Invincible (2003) - TV Tropes

Mark: Wait a minute! Are you guys speaking English?
Martian: No. What's English?
Mark: Um... never mind.

• Played straight by Allen the Alien. And taken to the extreme by the fact that the whole Cosmic Federation seems to use English, or the "Earth/Urath" mistake couldn't have happened.
• Justified with the interdimensional beings. The first two times, they don't speak at all. The third time they come back they do it to seek vengeance on Omni-Man, and have learned English by studying him (it's also after Omni-Man had led a revolution in their world, so he had presumably found a way to communicate).

• This was acknowledged by the creators themselves in the second trade paperback. They went with easily recognizable archetypes because they simply didn't have time to come up with wholly original characters and make the reader care about them as well.

• Nolan says this to Mark in issue 2 when telling him the sanitized and palatable version of his secret origin as a scout for the Viltrumite Empire.
• He does it again in issue 11 when revealing that the Viltrumites were actually a race of psychotic Social Darwinists who intend to conquer Earth by force.
• He does it again when explaining to Allen the story behind the Scourge Virus and the circumstances by which there came to be only 50 Viltrumites left alive in the universe.
• Nolan is on the receiving end of it from Thragg, after he reveals that Nolan and Mark are actually the rightful heirs to the Viltrumite Empire.
• Mark gives a modified version of the same speech to his son in the last issue of the series.

• Mark's Arch-Enemy is probably Angstrom Levy. Even though he appears sporadically, Levy is the only major villain in the series with a personal vendetta against Mark and vice versa.
• Later on, Thragg takes this role as he is responsible for Oliver and Omni-man's death, while Thragg hates Mark for being part of the reason he was exiled by the Viltrumites.

• The genetic dominance of the Viltrumite race is simply absurd, early in the series it seems the Viltrumites have just been lucky enough to have found a compatible genetic structure in humanity in order for Mark to exist through Nolan and Debbie, the average case of a fantasy hybrid; later on this is expanded to a much grander degree by revealing the Viltrumites actually have super powered genetics capable of breeding with any species in the universe, no matter how different at first glance their partner may seem, as long as the race has a concept of fertilization and gestation it seems anything goes, and the resulting child will only look slightly different at first (like skin color), when they get older their Viltrumite blood will overtake any genetic trait from their other race heritage, basically becoming 100% Viltrumite in their adult years, looking indistinguishable from someone who was born a pure blood Viltrumite. In short the Viltrumite empire has potential to convert a good portion of the universe into their race at a genetic level.
• The idea that Viltrumites' inner ears are insanely complex and (relatively) delicate to provide them equilibrium during flight seems to hold up as an explanation... Until you remember that the operation of the inner ear depends on the presence of both atmosphere and gravity. Viltrumites are able to maintain their balance even in the depths of space, so this can't be how their senses work.

• The secret base of the Lizard League is supposedly located in the Everglades. Surrounded by mountains. Uh huh.
• In the "Death of Everyone" event, Dinosaurus bombs the whole land of Greenland and majority of Antarctica, causing massive floods around the world. Biggest floods occure in Los Angeles, New York, Paris (which after "Guarding The Globe: Under the siege" appears to be rebuilded despite millions of deaths upon The Order's invasion), London (again, half of it was destroyed during the battle with Monax), Dubai, Tokyo and Sydney. Except, upon exploding the Northern Hemosphere, water wouldn't even have reached any of these regions except for majority of USA's Eastarn Coast. Instead, pretty much entire Iceland would've been flooded, along with majority of Western Europe and Baltic sea region, with North Africa countries suffering this fate as well. However, it is likely said mentioned before cities would suffer under the earthquakes killing even more people. With Dinosaurus wanting to kill millions of people in most populated areas of the world, he would end up destroying surrounding regions on Atlantic ocean, so not as much as he intented, which would make his goal even more idiotic.

• They try this again later with Rex/Robot. It doesn't work, as he manages to crush them both before they can latch onto him.

• The Invincible War was practically filled to the brim with cameos of many different superheroes from Image Comics and beyond, fending off evil versions of Invincible invading Earth. Like the aforementioned Spawn, Jack Staff, Firebreather, The Pitt, Dynamo5, Shadowhawk, Madman and amongst others.

• Damien Darkblood, Demon Detective, who dresses exactly like Rorschach from Watchmen, looks just like him when viewed from the back, and has some of the same speech quirks.
• The Guardians of the Globe are a whole super-team of really obvious Captains Ersatz. There's Aquarius (Aquaman), the Red Rush (the Flash), Darkwing (Batman), the Green Ghost (Green Lantern), War Woman (Wonder Woman), Martian Man (Martian Manhunter) and they all die. Omni-Man acts as the group's Superman prior to The Reveal, and The Immortal is a heroic version of Vandal Savage.
  • And then there's Shapesmith, another shapeshifting Martian later on in the series, but he's a Plastic Man expy.
  • As a bonus, all of their profiles in the Handbook obliquely mention the pasts of their Justice League counterparts. Especially Darkwing.
• The Viltrumites themselves resemble the Saiyans from theDragon Ball franchise, given their world-conquering tendencies.
  • Allen the Alien's ability of getting massive power boosts when recovering from life-threatening injury also mirrors the Saiyans. Allegedly this is a coincidence, as Kirkman was totally unfamiliar with DBZ until after he'd already created the Viltrumites and Allen.
• The Elephant, Powerplex, Battle Beast, Bi-Plane, and Titan mirror Spider-Man villains The Rhino, Electro, Kraven The Hunter, The Vulture, and Tombstone.
• The crew of Captain Pickell from the Coalition of Planets is entirely composed of Ersatzes from the Star Trek: The Next Generation bridge crew, except that they are all aliens (and have no idea what Earth is in their first appearance). They are also shown to be rather incompetent.

• "This is so gay" when he's carrying another man (in a necessarily suggestive pose) while flying. May be said by Invincible, the passenger or some third party, for slightly mysterious reasons.
• At least one female passenger has uttered the line after simply realizing that the person he most usually transports this way is male. In a similar vein, Atom Eve says it while she's carrying her boyfriend while in flight, commenting on the role reversal rather than the contact.
• Eventually Mark starts carrying people by holding onto them just under their armpits. He still receives a common complaint—that it's uncomfortable. Both complaints usually elicit one of two reactions from Mark: Either "I know" or "Shut up."

• Just about any character who appears briefly is likely to become important later on.

• Lampshaded and/or deconstructed. In two early stories, Mark is recognized by his teacher even with his mask on. Apparently, masks are enough to hide your identity from the general public, but not from people who know you.
  • The second time isn't really surprising. Invincible and Atom Eve show up at the home of their teacher, who we saw earlier knows them well-enough, and Eve wasn't wearing a mask or a different hairstyle, so it would have been easy to figure out who she was, and then guess at who her companion could be.

Invincible: In about six hours, I lose my virginity to a fish.
Cecil: Good Lord. You're a virgin?

• His name being "Oliver" is also a reference to Ol-Vir, a Daxamite (Superman pastiche) Legion of Superheroes villain, who also started out as a bratty kid with superpowers.
• When he gets older, he vaguely looks like Damian Wayne from Batman...with purple skin.

• The "white room" is also a case of this. The idea of the government using chemicals to control the population through tap water comes from a very American string of conspiracy theories derived from their rejection of things provided by the state for free that is very baffling for non-American readers.

• In the Astounding Wolf-Man crossover, Invincible is confronted by the remainders of the Guardians of the Globe, who demand he turn Wolf-Man over to them and won't take no for an answer. Mark promptly grabs the Immortal by the head, swings him at the others, knocking them all out and pitches the Immortal toward the horizon.
• Omni-Man vs. the Guardians of the Globe was really quick and really dirty.
• Robot's drones vs most of the Guardians of the Globe thanks to taking them out by surprise and knowing all their weaknesses before hand.

• He's not just inventing new weapons. After Dinosaurus glassed Las Vegas, claiming that the city was a tremendous resource drain and that people would use the land much better if the area were a giant solar power plant, the aforementioned inventor took the idea and ran with it. Now he and Cecil have built a solar plant that provides clean power to nearly half the people in the country.
• Mark and Eve delve into this themselves with *Invincible Inc.,* attempting to rent Mark as private security to high-priority targets like prisons and power plants. It eventually disintegrates due to Mark's inability to meet his commitments in light of all the other stuff going on in his life.

• Monster Girl was cursed to age backwards when she was 16.

• Later on Issue 84 has him break out Dinosaurus in an attempt to find better ways to save the world.
• And later than that, in issue #100, Mark accepts the offer to return to working for Cecil in exchange for not facing the legal repercussions of his actions with Dinosaurus.
• The Viltrumites under Mark's father and most of the world governments ally themselves with Robot, even though the former is aware of his purge of most people (heroes or villains) capable of stopping him because as it stood too many lives would be lost trying to fight him.

• For the record, Cecil's appearances in Guarding the Globe and Invincible Universe, which do feature a different writer than the main series (Phil Hester), are somewhere right in the middle — Cecil's unquestionably a good guy but he's still all too capable of crossing the line.
• It could also be justified - if Cecil trusts Wolf-Man, and is wrong, the consequences are much less severe than if he trusts Mark, and is wrong - Wolf-Man can be taken down fairly easily, but Mark is a lot tougher, and could potentially kill millions and enslave the world.

• Later Mark teams up with Dinosaurus, because despite being a sociopath he actually has good ideas for how to improve humanity. He just doesn't care how to get there. Mark figures he can control Dinosaurus enough to keep him from killing innocents...and if push comes to shove, Invincible's one of the few people with the physical strength to stop him, so why not be standing right next to him if things go horribly wrong?
• Mark had to team up with one of his own evil counterparts in order to survive against the only other remaining evil counterpart. This alliance was short-lived — as soon as they were safe the evil Invincible betrayed Mark by taking the remorseful, surrendering Angstrom Levy back to his home dimension.

• Originally, Invincible was going to be named Bulletproof before Kirkman & Walker changed his name and costume. Later in the series, the Guardians of the Globe inducted a new member, Bulletproof, with the aforementioned costume and similar powers to Invincible.
  • Gets taken a step further when after Mark is taken out of commission by being exposed to a virus, Bulletproof helps Eve with their business by taking up Mark's costume to do the jobs.
• Mark himself is basically Peter Parker but with Supermanesque superpowers. Interestingly, series artist Ryan Ottley ended up drawing for The Amazing Spider-Man after Invincible wrapped up. His Peter Parker is pretty much identical to Mark but with a slightly different hairstyle.

• You think a sexy, well-endowed woman shagging a similarly good-looking young man is hot? Usually, that's true, but not when she's raping him with a completely manic and unhinged look on her face while he’s shown to be terrified after beating the absolute life out of him.
• Atom Eve fights Conquest naked, after awakening her true powers. Too bad, moments before this, she'd just been beaten and impaled to near-death.

• Rex Splode is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold because he was forcibly given powers through experiments at a young age.
• Robot is revealed to be a deformed, swollen being named Rudy, who cannot exist outside of his liquid chamber, and remotely controls the robots as a means of hiding his true self. Much of his more morally ambiguous actions are taken in the name of escaping this hellish, miserable existence and create a new body for himself.
• Nolan Grayson was born into a militaristic, brutal race of conquerors, told from a young age that this is how it must be, and the way of his people. Unknowingly he is actually the rightful heir to the vacant Viltrum throne, and had he known this, and not lost his father to assassination, perhaps things could have turned out differently.
• Ursaal, eldest daughter of Grand Regent Thragg, was brainwashed from an early age to be nothing but a weapon and soldier for her father's army.

• Omni-Man kills the Guardians of the Globe to insure that the Viltrumite invasion won't be thwarted, the Immortal is the only one who survives due to his regenerative powers.
• The Viltrumite villain Conquest, twice responsible for the worst beatings Invincible has ever received. The first one resulted in all but one of Mark's limbs being broken (after which he headbutted Conquest into a coma and then promptly passed out), and the second one had Conquest disembowel Mark while being choked to death. Though both times, despite beating Mark nearly to death, Conquest loses. The second time Conquest is Killed Off for Real.
• Grand Regent Thragg Kills Oliver and Omni Man. Anissa dies fighting his army.
• Robot wipes out the bulk of the heroes introduced over the course of the series as part of his coup of the world.

• Capes, a prequel comic, deals with the return of the Chronodile and the fallout of Big Brain revealing himself to be a villain.
• Brit, across various one-shots, shows him marrying his wife, Jessica, and Brittany, Jr. being born. It also features another side to the alien invasion that occurs in Invincible #16, the death of Brit's ex-wife, Susan, and how the invasion was actually stopped: Susan's nuclear powered son, Kid Fusion, returns from space and obliterates the alien mothership. Kid Fusion then dies trying to kill Brit.
  • Brit also features Donald and his wife reconciling.
• Tech Jacket deals with the Geldarians and other galactic events.

• The Guard Organization.
• Capes, Inc.

• Omni-Man refuses to have Thragg executed because he feels it clashes with his new goals for the Viltrumite Empire.

• Viltrumites. The majority have black hair with a few blond/brown exceptions, but otherwise are virtually identical to humans. Justified, seeing as how they're nearly 100% genetically similar to humans.
• Averted by just about every other alien race in the series, however. After the Viltrumites and Expies of the crew of the Enterprise, even the most human aliens have colorful/textured skin, various appendages, and other significant physiological differences.

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• Hypocritical Humor "Don't you think that's kind of cheap?"
• Also a Take That!, as the author is meant to resemble Brian Michael Bendis.

• It's especially frustrating since Stedman always emphasizes lethal force as the best course of action to Mark's face but never follows his own advice.
• Eventually, Mark tries to do exactly the same thing as Cecil with the murderous but brilliant Dinosaurus, thinking that he can make use of the villain's intellect while preventing him from harming innocents. This turns out to be even more disastrous than Cecil's similar attempts.

• In the extra material in the Trade, Kirkman states this was intentional, saying that it wasn't really supposed to be noticeable to anyone but Mark. However, artist Ryan Ottley did shamelessly show her cleavage off a little more than usually from that point.

• The same issue shows Mark in a Walking Dead reality; however, Kirkman has stated Mark was not sent to the Walking Dead reality, just a Walking Dead reality.
• Mark has also crossed over with The Tick in the 100th issue of the later's newer series.

• He is a sociopathic Well-Intentioned Extremist Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Villain with Good Publicity (so much of an Extremist that two of his harshest critics are his own abandoned wife and child);
• His first move was to kill the majority of the superheroes on Earth (which was a Curb-Stomp Battle of epic, gory proportions, killing many beloved characters on-screen);
• He manages to convince Mark to let him continue his villainy (a decision that disgusts Mark so much that he abandons Earth with Eve);
• He creates a Utopia on Earth so perfect that nobody but his more hard-core haters can say he's wrong;
• The remaining superheroes attempt to pull a resistance together, only to discover that there is absolutely no place to hide or run from him anywhere on Earth-he is just letting this resistance exist because he allows it;
• In the same issue that showcases this, he manages to convince almost all among the resistance (except the ones who hate him the most, which includes the aforementioned wife and child) that he is in the right and they all do a Face–Heel Turn right there on the spot;
• When they all leave, he tells the remaining resistance members that he will allow them to live for now and will wait their move;
• The alien governments (including Allen's and the Viltrumite remnant now governed by Nolan) refuse to do anything about Robot, because either Earth is an Insignificant Little Blue Planet in their eyes or, in the case of the Viltrumites, survival of their race comes first.
• Eventually Subverted, when Mark fights him in space, away from his drones, and responds to his Hannibal Lecture by punching him through the chest... then taking his brain and putting it on life support, ensuring it's unable to do anything more than think and communicate, so Robot's brilliance can be filtered by someone with a functioning conscience, like the Immortal.

• D.A. Sinclair and Darkwing are both shielded from justice by Cecil, who has use for their unique talents. Learning this drives a bitter, incensed Mark to leave Cecil's employ.
• A later development would see Cecil protecting Mark from the consequences of his actions, in exchange for Mark returning to work for him. Mark is well aware of the irony, but isn't bitter about it — now he understands what was going through Sinclair and Darkwing's heads when they crossed the line, and agrees that they deserved another chance.

• Most of the original Guardians of the Globe are killed by Nolan early in the series. Immortal, like his name says, returns. The rest do not.
• Shrinking Ray gets eaten by Komodo Dragon.
• Rex Splode makes a Heroic Sacrifice to kill one of Evil Alternate Marks.
• Conquest gets killed by Invincible, although it took two tries.
• Thaedus by Off with His Head! to Thragg..
• Rus Livingston gets his head crushed by Mark.
• Magmaniac gets his head crushed by Vault.
• Dinosaurus by Mercy Kill from Mark. His human form apperently dies too.
• Angstorm by Robot, so Invincible won't return to his dimension. What a cruel Heel–Face Door-Slam.
• A good chunk of the new Guardians of the Globe and a number of supervillains during Robot's purge.
• In the final few arcs, things are really kicked into high gear, as one might imagine: Battle Beast, Oliver, Nolan, Anissa, and finally Thragg are all killed.

• In the issue where Mark is bounced from dimension to dimension by Angstrom Levy, he crashes into Dr. Octopus during a confrontation against Spider-Man, meets Batman, and ends up on worlds similar to Y: The Last Man and The Walking Dead, the latter of which Kirkman writes. The cameos from Spidey and Doc Ock were actually elaborated on in Marvel Team-Up, also written by Kirkman.
• And, of course, when Allen the Alien's flight back to Earth interrupts the travel of the almost-Enterprise-D. The crew later became recurring characters up to and during the Viltrumite War.

• Omni-Man, Thragg, and Allen the Alien have interspecies romances with plenty of sex, so this trope is implied, though not explicitly shown.
• During the Viltrumite War, the human superhero Tech Jacket mentions the he and his sorta-girlfriend (a member of the Geldarian race who gave him his suit) do not have "compatible parts."

• Almost exaggerated with the union that gave birth to Oliver, which was between Nolan (who, as a Viltrumite, lives for thousands of years) and Andressa (who, as a Thraxan, lives for nine Earth months).
• Also the relationship between late teen Dupli-Kate and the Immortal, who's been around since the start of human history and was Abraham Lincoln. The relationship between a centuries old Monster Girl and the Flaxan princess counts as well.

• But not Invincible. Which he lampshades on occasion, usually after suffering a Curb Stomping.

• However, the deaths were a consequence of the battle between Invincible and Omni-Man, and not something Omni-Man intended to do... at the time. Omni-Man seemed to be more apathetic about the lives lost, seeing their deaths as proof of his and Invincible's superiority and why choosing to rule over them was the "right" course of action.

• Starts off as a lighthearted teenage superhero comic, then, all of a sudden Omni-Man kills off the Guardians of the Globe in a particularly gruesome fashion. From that point, the series continues to bounce back and forth between light-hearted and somber. Kirkman has said he deliberately started it out light-hearted just to make Omni-Man's murder of the Guardians that much more shocking.
• Issue 80 contains funny scenes about William's coming out, a hilarious lampshading of Cut Lex Luthor a Check, a jab at the DC reboot (and at Kirkman's own difficulties keeping a proper release schedule) and Las Vegas and everyone in it getting utterly vaporized.

• Other than that, Invincible usually averts the No Endor Holocaust typical in many superhero comics: whenever there's a big battle that destroys buildings and levels cities, a large number of civilians die. One story arc even has the family of one those deceased civilians trying to avenge her death by killing Invincible, who they view as being responsible.
  • Dinosaurus leads the Deconstructor Fleet one level deeper on this topic: He takes issue with superheroes rebuilding cities after climactic battles for several reasons. His main concern is that they're doing the human race no favors, ecologically speaking, by rebuilding unsustainable cities. He's also angry that their superpowered assistance deprives thousands if not millions of people of jobs. It's also implied that rapid rebuilding keeps people from realizing just how frequently and horrifically this universe gets torn up by super-conflict.

"'I'm Invincible.' Ugh. I've got to stop using that line right before I get the snot beaten out of me."

• Doc Seismic looks like a pushover, but he nearly took Invincible out in his first appearance. Then he engineered a plot to take out the world's heroes, which largely, to his surprise, succeeded in phase 1. Did we mention he utterly defeated Invincible in that same issue?
• The Lizard League. Even they admit they're seen as jokes... until the Guardians have to fight them for the first time without any of their heavy hitters. It doesn't go so well.

• Bulletproof, who appears to be roughly Mark's age, at one point claims to be almost 40 years old.

• Dupli-Kate is implied to reguarly use her power to make clones of herself in the bedroom.
• Atom Eve also uses her powers to remove clothes... and place them, neatly folded, in a drawer. She's not irresponsible.

• Issue 108 ends with one, following Robot's betrayal.

  Mark: Holy fuck.

• Robot himself gets out a "shit" when Monster Girl figures out which drone his actual body is in.

• Anti-Hero / '90s Anti-Hero. Yes, the fights are incredibly bloody and gory, but that's just what would happen in a fight with a Flying Brick. Also, Thou Shalt Not Kill is realistically impractical, as sometimes the only way to stop bad guys is to kill them. Though this is always depicted as an absolute last resort, and not to be treated as the go-to solution for all villains.
• Superman Substitute. Mark tries hard to be The Cape, and it's getting very hard to stick to his code of conduct, but he's still helping people because it's the right thing to do. By the end, Mark is able to effectively balance practicality with ethics.
• Anti-Villain. Mark doesn't like or agree with Cecil Stedman, but he admits that with world-ending threats all over the place, Stedman is often the lesser evil.
• Crisis Crossover. Storylines that would be this when published by other companies have the same long-lasting implications without the massive tie-ins and Kudzu Plot.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: On the one hand, yes, sometimes not killing a threat only allows them to hurt more people. But it can also mean that they get the chance to become better, and eventually help the world they once hurt. And besides, the kind of person who is willing to reguarly solve solutions with lethal force isn't the kind of person you want having superpowers.

• Someone commenting how gay carrying someone while flying is. At first it was Mark with his friend, but then other characters started to comment about it.
• Whenever a scene occurs related to Cecil and his work with the Global Defense Agency, there will be a panel of the Pentagon's campus with a sign out front displaying the words "Parking in Rear" in big letters.
• Someone (mostly Allen) having loud sex in the other room, with another character being unable to sleep.
• Mark's inability to remember fighting The Elephant, despite fighting him multiple times.

• In his first appearance he explains that reusing panels saves a lot of time and money and readers are too dumb to notice. ^note 
• After a particular sudden and horrifying event Shaff shows up in the next panel talking about a decision he made that was "Heavy handed. Jarring. Overly dark. Hell, even out of place." but justifying it on the basis that he owns the comic and can do whatever he wants.

• An odd example; Invincible frequently guest-stars characters owned by other Image creators, like the Savage Dragon and Spawn, and the series has a number of Heroes of Other Stories that clearly aren't main characters of the Invincible title but are created and owned by Kirkman himself. The series evokes a Shared Universe like Marvel or DC, but this one title does almost all the heavy lifting for it. Due to the whole "creator-owned" thing, Image as a whole does an odd variant of the shared universe: there's a slightly different "Image universe" for each creator, where the other creators' characters exist, but aren't as big a deal as they would be in their own universe.
• He also briefly crossed over with Spider-Man when Kirkman was writing Marvel Team-Up. However this is the result of Mark being thrust into other universes by Angstrom Levy and their universe is not shared; though they potentially still share a multiverse.

• Viltrumites can hold their breath for months, reach escape velocity with their innate flight powers, and apparently travel between stars.
• Allen the Alien runs a circuit of Coalition planets, evaluating their champions' ability to defend their plant, with no sign of needing a ship.

• In the first issue, Omni-Man's tailor said that he initially thought that Omni-Man's powers were solar-based, in an allusion to the character's similarities to Superman.
• Also in the first issue we see crooks in suits running away from a botched diamond heist.
• Thragg bears a startling resemblance to Freddie Mercury.
• Mark goes to Reginald Vel Johnson High School under the tutelage of Principal Winslow
• In the last issue of Invincible Presents: Atom Eve, just behind her picture frame is a chibi Atomic Robo figurine.
• The second issue features the Twin Pines Mall.
• Darkwing's hometurf Midnight City turned into a crime-ridden hellhole after a magical disaster forced most of its inhabitants and law enforcement out. Cecil even refers to it as a no man's land.
• In Volume 7 Invincible faces off with a villain with the power to open portals to other dimensions. At one point when flying through a portal he crashes into a man in a trench coat with four mechanical arms coming out of his back, and the portal obscures a person wearing a red glove with a web design on it. This actually ends up tying into Marvel Team-Up Volume 3 #11 (also written by Kirkman) which features Invincible as a guest character teaming up with Spider-Man to fight Doctor Octopus during the events of Volume 7 in his own book.
• In issue 44 a student at Upstate University is wearing a shirt with Francis on it, complete with his "hi-technicaaal" catchphrase.
• One of the alternate Invincibles wears a hood that Ryan Ottley has explicitly noted to be a reference to the WildC.A.T.s (WildStorm) character Grifter.
• Issue 97 has a panel with a woman cosplaying as Michonne leading around a "zombie" at a comic convention.
• One of the places visited by Angstrom Levy is a dimension where a virus killed all the Y chromosomes; i.e. the same ordeal Yorick survived in Y: The Last Man.
• Issue 127: An alien refers to Eve as his glip glop.
• Mark’s college friend Rick Sheridan is named after the human host of the Marvel Comics character Sleepwalker. Rick even has a reputation for sleeping in for long periods of time, similar to the Marvel Rick who must fall asleep to allow Sleepwalker to enter the waking world. In addition, his roommate Chris Powell is named after the civilian identity of Darkhawk, another Marvel superhero who Kirkman would frequently sneak into his stories when writing for Marvel.

• He could be the most powerful non-Viltrumite on Earth and he would still look like a Small Name, Big Ego, considering that the protagonist is a Viltrumite.
• You know it's bad when even the non-flying brick heroes start kicking his ass.
• Although a lot of his 'egotism' stems from the fact that the Immortal is, well, immortal, and has Who Wants to Live Forever? and the other negative immortality tropes in full play.

• Doubling down on the Elephant, it is later revealed the white man in the costume is a black man magically transformed by the amulet that gave him his powers. So he's a white elephant, fitting as he just keeps turning up. Although this is revealed moments before he IS gotten rid of at long last.

• Doesn't have super-hearing, at least. His father regularly reacts to threats further away than Mark can notice, although that might just be Cecil giving him heads-ups, and Mark tends to be the first to see things when flying.

• In issue 15, when Invincible went through an Atlantean force field that kept the water back in the visitors' area, he noticed that it's just like "in that crappy Star Wars flick".
• Issue 80 contains an obvious Take That! at the DC reboot. Mark goes to his local comic shop to catch up after returning from space and is surprised to see so many books have been relaunched. The clerk derisively snarls that "these companies have no integrity." Also made fun of is Kirkman's own difficulty meeting deadlines.
• When the Guardians of the Globe are called together in issue 7, most of them are in the middle of something, or just finishing up taking down a villain, so the call comes across as a bit of an annoyance. But Aquarius, the Aquaman expy, is asleep on his throne and his reaction is, "Finally, some action!"

• Allen the Alien. Literally. After a near-death beating at the hands of Viltrumites, his body reboots stronger than ever, to the point where he is one of the most powerful characters in the series, able to get the better of even Omni Man.
• Mark himself, who becomes stronger as he ages and uses his powers. In just a few years he's reached a point where he's almost as strong and fast as his dad, replacing the retired Omni-Man as the world's most powerful superhero. At the end of the series in the Final Battle, Mark defeats Thragg, who quite easily defeated Nolan and every other Viltrumite that tried, making Mark the most powerful Viltrumite and the most powerful surviving being in the universe. Cemented by Mark taking Nolan's place as Emperor of Viltrum, and ruling for 500 years, presumably mastering his power even further.

• Terra was shown to throw up a few times when she was a baby (right on her father when he was holding her)
• Omni-Man threw up when Green Ghost passed through him during the what-if scenario shown to Mark by the alien glowing spaghetti plant

• The issue is raised multiple times, mostly by Nolan - especially considering that aside from Conquest, Thaedus, and Thragg, he could well be one of the oldest characters in the series. Viltrumites live so long that even romantic links with other Viltrumites dissolve over time, and to love a "lesser" species initially seemed unthinkable to him.
• To a lesser extent, the Immortal. An alternate future version is shown to have drifted into madness after outliving all of his friends and loved ones.

• He is ABSOLUTELY keen on taking another shot at him in issue 106.

• Thragg ultimately weaponizes this, conquering Thraxa and setting up a breeding program via an enormous multi-generational harem of Thraxan women to build an army of Child Soldiers, as the hybrids come to term incredibly quickly and then reach the age of power manifestation within weeks. It's noted that after five years, he has basically personally repopulated the entire Viltrumite race with Thraxan hybrids, despite having fought an ongoing war of attrition against the rest of the galaxy for those five years.

• Kursk, in the few instances he's seen speaking English. He appears to be learning, because his English has improved dramatically the second time he's heard to speak it, but his grammar and syntax are still very poor.
• Octoboss' English is probably worse, though; you often need to really use your imagination to understand what he's trying to say.

Octoboss: Advance, Squidmen! They am source of all Earth weapon and technology. We take control and have what they have! Then, apparently, us can arrive home!

Squidman: <Why do you insist on speaking to us in with their words when you don't know their language well?>

Octoboss: PRACTICE!

• Battle Beast's and later Space Racer's girlfriend Thresha speaks extremely similarly to Yoda.