Both are deconstructions of the superhero genre, but Invincible takes that and molds it’s own take on what a superhero story should be like, while the Boys is more satirical and nihilistic. Both do what they need to thrive in a world of superhero fatigue, but have their own approaches to it.

Amber was pretty reasonable the entire first season, right up until she reveals she had known Mark was Invincible for weeks. She acts like it was completely unreasonable for him to try to keep a secret identity, and it also makes the whole fight after the Re-animan attack complete bullshit and manipulation on her part. It still doesn’t excuse Mark’s behavior as a boyfriend to her, and it doesn’t mean lying to her for several months of their relationship was ok, but it is definitely shitty on her part too.

Amber mellowing out after a) Mark stops lying to her and starts including her in his superhero life and b) Mark becomes traumatized after his fight with Nolan does make sense. It does start setting up the concept of their relationship getting strained by Mark being a superhero, which I think is nice. Now that their relationship is more honest and less combative, there is an opportunity to actually explore it as a relationship between someone who didn’t sign up to date a superhero, and a superhero who will never be able to put being a good boyfriend over saving lives.

I think it’s been pretty clear that the focus of this season will Mark pulling apart and then coming to terms with his morals. All of this stuff has been pretty much setting up the conflict between Mark and Cecil, both in terms of ideology and in terms of physically confronting Cecil’s efforts in creating counters against Viltrumites. Sure, felt like a lower stakes episode, and the whole Atlantis thing was mostly just a fun little sidequest that builds up to something relatively minor in the grand scheme of the story, but given where the story will be headed later, lower stakes and fun right now isn’t a problem