First of all, I wasn’t a huge fan of the fight. As someone who hasn’t read the comics and knows next to nothing about where the show will go, I still thought the fight was a lot less brutal than it could’ve been, especially after all the hype from Kirkman saying it would be bigger than anything in Season 1. I still enjoyed it, but it wasn’t a very fitting mid-season finale.
I fully reject the argument that the Viltrumites were made to “look weak” by the show-runners. The main argument seems to be that Mark took one of them out after being fucked up by other less powerful creatures before he was brought to Omni-Man, like the Atlantis Beast and the Maulers. They then say that he only started “winning” when Omni-Man told him to stop holding back and that he was “fighting like he was still on Earth”.
By this logic, we can assume that Mark holds back on Earth, since he doesn’t want to be a killer like his father. It’s only when Mark truly wishes to kill someone that he really feels capable of beating a Viltrumite, and he still fails at this. But the one thing I hear NO ONE talking about is that the Viltrumites were actually the ones holding back. They were very interested in keeping both Nolan and Mark alive: Nolan to bring back and imprison for questioning, and Mark to task him with preparing Earth for the Viltrumite invasion since they seemingly can’t expend any other forces. Nolan fucks his Viltrumite opponent up out of pure seethe and rage, not to mention that he is clearly a stronger Viltrumite than most and has probably done this countless times. Mark fucks his Viltrumite up because she clearly has less of an invested interest in killing him. She seems far more interested in the fact that Nolan had a son that harboured similarly strong powers despite not being from Viltrum. Their goal was probably never to kill both Invincible and Omni-Man, whereas they were fighting to kill both Viltrumites.
If you need any more convincing on the superiority and overall brutality of the Viltrumites, look no further than Ep3 where Allen gets annihilated. He’s established as a powerful character, and is clearly the Coalition’s current best chance at beating the Viltrumites, and he gets absolutely steamrolled. That scene was insanely effective in communicating the power of the Viltrum empire, as they can just stroll up to their enemy’s gates, demolish their only hope, and leave unharmed.
Response to this post in particular.
Yeah the last thing on my fucking mind when i saw them not even attempt to land but just crash head first into the planets surface was weak. Then they slaughtered a CIVILIZATION before the dust of their impact settled. I didnt think viltrumites were weak i was proud mark was tanking hits that would have obliterated him in season one
It’s easy to see who has read the comic and who hasn’t because the idea they “held back” doesn’t make any sense if you have knowledge of what happens later. Viltrumites don’t hold back lmao. They want to fight at 100% always and anything else completely goes against their established character. Nolan explicitly tells mark this when he says to “start fighting like a viltrumite” instead of pulling punches
He didn’t live because they spared him, they spared him because he didn’t die.