Multiverses are in every single place, from the Oscars to The Flash; they’ve outlined Rick and Morty for years, and naturally they’re all that’s left of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With the return of Invincible for its second season, one more superhero story has ventured into alternate realities — however this time round, the sequence is definitely doing it proper. After simply the primary episode of season 2, which premiered on Friday, Invincible is already utilizing its multiverse to show us new issues concerning the characters we already care about.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for Invincible season 2 episode 1.]

The opening of Invincible season 2 begins with a stunning show of Omni-Man and Invincible destroying a serious metropolis collectively and killing dozens of individuals as the brand new rulers of Earth. It’s fairly a shock after the season 1 finale, but it surely’s all shortly resolved when the present reveals that Angstrom Levy, a brand new character launched this season, is definitely an excellent genius who’s gathering all of the variations of himself from each universe to work collectively and save the world from the variations of Mark and Nolan that take over Earth.

Picture: Prime Video

Invincible’s writing is commonly intelligent, however its greatest moments say extra with what the characters pass over than what they really say. And it’s the identical right here, with the implication of Angstrom’s plan: The truth that nearly each different model of Mark joined his father and helped take over Earth implies that our Mark is additional particular, and that our Nolan is extra sophisticated too. They’re not simply one other pair of Marks and Nolans within the infinite universe; they’re totally different, particularly in a manner that we couldn’t actually learn about with out the multiverse coming into play.

This can be a fascinating departure for the sort of multiverse tales we’ve seen in different superhero arenas — particularly Marvel’s, which has left the whole franchise stretched too skinny. Films like Physician Unusual within the Multiverse of Insanity and exhibits like Loki are hyper-focused on displaying us totally different variations of the identical particular person, making an attempt to flesh each out and make them their very own character, all with out really justifying why any of them are particular or matter a lot (not to mention what makes our protagonist or antagonist distinctive). Assembly 4 totally different variations of Loki doesn’t make Tom Hiddleston’s extra particular, it simply dilutes him into a couple of noteworthy traits.

Like every other plot machine or storyline, multiverses could be tremendously sturdy supplemental materials, however they’ve to stay in service to the characters and the general story of the sequence. Multiverses get boring when the plot turns into concerning the universes themselves, somewhat than the individuals who inhabit them. And whereas it stays to be seen how the remainder of Invincible’s second season will go, the primary episode already looks like a extra promising model of the multiverse than something Marvel has placed on display screen lately.