Invincible’s Atom Eve Unlocks Her Greatest Power Yet

These last two seasons of Invincible have seriously been lacking when it comes to developing one of its lead characters: Samantha Eve Wilkins, a.k.a. Atom Eve. Despite the occasional skirmish or battle, she hasn’t had a chance to build on the Atom Eve Special released earlier in 2023. That was, until the finale episode of Season 3. Not only did she reawaken a long-lost ability, it also showed Eve going toe to toe with one of the most powerful beings in the universe.

The Invincible – Presenting Atom Eve special was a surprise early episode drop in 2023. It delved further into Eve’s backstory, revealing that Dr. Brandyworth was the scientist responsible for Eve’s ability to manipulate matter. He tampered with amniotic fluid inside the womb of Eve’s mother, Polly, to induce a mutation. Unfortunately, her story spirals into tragedy from that point onward. Polly supposedly dies in childbirth after her body surges with atomic energy and Eve is gifted to grieving foster parents; one of whom eventually comes to scorn her powers. The young superhero spends the rest of the episode discovering the horrid truth that Polly is still alive, but essentially comatose due to irreversible brain damage. Polly’s catatonic body was used to create Eve’s siblings, all of whom have heartless numbered code names: 2, 3, 4, and 5. They all despise Samantha because their powers never managed to match the success of Brandyworth’s first experiment. Her siblings, Polly and Dr. Brandyworth all die by the end of the special and Eve is left cripplingly alone.

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Invincible: Atom Eve Ending Explained

The new Invincible special, Atom Eve, has finally dropped on Prime Video, and its ending may have serious consequences for Season 2.

Invincible’s last Eve-centric episode left viewers with a lingering piece of unresolved lore. Dr. Brandyworth placed mental blocks on her during Eve’s conception that ensured her abilities wouldn’t interfere with the molecular structure of sentient beings. However, Cooper Hood of Screen Rant details how, in the Atom Eve special, fans learned that trauma or extreme cases of bodily harm can unlock Eve’s greatest power and bypass her blocks.

Eve watches the head of her experimentation program, Erickson, murder Polly with a stray bullet and gun Brandyworth down. Suddenly, the mental block is overridden, and she uses her amplified powers to erase the memories of all those involved with her experiment. In the recent finale of Invincible Season 3, Eve’s ultimate power returned, and she was able to heal her dying, eviscerated body. It was a great moment for a fascinating character. It’s just a shame it took two whole seasons for another progression in her story arc to occur.

Atom Eve’s Story Has Been On Hold

How much has Eve progressed as a character since the Atom Eve Special? Her story has continued to develop in minor ways in the background. The young aspiring philanthropist sought to use her powers to stop global disasters, then fell into construction work, and is now enrolled at Upstate University to learn structural engineering. Her family drama has milled along, with her leaving home, only to have recently moved back to her parents to reconcile their differences. But nothing has come close to the single hour of action-packed growth she received in the 2023 Atom Eve Special.

In fact, most of her relevance to the Invincible narrative is her ever-growing importance as Mark’s love interest. Now, yes, admittedly, Mark Grayson is the main character of the comics and it is his story. However, the special set fans’ hopes high for Eve’s overarching journey, and slowly watching her be relegated to the role of Mark’s new crush is slightly disappointing. Eve’s biggest character twist in Season 2, takes place in Episode 8, “I Thought You Were Stronger”. Mark comes across an older Samatha from an alternate universe who confesses to the younger Invincible:

“I love you, Mark. I have for a very long time and when you disappeared I was devastated.“

This spurred Mark to ask out Eve in Season 3, and while she has been holding her own in fights all season, a significant chunk of her onscreen time was dedicated to giving Mark rooftop counseling sessions at the Grayson residence. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a good romance storyline. In fact, Mark and Eve are incredibly charming together. It just feels like a bit of a downgrade for Eve, who spent most of this season being a place for Mark to vent his frustrations. To be fair to the writers, they are adapting lore-heavy comics and the last two seasons have had to deal with a lot of moving parts: the aftermath of Chicago, Angstrom Levy, Viltrum’s ever-growing threat, Nolan’s regret, etc. Perhaps that’s why Eve was given her own special in the first place. The creators of the show literally couldn’t find a way to fit her backstory into their slate of episodes. It’s just a shame, as Eve arguably has some of the most interesting powers to explore, in terms of their societal benefit, the economic impact of creating infinite resources, and the ethical dilemmas of rearranging organics. All of those threats would be a nice change of pace to the physical, brutish power struggles of the Viltrumites.

Eve’s Gloves Came Off Against Conquest

Eve’s overarching plot line and significance to the narrative is finally back on track in Season 3’s finale, “I Thought You’d Never Shut Up”. This is the first time Eve has experienced her mental blockers being deactivated as an adult. Hopefully, this narrative thread won’t suddenly be dropped again. It would be wise for the writers to use this moment as momentum to carry this character development forward into a fourth season, in which Eve can reckon more with her ability to control organics, giving her a brand-new, complex conflict to deal with.

Not only was she re-gifted the ability to mend herself, she also unleashed an atomic blast that burnt through Conquest’s skin, scorching it to a red, raw hue. This gave Invincible just enough time to get the upper hand and defeat his opponent. It demonstrates that at the height of her power, Eve is a serious threat to any Viltrumite, which places her on a very exclusive list of things that can actually harm or stun the god-like race of psychopaths. Even before her ultimate form was unleashed, suited and booted up, she managed to hold her own against one of the Viltrum Empire’s most sadistic and violent enforcers. Not a bad day of work for a superhero with little to no invulnerability.

Let’s hope going forward that Eve’s character continues to be relevant to resolving Earth’s ever-growing conflict with the Viltrum Empire, and that she’s not returned to simply being Mark’s love interest for large swathes of Invincible Season 4.

Invincible

Release Date

March 26, 2021

Network

Amazon Prime Video

Showrunner

Robert Kirkman, Simon Racioppa

Writers

Robert Kirkman

Franchise(s)

Invincible

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  Steven Yeun

  Mark Grayson / Invincible (voice)

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  Sandra Oh

  Debbie Grayson (voice)

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  J. K. Simmons

  Nolan Grayson / Omni-Man (voice)

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