff in Nolan’s books, were left unattended, but in season 4 that’s exactly where they pick up. Being able to look back on the show as a whole right now, I don’t think there’s much of any plot point that’s been introduced that hasn’t been explored in some way. I remember the ending for season 1 teasing a bunch of cool shit that we didn’t end up seeing until season 3, but now that it’s all out there I feel perfectly fine with the pacing.
Also, from what I’ve seen online, the show (for the most part) still follows the timeline of the comics. So far the only thing that was out of order that I know of is Mark helping Titan in season 1, as in the comics that whole fight happens after he and Nolan fight. The Invincible War (the multiverse arc at the end of season 3) happens before the Viltrum War in the comics anyway.
So nothing is really out of order, and they haven’t really forgotten anything.
I can agree with the reliance on gore and violence, but imo that’s just what would happen if you had these indestructible objects colliding damn near constantly.
I appreciate that they decided to come back to the Viltrumites after dicking around with the Multiverse and the B-Team relationship drama. But I’m mostly hung up on the endless appetite for gore, particularly when they’re so queasy about letting any given character die. You can only have so many Viltrumite Fights before ten minutes of two guys punching each other in the face runs thin. And when there’s no consequences to these fights, no significant emotional growth, and no plot advancement… I’m just watching an animated snuff film.
Powerplex was just the same tired extended slugfest minus the Viltrumite story arc. This, after they set up some genuinely curious plot hooks in the Nolan Sci-Fi books he left with Art. So much of that plot is just left on the floor, so we can have more extended scenes of people disemboweling each other.
It’s the same problem that The Boys runs into. It’s what made the conclusion of the Angstrom Levy arc so disappointing. The writers are so focused on doing Clockwork Orange style ultra-violence, intercut with awkward dinner scenes with people’s parents, that they forget to move the plot in any interesting direction.
Hardly a problem unique to Invincible or The Boys. It feels like every superhero show can run through the initial premise quickly and keep falling back into its own self-defined tropes to juice content. But Powerplex, as a character, is one more retread that Aaron Paul’s voice acting can’t save.
You say those story elements, like the stuff in Nolan’s books, were left unattended, but in season 4 that’s exactly where they pick up. Being able to look back on the show as a whole right now, I don’t think there’s much of any plot point that’s been introduced that hasn’t been explored in some way. I remember the ending for season 1 teasing a bunch of cool shit that we didn’t end up seeing until season 3, but now that it’s all out there I feel perfectly fine with the pacing.
Also, from what I’ve seen online, the show (for the most part) still follows the timeline of the comics. So far the only thing that was out of order that I know of is Mark helping Titan in season 1, as in the comics that whole fight happens after he and Nolan fight. The Invincible War (the multiverse arc at the end of season 3) happens before the Viltrum War in the comics anyway.
So nothing is really out of order, and they haven’t really forgotten anything.
I can agree with the reliance on gore and violence, but imo that’s just what would happen if you had these indestructible objects colliding damn near constantly.