Why are Invincible Fights Awful?

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:02]Aw, [ __ ] Here we go again.

[00:00:06]Why do Invincible fights feel so fillery? What makes them lacking? For a season that's exactly 27% fight scene by runtime, this is a big issue. We can see a cop falling asleep watching the show, and honestly, that's how I feel at times. It's not just that the fights don't look good or don't stand up to the calculators of nerds online. It's that they're beginning to detract from the story. So, what's a fight scene supposed to add? One, information about the characters involved. Two, emotions like tension, thrills, catharsis, or despair.

[00:00:38]And of course, fight scenes are an art form and can exist purely to offer artistic value. If your fight scene succeeds in conveying multiple of these things to the audience, you can package a lot into a little. Keeping these in mind, that makes three ways that a fight scene can fail. One, failure [snorts] to offer informational value. Two, failure to offer emotional value. Three, failure to offer artistic value. I'll go over an example for each one. Now, let's begin.

[00:01:09]Let's start off with the Nolan versus alien bug fight in episode six. It's only 56 seconds, which makes it crazy how much of an outsized impact it had on the episode as a whole, but that just goes to show a bad fight scene sticks out like a sore thumb. I mentioned that fight scenes are supposed to give information. Here's a list of things you can learn about characters in a fight scene. How strong are they in relation to each other? How do they approach the fight? What are their strengths, weaknesses, skills, styles? How does this impact the plot? Are there any world-building elements that facilitate certain strategies? Not only does Nolan's fight against the bug and later his fight with Oliver against the mother bug fail to tell us any of this information, it actually reduces the amount of information we know about these characters by introducing sub textual misinformation.

[00:02:01]One of the main things you learn in a fight is how strong a character is. When a character takes another one out in a single hit or toys with them, you know they're a cut above. When they start struggling but come out on top, you know they're pretty relative to each other.

[00:02:15]When they lose, you know they're weaker.

[00:02:17]This is the principle that they used in season 1 episode 7 to gradually hype up the threats against Omni-Man. First, they had him take out the fodder GDA agents, then the Hammer, then the Reaniman, and had him struggle against the Kaiju and Immortal to show that those two exist at the top of the verse in their own tier right underneath him.

[00:02:38]Now, look at the bug fight. He's putting pretty much the same effort he did against these bugs as he did against Immortal or the Kaiju. So, what are we learning? We're learning that the Viltrumites, which are meant to be these incredibly unstoppable forces, are actually not that strong if these random aliens on a planet that doesn't even have high gravity are able to fight them. It makes it feel like the Viltrumites dying out naturally is an inevitability rather than a remote possibility. Moreover, look at what we're learning about Nolan. He's not approaching this fight with any strategy whatsoever. He comes in with two punches, then he picks the bug up and puts it on the ground before tossing it into the wall. He goes in with a two-handed punch, showing exertion, another punch, a shoulder check, the sorriest flurry of punches I've ever seen before being smacked into the wall so hard he grimaces. He's helpless as the bug eats him before finally bursting out. What does this tell us? He's weak.

[00:03:38]Nolan spent years of his life chasing down threats to the Viltrum Empire, Space Racer, Battle Beast, the Geldarians, the Ragnars, yet this random purple bug on a random planet deep in Viltrumite territory has evaded him?

[00:03:53]Let's sum it up. What we've learned from this fight subtext is that Nolan is weak, unstrategic, and stupid. This is misinformation which clouds our mental image of him. It has nothing to do with the power scaling. It's about what the scene says about the character. If you're not going to convey the proper information, the fight scene is worse than a waste of time or filler. It's actively detrimental to the story.

[00:04:18]That's why people were talking about it so much. Another great example is this Tech Jacket fight versus The Walking Dead. Ordinarily, if your character's first scene is a fight scene, you'll expect to learn something about them, their personality, their strength, their approach to fighting. We learn none of these things from the scene. The choreography is so bland that it's not really possible to detect any information about Tech Jacket from the fight. The only thing we can say for sure is that she's a kid whose dad doesn't like her swearing, and she shoots lasers, and she likes attention.

[00:04:51]There's a lot of better ways to show this off during the scene itself, though. Having her showboat and taunt the enemy would show off her childishness, as we can see from these poorly drawn examples that I have made of her. If the point of her overloading The Walking Dead was to show that she's clever, it failed because it's not a particularly clever tactic. It's the fighting equivalent of having a fantasy hero walk into a city and get pickpocketed. It's a cliché among clichés. When we look at this, is it even possible to say that the fight was written? It feels more like a first draft which clumsily introduces all of its ideas through dialogue, which were meant to be cut down in subsequent drafts in order to introduce the character through its visuals instead.

[00:05:32]Next, let's discuss how Invincible show-exclusive fights fail to offer emotional value. My case study here is Titan versus Magmanite versus season 3.

[00:05:42]I mean, are we kidding? Genuinely speaking, this has to be one of the worst fights conceptually in this entire show. The whole fight is a guy who uses blades to attack versus a guy who is immune to conventional weapons. It's been established over the course of three seasons that Titan's a tough bastard who can tank pretty much anything you throw at him. Yet this fight, which is 2 minutes and 57 seconds, is supposed to deliver a mimesis of tension? Let's walk through this. First, Magmanite takes out some fodders, then he attacks Titan, which does nothing, then he attacks Titan's family, which also does nothing, and then Titan beats him to a bloody pulp. I was more bored during this fight than anything, and I'm sure many were, too.

[00:06:25]Here's why. The fight doesn't have anything going for it. Just look at these hits, the facial expressions.

[00:06:31]They're so stiff and lifeless. How am I supposed to feel any emotion from them?

[00:06:36]Invincible has relied on its gore for so long that it gets, not exactly tiring, but much less effective than how it was before. If you've spent more than a little bit on the internet and complained about the fight scenes, you've probably seen people say Invincible's a drama, not an action show, so it's fine that the fights aren't good cuz that's not the focus of the show. I was kind of curious, I'll admit, so I decided to calculate exactly how much of the show is fight scenes. I measured it from the first hit to the end of the scene after the last hit.

[00:07:09]Episode 1 has the opening montage, which is mostly fights, the Dinousaurus, Universa, and Sekwence fights, totaling to 32% Of these, the Dinousaurus fight actually looks kind of good at points, so I suspect it was done by a freelancer.

[00:07:23]Episode 2 has Nolan versus his parents, Nolan and Allen versus Space Racer, and Nolan and Allen versus the Ragnars. It's one of the least fight-heavy episodes at 12%.

[00:07:33]Episode 3 has Titan versus Magmanite, the Flaxan invasion, and the Mr. Liu fight, weighing in at 34% fight scene.

[00:07:41]Episode 4, which for some reason is the longest episode, has two Volcanic fights and the off-screen Servers fight, but the first two are so long that it's 22% fight scene. Episode 5 has Tech Jacket versus The Walking Dead, The Allies versus The Viltrumites, and Mark versus Conquest clocking in at 26% fight scene.

[00:08:01]Mark versus Conquest was done by a freelancer as well. Episode 6 might have the most distinct fight scenes with Nolan versus Bug, Nolan versus Oliver, Allen versus two Viltrumites, Nolan and Oliver versus Bug, the montage, and the invasion plus the falling ship sequence for a total of 31% fight scene. Episode 7 has The Purge and the Viltrum battle, which totals to a whopping 46% fight scene. Episode 8 has the PTSD flashes and Mark versus Thrag, which is 9% fight scene. In total, the season is 27% fight scene. A season that is 27% fight scene should not be doing them so horribly on a writing level, but of course, the writing level isn't all that there is to it. Let's start off with a PSA. I'm an action fan. I've watched a lot of kung fu movies, shonen anime, brainless Hollywood blockbusters, some Indian movies, The Raid, of course, Korean dramas like Mercy for None and Taxi Driver, etc. So, I might be a little action brains when I say this, but fight scenes are an art form that's separate from the rest of cinema. By that, I mean what makes a good action movie is not often what makes a good movie, and most good movies with action don't necessarily have good action. Notable exceptions being Everything Everywhere All at Once and Old Boy. I don't think fight scenes are any less of an art form than storytelling. To me, a good fight scene is like gazing upon a beautiful painting or dance. It's its own thing.

[00:09:34]If you're going to include it, it shouldn't be done half-heartedly. Just like if you were to include, say, a musical sequence in the show, it better be good. Invincible fights, unfortunately, do nothing for me artistically. In terms of choreography, even back in season 1, they were not that good. Thanks to the original studio, they did indeed contain a level of stylization that's lacking from the newer ones, though.

[00:10:02]To show an example of something good, I want to take a look at this fan animation by Winny Win Arts.

[00:10:14]For those of you not aware, Winny Win is the animator responsible for this Conquest Reanimated fight, which is amazing and you guys should check it out. But, covering that would be a Herculean task, so I'll stick with this short clip. So, we start off the scene with Mark entering from the left.

[00:10:29]Another Viltrumite getting pushed back by Tech Jacket. Mark rears back and punches him into Space Racer's laser, sending him floating back as Omni-Man and Anissa exchange blows, with him dodging her blow, then punching her off screen. Space Racer floats around for a bit. Some more Tech Jacket lasers zip past Mark, then he grits his teeth and punches Thrax, which does nothing.

[00:10:51]Consider the three things that a fight scene should have: emotional value, artistic value, informational value.

[00:10:58]This short clip succeeds in all three.

[00:11:01]Artistically, it contains some unique movements and choreography. Emotionally, it sets up a chaotic thrilling shot, which is brought abruptly to a halt as Mark punches Thrax and it does nothing.

[00:11:12]Informationally, it's able to pack into 15 seconds what it would take the show a minute to do, as well as showcasing the teamwork of the squad to show why they are a formidable force while still being outnumbered. We get to see all of the members present helping to get a kill, which reinforces the idea set up in episode 6 that teaming up is the best way to beat a Viltrumite. The clip is short and simple, but it has an outsized impact compared to the actual fight in the show, which is a lot slower paced and less exciting. I have a confession to make. Peppered throughout the video are fight scenes which I've edited down.

[00:11:46]You can see the comparisons right up here on screen. The reason that I'm editing them down is because I think preserving the vibe of a fight is more important than showing every little minute detail of it. If you compare a TV show to a book, then every shot is a sentence, and every sentence should provide new information. If you can't tell, I'm very hung up on efficiency.

[00:12:06]That doesn't mean I don't like slow shows, though. If done well, a slow-paced show is able to communicate more through its pauses than a fast-paced show through its words and actions. That said, I think the storyboards for the fights in Invincible's are just real bad. It's just the same thing being shown with a marginal progression each time, when you could have just worked harder on one good shot to say more than you're doing with two or three mediocre ones.

[00:12:31]Something else I'd like to discuss is the sheer lack of variety in terms of fighting styles. Literally, everyone in Invincible fights the exact same way with the exact same powers. They fly, punch, and maybe kick each other.

[00:12:43]There's no difference between the way any of them fight in terms of strategy or choreography. The Immortal moves the same way that Conquest or Thragg does.

[00:12:51]The only difference is he has less power behind his punch. There's a segment in this video that I made where I said Mark could have used basic white belt Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to avoid getting his guts ripped out by Conquest. This wasn't a serious critique of the show, but at the same time, I don't think it's wrong to acknowledge that fighting and the popular conception of fighting in the mainstream media has changed a lot. And the Viltrumite power set is uniquely suited towards grappling. They have no long-range abilities at all, meaning they're forced to fight hand-to-hand, but their durability is weaker than the amount of force they can output, meaning that every time they hit someone else, they can get hurt. The optimal way of fighting for a creature like this is to grapple and use the ability to create their own leverage in order to pressure the hell out of their opponent before finally breaking their limbs or strangling them. Again, not a real critique of the show, but certainly a direction they could have and maybe should have gone in considering that they made choking out your opponent a viable win condition. Come on, Cecil. Do better. Give Mark some training. Uh but seriously, Invincible lacks creative fight choreography because none of its characters know how to fight. Take away the powers and they flail around like those street fighters you see on Twitter. Is it too much for some of them to display martial arts? Even though the Viltrumites don't have any desire to learn, Allen probably would, right? Or Mark? This is a problem in the comics, but it's not as big of a problem because generally comics don't have good fight scenes. Of course, I'd love to be proven otherwise, but just like regular pros, it's not a great medium to convey the art of action. That said, animation is.

[00:14:26]So, Invincible the TV show having poor fight scenes is way worse to me than Invincible the comic not having great ones. Well, I like Invincible, but it's one of the only shows where the talking scenes are on average more interesting than the fight scenes.