Thanks to Samsung for sponsoring this episode. Why did you make me do this? You're fighting so you can watch everyone around you die. Think, Mark! You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and blow away. What will you have after 500 years? Huh, it's not a bad question. Sounds like an episode of... Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that asks you to think, MatPat. Think! Today we're diving into the high-flying, superhero-splattering world of Invincible on Prime Video. Yeah, believe it or not, there's an actual show here. It's not just a big old meme. Guess what? That show? It is really darn good. It follows the young, up-and-coming superhero, Mark Grayson, as he learns to use his powers responsibly while also living up to the high expectations set by dear old dad, Nolan. Sounds like your classic superhero origin story, right? Wrong. You see, Daddy Dearest has himself a bit of a dark side. Even though he's the Earth's strongest hero, Omni-Man, underneath that friendly exterior, Nolan is not the benevolent, superhuman people think he is. You see, Nolan is a Viltrumite, a species of long-lived and incredibly powerful aliens that believe in survival of the fittest. They killed off millions of their own people until only the strongest survived. From there, they went on to form an empire that wants to take over the entire galaxy. In other words, Nolan came to Earth not to save humanity, but to conquer it, to subjugate it, preparing it for assimilation into his mustachioed alien empire. He starts this process by murdering the world's greatest heroes, the Guardians of the Globe, and by the end of the first season, his son Mark is the only thing capable of stopping him. And let's just say that that family intervention doesn't go so well. And this is where the meme we all know and love comes in. When Omni-Man finally takes a break from pummeling his son, he tries one last time to get Mark to understand his position. You're fighting so you can watch everyone around you die! Think, Mark! Everyone and everything you know will be gone! What will you have after 500 years? You see, Mark is half-human like his mom and half-Viltrumite like his dad. He will live longer than anyone he knows, long enough that his current relationships will feel like an insignificant blip in time. It's an interesting perspective that our weak, short-lived human brains can't really understand. So today, I want to try and understand. What exactly would living that long do to you? And more importantly, what would it do to your brain? If we fast forward a thousand years, after the life Mark currently knows has crumbled to dust multiple times over, will he develop the same mindset as Nolan? Is he fated to become a jaded, unempathetic superhuman? Season 2 has already given us a glimpse of countless worlds where Mark has turned to the dark side. People of Earth, the more you resist, the worse this gets. So, is it only a matter of time before Mark succumbs to the very same fate in this timeline? Keep your heads on straight, loyal theorists. It's time to answer this age-old, old-age question. Just to be clear before we jump in, we know that the universe of the Invincible TV show is separate from that of the comics, and some of the events that we reference from the comic canon might not happen in the same way as the show, if they even happen at all. We'll only be using comic stuff to build off of points coming from the show. This is Film Theory, after all. Cool? Cool. So, to kind of head this one off of the past, we should note that Omni-Man isn't a human. He's a Viltrumite. So, despite appearing human, his body isn't gonna act the exact same way. The older we get, the slower we age. You'll live for thousands of years. Same thing for Mark. Despite being half-human, Nolan says that his alien DNA is so potent that Mark is almost purely Viltrumite. Viltrumite DNA is so pure, you're nearly full-blooded. But because we here at Theorist HQ don't have ourselves access to papers and studies related to Viltrumite, brain chemistry, we're just gonna have to move forward in this episode assuming that they're gonna act in a way that's similar to humans. Let it be known, that's not me just making assumptions for the sake of an episode. Clearly, their DNA is compatible enough to produce children like Mark. You see, scientists define a species purely based on reproductive compatibility. Can two creatures mate successfully with each other to get viable, fertile offspring? If yes, then hey, they're the same species. If no, or if the offspring turns out to be infertile, then they're gonna be listed as different species. Now, I'm not gonna go so far as to say that the Viltrumites are humans. I'm not, but the official handbook actually will. You see, the official handbook of the Invincible Universe expressly calls out in their science and world-building section that Viltrumites at one point had human-like lifespans, and that somewhere, roughly one million years ago, they likely shared a common ancestor as evidenced by their human-like biology. So all of that, plus the existence of a half-human like Mark, and the fact that he's shown to have kids in the comics, proves that there's enough genetic similarity between these super-aliens and us lowly earthlings to draw at least some conclusions from human anatomy and our own natural development. So that said then, let's look at how old age tends to affect the brain. One thing that's pretty clear, Nolan, you ain't the most empathetic guy. I do love your mother, but she's more like a pet to me. Don't need the Am I the A-Hole subreddit to answer that one, friendo. But here's the thing, neuroscience tells us that as brains grow older, our capacity to feel empathy actively declines. You see, the brain is not some static, unchanging lump of grey matter. It actually evolves as we age. And, uh, sadly, it's not evolving for the better. Consider this, your brain has around a hundred billion neurons. The way we get smarter is for those neurons to form new connections or synapses with the others around it. Now, the younger you are, the more new synapses your brain's gonna form. A newborn baby brain forms synapses at a rate of over one million per second. In fact, a baby's brain overproduces synapses in those early days. As you get older, though, your brain learns that not all synapses are equally valuable. It goes back and it starts to focus on the ones that really matter the most, causing the important synapses to strengthen, and just outright pruning the connections that don't make sense to keep. The whole thing is like creating a fancy hedge sculpture within your skull. Bit by bit, the wild bush of your brain is getting trimmed down into a beautiful swan plant thing. Don't get too excited about that swan sculpture, though. Unlike the Viltrumite society, killing off the weaker synapses, it ain't making your brain stronger and stronger over time. It makes it efficient, sure, but it also makes it less flexible. Imagine for an instant that your brain is made out of plastic. The younger you are, the hotter that plastic is, so it's easier to change and mold. This is the concept of neuroplasticity, the idea that the brain can remain flexible and adaptive. As you age, though, that plastic brain starts to cool off and get hard. It becomes rigid. As a wise musician once wrote, your brain gets smart, but your head gets dumb. The long and short of all of this is that over time, your brain's neuroplasticity gets weaker and weaker, and that has a direct effect on your capability of growing and changing. That's why older people have a hard time learning new languages, or understanding their grandkids' TikToks, or enjoying the finer artistic merits of Skibidi Toilet and figuring out how a cell phone works. When an older person seems set in their ways, well, that's partially because their brains are less able to process new information and implement neural change. And this holds true for relationships as well. Technically, we get worse at making friends as we age because our brains aren't flexible enough to accept new connections, both neurally and personally. Understanding the emotional needs of those around you, it's a lot of work for your brain. You have to have enough neural connections to handle that sort of mental load, hence why some elderly people tend to act less empathetic to the needs of others. And that is what I suspect that we're seeing with Omni-Man here. He's been caught in a perpetual grumpy old man phase for millennia. There's a dragon behind you! I'm on vacation. So, is it that simple? Is Mark fated to become just like his father because of how old his brain's gonna become? Well, Nolan's argument is that You'll outlast every fragile, insignificant being on this planet! You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and blow away! So, let's take Nolan at his word and see where that leads us. In my research, I couldn't find an exact age for Omni-Man, but we do know that he lasts for, quote, thousands of years. We also know, based on the official handbook, that Immortal, another superhero, is well over 3,000 years old. So, let's just go off of that number and estimate that Nolan is 3,000. The average human lifespan right now in the U.S. is about 74 for males and 80 for females. Assuming Nolan and Debbie got married when she was 20, that would leave roughly 60 years for them to spend together. And while that might seem like a lot from our perspective, let's look at it from Omni-Man's. That six-decade span would literally constitute a measly 2% of his total life. But what's that really mean? Well, to understand that, let's translate it into equivalent terms for a human. Converting that 2% to a typical human lifespan, that would be the equivalent of spending 1.6 years of your life with someone. That is ten times less than the lifespan of a dog or a cat. You know Goldfish? That stereotypical pet that dies and gets flushed down the toilet? Even they live at least ten years on average. Even a hamster, with its two-year average lifespan, would have itself more substantial time commitment. And again, not to say that Omni-Man has a point, but he does kind of have a point when he says, I do love your mother, but she's more like a pet to me. That's not him being cruel, that's him being generous from his perspective. And you're telling me that in 3,000 years, he's only had himself the one kid? No wonder he's grumpy and depressed. His greatest superpower is celibacy. No, no, no, wait, never mind. His greatest superpower is that. Definitely that. And let me tell you, loyal theorists, I almost felt every single hit from Omni-Man in that brutal scene, thanks to the sponsor for today's video, Samsung, and their brand-new 98-inch Q80C QLED 4K TV. When Samsung first approached us about doing this sponsorship and told us about this thing, gotta admit, I was a bit taken aback. I mean, 98-inch TV? That is massive. Would it even be able to fit through the front door? Legitimately, I was concerned that it might be a bit too big. You can have too much of a good thing, after all. But I gotta say, after getting one for ourselves, and then having it in the living room for the past week, it's actually a really solid fit. It takes up way less space than I initially thought. It's also surprisingly thin, with a super-slim design that's only like two inches deep. And you don't actually need as much room as you might think to get the most out of this picture. Look at this thing! It is a monster! It's actually got the largest and highest quality super-giant screen on the market right now. We've actually been watching The Boys recently for research on a future theory, and the show just looks incredible. This TV makes it feel like I am sitting in a movie theater in my own home. And this screen isn't just big. Samsung actually built in AI upscaling technology that makes everything look better and more crisp, and reduces noise at these large sizes. They actually call it the Super Size Picture Enhancer. There's also some crazy sci-fi-sounding technology mixed in there, like the Neural Quantum Processor, which makes everything look bright and crisp and detailed. I'm not sure how much of it is actually coming through on the camera, because we're filming screens within screens, but trust me, sitting here, standing here right now, it is crisp. And all of this is without even mentioning how good this thing sounds. I feel like at this point in my life, I have to read more television than I actually listen to, because you have to turn on closed captions for everything, because the speakers on so many TVs are just such low quality. But this guy right here has got Dolby Atmos speaker technology built into it, which adds a layer of depth to the sound. That way you can hear it coming from up, down, and sideways, and it is just so different from anything else. It also reminds me, Samsung has also built in their new, boom, Smart Hub, which puts everything that you want to watch or play right in the forefront. I don't want to have to spend a whole lot of extra time looking for something that I actually want to watch, when I could just show this guy, hey, I've got other things to do. I want to watch my show, not spend a lot of time looking for the show that I want to watch. So having a product in there that's like, hey, you're gonna watch this and you're gonna enjoy it, is just a game changer. All in all, I gotta say, I was skeptical when I first heard about this television, but now, after trying it out for the last week, I can't imagine my home without it. If you want to upgrade your TV game, check out Samsung's Q80C QLED 4K TV. If you're interested, go check out Samsung.com. Not gonna regret it. Thanks again to Samsung for sponsoring today's video, and with that, um, let me turn back into a PNG tuber, and dive back into my analysis of Invincible. So, just like we don't tend to mourn our goldfish very long after it's given its ceremonial flush, Omni-Man ain't gonna mourn his wife all that much in the greater context of his incredibly long life. Making matters worse, though, is repeated grief. Science has shown that the more frequently we experience something, the less sensitive we become to it. The first jump scare of a scary game? Huge reaction. Whoa, that was the biggest scare ever. The 50th jump scare of a game? Yeah, not so much. And honestly, it's the same thing with grief. Studies show that when you're exposed to death regularly, you become desensitized to it. Your brain starts to acclimate to the flood of neurotransmitters associated with the emotion. So if Omni-Man is truly living life on Earth, and seeing his loved ones wiped out every 80 years or so, in 3,000 years, he's gonna be seeing 40 generations of loved ones coming and going. For a human to experience that same thing, we'd have to see the passing of a generation every two years. Imagine not being callous and blase about it at that rate. So while Mark is busy coming to terms with the first wave of people he'll lose to his prolonged lifespan, dear old dad, he's been doing the same old song and dance for millennia. But it's not just old age, and neuroplasticity, and desensitization to grief and violence. It's also an issue of intelligence. Not only is Omni-Man outliving the people of Earth, he's also outlearning the people of Earth, with centuries of extra information at his fingertips. He knows cosmic truths that humans would never be able to fathom. And he's had literal thousand-year stretches to teach himself anything and everything he could possibly want. And again, research has shown that individuals with extremely high IQs tend to have themselves a hard time relating to the people around them as a result. So Omni-Man is that, but times a thousand. Literally. As he deals with more intelligence than any human has ever had or ever will. How could he possibly see humans as equals if he's talking about conquering foreign planets and we're all busy thinking about the latest season of Selling Sunsets? In short, Omni-Man is literally primed to be the exact person that we see in Invincible. He's a hyper-intelligent, god-like being surrounded by inferior life forms with significantly shorter lives and smaller brains. And worst of all, he's getting older, and his brain is becoming less and less flexible, ensuring he is forever stuck in his ways. Which then begs the question that we started this whole thing off with, is there any hope for Mark? Sure, right now he's holding his ground to protect the human race, but if we were to fast-forward 3,000 years for him, would Mark become just as cruel and heartless as his dear old dad? Well, believe it or not, but the answer actually comes down to another superhero on the roster. In the lore of the series, Viltrumites aren't the only long-lived characters. Case in point, the Immortal. If you couldn't tell by the name, the Immortal cannot die. Or, at least when he does die, it tends not to stick. He always comes back. The Immortal can heal from basically any wound, and he seems to never age. We see that the Immortal actually predates most of human civilization, gaining his powers back during the Bronze Age of 3300 BC before living out lifetimes as a medieval knight in 580. And even as President Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s. Yeah, that's a weird creative choice. Anyway, considering he's been alive this long, you would expect him to fall into the same sorts of issues that Nolan has, except the Immortal clearly isn't cruel or apathetic in the same way Nolan is. So, what's the difference here? What's the X-factor for the Immortal? And how is that gonna apply to Mark? It actually boils down to three things. The first is the way that the Immortal's powers seem to work. While Viltrumites like Mark and Nolan are long-lived and can heal from pretty bad injuries thanks to the smart atoms that are floating around in their bodies, they can't come back from fatal blows like the Immortal can. We see tons of Viltrumites dying both in the comics and in the show's flashbacks, but we see the Immortal come back from practically everything in a way that's much more akin to the classic healing factor that you see with other comic book superheroes. That means that he's constantly replenishing all the various subsets of cells within his body, which would include the neurons in his brain. Unlike a typical human or Viltrumite brain, where neurons tend to hit a wall before the numbers slowly decline, the Immortal's brain is constantly being replenished, meaning that it's always staying that nice, hot, moldable plastic. Like a youngster, the Immortal would be able to quickly adapt to changing circumstances, also explaining how he's able to master the hundreds of languages and cultures that he's lived through during his extended lifespan. This one, sadly, doesn't really apply to our Mark example, but it had to be called out because it is a significant factor in his success. The second factor that sets the Immortal apart from Nolan is his relationships. In the character handbook, it clearly states that the Immortal's relationships with other heroes has given him a renewed passion for life and established closer connections with friendships and teammates. He's in partnership with Dupli-Kate. He's leader of the Guardians of the Globe. The Immortal has a sincere kinship with the people around him, despite his incredibly advanced age, and this adheres to what we read about in real-life science. Studies into the factors that give people a greater sense of empathy deeper into their lives show time and time again that social interaction is key. Spending time with friends, building and maintaining social connections, they are some of the best things that you can do for your brain's health. It exercises that brain's empathy muscle. But if those muscles aren't worked out, well, they start to atrophy and die. Case in point, Omni-Man, a loner who never truly buys into the whole team dynamic of the Guardians. He is sent by the Viltrumites to Earth, a forgotten foreign planet, and he's stationed there alone. He's a sole soldier waiting for the right time to strike. He is isolated completely on a planet full of aliens. Even his cover job as an author emphasizes this loneliness. He's not going into the office alongside a bunch of other co-workers, he's at home alone writing books. Every element of his existence has primed him to lack empathy. So Mark, spending time with William, Eve, and Amber, other superheroes like the Teen Team, that is the sort of thing that's gonna keep him grounded. Those relationships would presumably help him stay firmly rooted on the side of good and not join the evil space mustache empire years later. He is starting off with a good, solid foundation of empathy as a kid, which segues nicely into important point number three, the most important thing that the Immortal and Mark share, being born on Earth. The peak time for children to learn empathy is before the age of nine, and they learn it by watching others. As babies, we can feel and respond to the emotions of our caregivers. As toddlers, we learn more about how others feel, and we might try to comfort them when they're upset. As we grow older, especially in preschool and early school years, we get better at understanding different emotions, and realizing that people might see things differently than our perspective. By middle childhood, we become even more skilled at understanding others' feelings and needs. It keeps developing as we grow up, but our foundational understanding of it has to happen in these early childhood years. The Immortal? He was born a human. He grew up with the social customs and teachings of a human race where empathy is an important part of survival. Mark? Same story. He has a compassionate human mother and a dad that, you know, well, not naturally feeling himself, at least pretended to be for the sake of appearing normal to the outside world. As such, Mark, he shouldn't be stunted in his empathetic education as he grows older. By contrast, Nolan grew up on Viltrum, where whole swaths of the population were wiped out for being seen as too weak. As a result, he never truly received that early childhood exposure to the concept of compassion and empathy. Ironically enough, a man who has the lifespan long enough to learn about anything can't truly embrace this one essential lesson because he missed it as a kid. That said, clearly Nolan's not without hope. In a flashback to Mark's childhood, Debbie explains that as people grow older, they forget to experience the joy and excitement of the world around them. But that children can be the vehicle for adults to remember all that. A way for them to feel empathy again and to see that life can truly be fulfilling and interesting. And the thing that finally breaks Omni-Man? Mark's answer to the very question that started us down this rabbit hole in the first place. What will you have after 500 years? You, Dad. I'd still have you. It's Nolan's love for his son Mark over his sense of duty to the Empire. This shred of empathy and compassion that finally breaks through. That's what's so beautiful about this answer. Mark being the thing that grounds his father, that makes him have a change of heart, it isn't just a powerful piece of Invincible's thematic storytelling, this is a real scientifically backed phenomenon. One that shows us that we're never too old to learn, to feel, to help others. That right there, that is the true superpower. An emotional strength that can truly make you invincible. Unless, you know, someone actually attacks you with a weapon, in which case, no, you're not. You're just done. But, hey, that's just a theory. A... And cut.
