The Viltrumite Empire appears frightening on the outside. They are conquering every planet they come across. One Viltrumite is enough to destroy an entire civilization. However, this Empire is laid bare in Episode 2 of Invincible Season 4, and what is revealed is startling. The Empire isn’t a juggernaut but a doomed generation of Viltrumites held together only through a sense of hope, peril, and a scientific disaster so earth-shattering it almost annihilated them.
That was a biological weapon. A virus designed to wipe out Viltrumites. And it was so effective that billions were wiped out. The species went from a galactic superpower to a surviving population of less than 50. And, subsequently, every action undertaken by the Viltrumite Empire, every invasion, every conquest, every spy sent off into the galaxy, has been for one reason: survival. And Earth was never just a target. It was a life raft.
The great purge: How the Viltrumites became the most dangerous race in the galaxy
Invincible Season 4 Episode 2 opening is set in the past. A young Nolan Grayson, who will later be known as the future Omni-Man, is teaching a bunch of Viltrumite youth how their race emerged. It isn’t a gentle tutorial; Nolan states how Viltrum was ruled by Emperor Argall. Viltrum was at its height during his rule. Suddenly, a rogue entity, known solely as “The Betrayer”, shot him. This brought a bloody purging, in which someone accused of being a burden was killed.
That’s Viltrumite philosophy in its purest form: only the powerful may survive. It was a brutal policy, but it worked according to their own rules. The purge eliminated all the weak, leaving behind an elite race of warriors.
On Viltrum, children are raised knowing that combat isn’t a game. It’s a matter of life and death. Nolan himself is ambushed by his own parents on his coming-of-age day. His mother tries to kill him. His father doesn’t stop her because that’s a source of shame on Viltrum. To be Viltrumite is to live with violence.
Invincible Season 4 Episode 2 – The Scourge Virus
Just when young Nolan reports for his first military assignment, things don’t go as planned. An unknown Meteor-like object had managed to get past Viltrum’s planetary defenses earlier. It had contained several small capsules, emitting a gas into the air. No one knows what it was at first. Then Vilprumites started dropping, as shown in Invincible Season 4 Episode 2.
It was quick and cruel. Troops in the barracks started bleeding from their eyes and their mouths. A general dropped dead mid-sentence. A week later, the planet was in the throes of a fatal epidemic. The virus swept through the bodies without mercy. There was no cure, no medicine. The Grand Regent quarantined the infected, and any outsiders who knew about the outbreak were eliminated, yet the damage was done.
By the time that the Scourge Virus finally ran its course, the number of dead was unfathomable. There is almost no way to comprehend the number of Viltrumites that had been exterminated. Billions of them, and no way to even bury or cremate the remains. Instead, they were flushed into space.
Because of the Viltrum’s gravity, they immediately went into orbit and formed a ring around the planet. The Rings of Viltrum are the remains of those who were killed. It’s quite possibly the most disturbing image of Invincible Season 4 Episode 2.
Among the survivors: Nolan, Conquest, Kregg, Anissa, and fewer than 50 others. Nolan’s mother died. His father died. The empire had been shattered from within.
Why was Omni-Man sent to Earth?
This is where Invincible Season 4 Episode 2 gives the biggest news. With very few survivors, they could not repopulate by just breeding within the group. Introducing a small number of outsiders was the only way to prevent a disaster of the worst genetic proportions.
Therefore, the Grand Regent changed the plan. While the old plan was a single mission of invading the worlds by sending the space-warriors, the new plan was to send troops to the planets with species that have the same compatibility. The mission was twofold: First was to determine if Viltrumites could reproduce with alien species; if they can, then use the planets as breeding grounds for the next generation of Viltrumites.
Nolan was one such agent. He was not sent to Earth simply to conquer it; he was sent here to determine whether a human and a Viltrumite could sire an offspring. The answer was a resounding yes, in the form of Mark Grayson, a.k.a. Invincible, who was born with his father’s extraordinary power. Mark’s existence proved that humans were genetically compatible.
The world was no longer an insignificant blue ball. It was one of the most important and valuable worlds in the universe.
This recontextualises every decision of Omni-Man in Invincible Season 1, too. Every time he slaughtered the Guardians of the Globe, it wasn’t due to blind devotion to the old way of the empire but because he was dutifully getting the Earth ready for a grander reason.
Invincible Season 4 is now streaming on Prime Video.
Edited by Sahiba Tahleel