The first season of Prime Video’s Invincible was a pretty faithful adaptation of the comics (albeit with some changes) and it captured the essence of the original comics by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker/Ryan Ottley. With the current drought of comic book animated series, Invincible has finally returned to fill that void after two whole years.

Man Of Steel

The first major improvement in Invincible Season 2 is how much the animation quality has improved. That’s not unexpected. Considering the breakout success of the first season and the two-year wait between both seasons, Prime Video must have provided a bigger budget for the second season onwards. The Atom Eve special episode earlier this year already gave us a glimpse of this higher-quality animation, and it’s clear that the increase in budget has benefited this series greatly. Best of all, the facial animation looks more impressive and more expressive, which is an improvement over the first season’s more stilted and static animation.

The action is also as bloody as ever. They’re kinetic and gory, with blood and guts just as gory and visceral as in the comics. Just like the first season, the animators aren’t holding back when it comes to that.

Just like its first season, Invincible is more comics-accurate, essentially following the events of the comics almost beat-by-beat so far (three episodes in). The second season is similar in that regard, so there’s not much to surprise those who have already read the comics. Again, like the first season, Invincible Season 2‘s episodes are almost one hour long each, which is closer to the length of a live-action TV series than it is to other animated shows. Viewers will leave each episode feeling satisfied without feeling any of them being draggy or not enough.

It’s these moments of drama that add emotional depth to these characters. Invincible Season 2 explores a lot of the aftermath and fallout of what happened at the end of Invincible Season 1. Now, these characters, especially Mark Grayson and his mother, are dealing with the trauma and guilt of that event. In addition, Invincible Season 2 also allocates some screen time for other characters, who receive a bit of the spotlight this time around. For instance, the third episode even shifts focus from Mark Grayson to an unexpected character for a massive part of the episode and that’s great. One of the best things about the rich world of Invincible is how complex many of its characters are, and we’re starting to see that here as the series develops them more and more.

It’s hard to say anything about Invincible Season 2 that I haven’t already said about the first season. It’s still just as good in many ways, and with the aforementioned improvements such as better animation quality. If you liked the first season, you’ll certainly like the second season as well; it offers everything fans have wanted and been asking for, for the past two years. There’s really no comparable substitute for Invincible out there in animation (well, The Boys, but that’s different), despite the first season having been released over two years ago, and that shines the spotlight on how unique Invincible is even today in such a saturated superhero market. Because of that reason, and how Invincible deconstructs and plays with tropes of the genre, Invincible Season 2 proves that it will likely survive the superhero fatigue.

Think, Mark, Think

If you thought Invincible Season 1 was shocking, think again. There are lots of plot twists and reveals here that will keep viewers on their toes. It’s not every day that we get a great comic book adaptation like Invincible, but the long wait was definitely worth it. So far, Invincible Season 2 is just as good as Season 1, with improvements in animation. What more could we possibly want?

FINAL SCORE: 80/100

We received screeners for the first four episodes of Invincible Season 2 from Prime Video Malaysia. Invincible Season 2 is slated to premiere on Prime Video on 3 November 2023. The second half of the season will premiere sometime in 2024.