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Invincible Season 3: What Story Arc Is Too Horrific Even To Get Adapted In The Series? Mark Anissa Storyline Explained
Due to some subtle changes in the story in Season 2, it seems that Invincible Season 3 will be able to avoid Anissa’s horrific story arc from the comic books.
This article contains mentions of sexual assault. Viewer discretion is advised.
This article contains spoilers for the Invincible animated series and comics.
The second season of the popular animated series Invincible showed us some new enemies for Mark Grayson that he should be worried about. Not only was the hero unable to kill anybody, he started to question his own strength and whether he was powerful enough to stop the Viltrumites from invading the Earth after he went through so many challenges this year.
Things started to complicate even more when a Viltrumite warrior named Anissa came to Earth and beat up Mark. In the comic books, this marked the beginning of the most horrific and disturbing arc of the series and it involved Anissa and Mark. Thankfully, the series seems to want to avoid it.
Why was the Mark and Anissa storyline in the Invincible comics so disturbing?
In the comics, Anissa is initially a Viltrumite warrior convinced of the cause she is fighting for. She comes to Earth and beats Mark up and gives them a message from her superiors: he can either join them or he can die. However, it did not end there. Even though Anissa hated the men of the Earth, she knew that copulating with them would give birth to extremely strong children, much like Mark. 
That is why she decides to pick Mark, who is half-Viltrumite and half-human, and rapes him. She also kept toying with him later and teased him about it. But Mark was unable to say anything against her because he did not want to jeopardize their deal with the Global Defense Agency. He could not even process being a guy who was sexually assaulted and kept it hidden from Atom Eve and his father. However, he eventually tells them about it.
The storyline did not sit right with a lot of people, but it did add a level of poignancy to the story and also opened up the path to the birth of Marky, Mark and Anissa’s son. Later in the series, Anissa changes and marries a man from Earth after Mark leaves the planet. She would also come to care for Earth as a shared safe haven for both Viltrumites and humans. But she also hid Marky from Mark as she did not want her son to know how he was conceived.
When Mark comes back, she goes to meet with him but he refuses to talk to her. In the end, she dies after being severely wounded in the battle with Thragg’s children. She gets hurt trying to save Atom Eve and tells the latter to tell Mark that she is sorry, but she does not regret what she did to him as it led to Marky.
How is the series changing the story?
The Invincible animated series seems to want to do things a bit differently than the comics. From what we saw in season 2, even though Anissa is a powerful warrior and devoted to the cause of the Viltrumites, she does not look bloodthirsty or overtly violent.
Unlike in the comics, in the series, Anissa views the life of Mark as precious and basically begs him to join the cause of the Viltrumites. She does not want him to die but rather live with them on Earth. Even though she knows that the numbers of their kind are dwindling, she asks General Kregg for some time to convince Mark to convert to their side and does not seem keen on trying to force herself onto him to increase their numbers.
The Anissa in the series is much more compassionate and this seems to be done deliberately to avoid the grotesque storyline between her and Mark. If the series continues with the sexual assault storyline, it would feel forced and look like it’s being done for the shock value. In the comics, she started to atone for her actions pretty late and her redemption arc was cut short due to her death. In the series, she might start to become more compassionate towards the people of the planet and question the Viltrumite leadership which seems very keen on the extermination of the human race. In the end, the storyline could change completely if Anissa’s character is written differently and she can even become an ally and friend of Mark’s, who does not actually hate Viltrumite warriors. However, what the producers of the series decide to do with the character remains to be seen.
The spoilers provided here are not official and should be taken with caution. Fans are advised to wait for the official release of canonical content. Keep an eye on Pinkvilla for more anime and manga related updates.
ALSO READ: Invincible Season 3: Is It Happening? Here’s Everything We Know About the Next Part
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