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.
I don’t think they were holding back on them.
For one, the fact they sent THREE Viltrumites to Omni-man meant that he was enough of a threat that they believed someone like Lucan would need some backup to get him. Holding back on him would mean their deaths, and guess what happened in the show? He practically took down two of them himself and would’ve gotten Lucan as well if he wasn’t worried about Mark.
Secondly, I don’t think the three Viltrumites really cared if Mark died or not. Sure, they may be playing around with him, but be assured, they have no intentions of keeping him alive had they not been taken out by Omni-man previously. That’s their culture. The weak die and the strong survive. Mark living at the end of it was merely a coincidence and a convenience to the Viltrum Empire. It was never intentional. I mean, hell, they don’t even patch him up! They just left him on that rock all bloodied and beaten nearly to death!!