Mid-season break for Invincible Season 4 has been achieved, and the talk around Mark Grayson is heating up. While the earlier installments had Mark struggling with the possibility of turning into his dad, the latest plotline involving the Viltrumite war has many people wondering if the apple is falling farther from the tree.
The lethal force debate
The premiere episode of season four, titled Making the World a Better Place, sets an ominous mood for the future installments. Gone is the innocent and slightly naive kid; instead, we are being treated to the more ruthless and dangerous Mark Grayson, ready to go to extremes.
Having faced off against Conquest in season 3, Mark is now a man whose morality has changed from something very idealistic to something very pragmatic. To some fans, this makes perfect sense, given how the universe seems ready to kill every single person Mark has ever cared about.
However, for others, the idea of a protagonist taking on a persona that once belonged to Omni-Man is quite disturbing.
Dinosaurus’s emergence has made Mark’s psychological state more complicated. From the fact that Mark is forming a connection with a genius anarchist, it is obvious that he is seeking solutions that can be obtained from nowhere else.
In another parallel, Mark has begun treating Flaxans not as a threat to human civilization but merely as a menace he must eliminate.
In the eyes of realists, all this is nothing but the natural development of the situation since Mark is maturing and needs to do whatever it takes to survive. On the other hand, moralists think that Mark is losing what little humanity he still has due to his indifference towards the lives of his allies.
There is a strange irony in the way Mark Grayson is evolving while the other characters become more humane. As the Viltrumites are introduced, we see a glimpse of their society, which shows that Nolan is ‘not as bad as the humans believed him to be.’
Nolan is searching for a redeeming element in himself, but Mark is following right into the path he used to take—albeit with the opposite intentions. The symbolism behind it is evident when we see Mark hovering above the planet with a similar look in his eye or hear him addressing Cecil with that small touch of disdain in his voice.
With the arrival of Thragg and the ensuing explosion of the Viltrumite war, the stakes have never been higher. Season four of Invincible is a story about what it means to become powerful and what it entails.
Whether or not Mark Grayson turns out to be his father, it seems that either way, he is becoming a more monstrous person who will stop at nothing to protect human life. At the same time, there is something almost admirable in the way he stands up against impossible odds, unlike his father.
Latest episodes of Invincible Season 4 are available for streaming on Prime Video, with every new episode coming out every Wednesday.
