I have had so much going on recently that I nearly missed this Stand-Alone / sort of prequel coming out. Invincible: Atom Eve tells the origin of Atom Eve – Aka Samantha Eve Wilkins and for such a positive upbeat character this story gets surprisingly dark.

Spoiler Warning

The episode, just like the original first episode, kicks off with the Guardians of the Globe taking on a group of lizard theme villains (It was nice to see Tatiana Maslany as their leader). This really means absolutely nothing, but it does show us a young Black Samson, before he becomes powerless and teases us with his full potential, hopefully something we will see in season 2.

We quickly move away from this fight to see a Scientist and women fleeing from the scene, not only are they fleeing the villains but also the facility that was holding them. They get to a hospital where the women unfortunately dies in childbirth. Meanwhile the scientist fakes the baby’s death passing her onto another unknowing family, who lovingly name her Samantha Eve Wilkins. Our heroic scientist is arrested and taken away by a group of Government operatives meanwhile the Wilkins leave without knowing what they truly have.

The episode moves forward through a montage of Samantha growing up and we see her parents, who at this point still do not know she is not their biological child, struggling to relate to her. You can tell her mother loves her, but her father particularly seems unwilling to try and understand her. This leads her to quietly rebel, nothing outright. And I like this concept far too often we see superheroes who only became a hero because of an idealistic relationship they had with their parents. Here Samantha wants to be a hero because she wants to make the world better and has the power to do so.

We get to see some awkward moments of her using her powers and initial forays into being a superhero. The action looks amazing and just as with the first season I love the choice to draw it as a Saturday morning cartoon show but with actual violence in it. To me it somehow feels more real than something like the Snydercut, something that is so stylized that it does look real anymore.

Beyond the stylish fights we got a great cast with one final performance from Lance Reddick and having veteran character actor Stephen Root as Dr Brandyworth was brilliant. Mix that with an amazing soundtrack complete with:

And you have something that slots perfectly into the Invincible mythos. One final note it was nice to get a flash back to Omni-Man in his younger days. Here we can see that even in his early days he is torn between being Nolan Grayson and being the Viltrumite conqueror he was born to be. It was an such a tender and sweet moment and further highlights the differences between Atom Eve and Invincible. Differences that ultimately will let them work brilliantly as a team.