Invincible: Atom Eve Review - A Welcome Surprise

Invincible: Atom Eve is an appetizer – an amuse-bouche, if you will – for the season 2 to come. It’s also quite good! This nearly hour-long special is both a perfect reintroduction to the world of Invincible and a satisfying deep dive into a character who hasn’t quite had her moment to shine in the TV series yet.

Eve’s lack of narrative attention thus far has been understandable as much of the excitement in Invincible season 1 surrounded lead character Mark Grayson a.k.a. Invincible (Steven Yeun) and his secretly evil Viltrumite father Nolan Grayson a.k.a. Omin-Man (J.K. Simmons). That’s bound to happen when the artists at Wind Sun Sky Entertainment lovingly animate a father holding his son’s face against a rushing train until it’s little more than bloody goo.

As fans of the comic know, however, Invincible is at times as much Samantha Eve Wilkins a.k.a. Atom Eve’s story as it is Mark’s. In fact, Atom Eve cosplays at Kirkman’s SDCC panel appeared to outnumber Invincible cosplays as though fans could anticipate the unexpected good news to come. Still, Invincible: Atom Eve contains as many surprises for Invincible die hards as it does neophytes. This mostly close-ended adventure adapts much of Eve’s backstory from the comics while updating even more for television.

Turns out that the young woman who would one day be known as Atom Eve (voiced by Gillian Jacobs in the main series but not here) began life as a cruel government experiment. Mad scientist Dr. Brandyworth (voiced by uber character actor Stephen Root) was charged by his federal superiors (including a character played by the dearly departed Lance Reddick in one of his final voice acting roles) with creating a human mega weapon. After getting to know the poor homeless woman who would undergo the dangerous superheroic pregnancy, Brandyworth came to love her and her unborn child. When Eve’s mother seemingly dies in childbirth, Brandyworth drops her off in an empty crib where another grieving family will raise her as their own. Unfortunately, Eve’s new parents are more of the Dursley variety than the Pharaoh’s daughter and she leads a sad, lonely childhood, constantly bullied for her intellect.

One of the best features of Prime Video’s Invincible adaptation thus far has been the show’s appreciation for the violent physics of superhero melees. Every punch thrown by Mark, Nolan, and their super-powered peers audibly crunches bones or leads to veritable fire hoses of blood. In addition to making things visually interesting it also just rings more true that a world inhabited by superheroes would be littered with broken teeth, snapped tendons, and shredded tissue. Invincible: Atom Eve continues the series’ respect for physics and even extends it to other scientific areas like chemistry.

Eve’s powers in season 1, which generally seemed to involve manipulating matter and creating Susan Storm-like energy shields, are expounded upon in bespoke detail here. We see how a young Eve (voiced by Aria Kane and then Jazlyn Ione) goes from being able to identify the very atoms around her to one day actually altering and wielding them. It’s all depicted logically enough that by the time Eve engages with in a climactic battle with her poorly fabricated mutant siblings, known as Phases 1, 2 and 3, viewers are able to keep up with all the action and in some cases anticipate Eve’s best moves before she executes them.

Danofgeek

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