It’s okay to be selfish sometimes imho.

Particularly when someone you’ve never met and don’t know how honest they are is asking for weeks of your time away from family.

It’s funny though because back in S1, Nolan basically told Mark not to trust Titan because he’d get played and it was beneath him. Then there’s the whole “killing tons of humans today so a theoretically benevolent galactic empire can help in the future is a good thing actually” deal.

Like I love the deconstruction on what is and isn’t acceptable responsibility from the eyes of superbeings Invincible does. Comics tends to rarely address it frequently acting like they’re “always on the clock”. That’s certainly true for Batman, and Spider-Man acts like that’s the case a lot of the time (though he does have a personal life regardless of how much he messes it up).

Then there’s Superman who has a rich personal life, career, but can hear literally anyone call for help at anytime.

Mark is a short sighted teen.

Also I wouldn’t agree with that top line. He cares about his life a lot and that prevents him from always helping people 24/7. Like he was tempted to not go to Thraxa this episode for selfish reasons.

This is why the anonymity rules were good though, even though it’s not something you’d think about having a parallel in our world.

To me this is masterful writing of a conflict though as you totally understand and empathize with both sides.

Theo wanted to break the rules of anonymity. He established that it was a major fight that he and Alana had- that was a secret. So of course he tells Debbie the seemingly innocuous fact of his spouse’s identity (she’s dead anyway right?).

Of course Debbie, in an extremely emotionally vulnerable place, decides to tell him about Omniman due to guilt.

Of course he reacts the way he did. Even what he said isn’t really off base with how he feels in the moment (“it wouldn’t be a safe space with you there”).

His biggest scumbagy fuckup is right off the bat with inviting her to a bar after her first session. Alone. Debbie shouldn’t have gone but you understand why with the context of how lonely she is with Mark gone.

Probably because they both require an Amazon subscription