REVIEW: ‘Invincible: Atom Eve’ Delivers A Traumatic Origin Story

The first season of Invincible served as an origin story for series lead Mark Grayson (Steve Yeun), as he discovered his superpowers, as well as the horrible truth about his father. With him throughout his earliest adventures was his friend, Samantha Wilkens (Aria Kane/Jazlyn Ione), a.k.a. Atom Eve. But how did Samantha come by her extraordinary powers? Invincible: Atom Eve, directed by Haylee Herrick and written by Robert Kirkman and Helen Leigh takes viewers on a journey to her past to learn how she got her powers, as well as her earliest battles.

Samantha’s journey, much like Mark’s, follows a familiar track to what many have come to expect of a superhero origin story, but with a few dark twists. Samantha’s powers are revealed to be the fruit of experiments done on her by the government while she was still in her mother’s womb. But when the lead researcher, Professor Brandyworth (Stephen Root), begins to fear for the future the soon-to-be super will have in the government lab, he resolves to save her from that grim fate. The escape quickly becomes a grisly affair that sees the lab in ruins, but Samantha slips from the government’s hands when she is given to Adam (Fred Tatasciore) and Betsy Wilkenson (Grey DeLilsle), under the guise of the child they thought they had lost in an unsuccessful labor.

These opening moments serve to encapsulate everything that Invincible: Atom Eve will explore through its roughly one-hour runtime. Pain follows Samantha throughout her early years as she struggles with what she is, and as she comes to learn why she can do the things she can. But there is always at least a sliver of hope as well.

After her initial escape, the story jumps ahead to when Samantha is 7. Always staring at random things and building strange objects with her legos, Samantha is seen as having some rather peculiar habits. Unbeknownst to those around her, these odd shapes are the atoms she can perceive in everything around her. Samantha seems strange to those around her, especially her parents. While many superhero origins are filled with loving parents who are ever-supportive of their unique children, once more, Invincible: Atom Eve takes a harsher approach to its hero’s tale. While Betsy at least seems to try to meet her daughter halfway with who she is, Adam is cruel, insulting the girl to her face and screaming about how he wishes she could just be normal. This cold treatment has an obvious impact on Smanatha as she collapses in on herself emotionally, feeling self-conscious about herself as she struggles to carry the weight of her parents’ abuse.

This isolation is only alleviated when Samantha befriends the girl across the street, Val (Madison Calderon). Despite having been told Smanatha is weird repeatedly by her parents, Val reaches out to the girl, accepting her anyways. The moments when these two young girls are hanging out together are the happiest Samantha’s life manages. Against the backdrop of her parents’ inabilities to accept their daughter for who she is and the physical dangers to come in the back half of the story, the simple act of hanging out feels like the most wonderful experience anyone could have.

The casualness and warmth of Samantha and Val’s hangout time is helped a ton by the animation and setting. The poses and body language exhibited by Samantha in these moments, as she hangs out with Val in her tree house, are a stark contrast to her positioning in other places. Rather than shrunken shoulders and down-turned eyes, Samantha is seen laying on a chair, legs going over the back, smiling with her head dangling off the seat. Combined with how much more life Ione gives the character’s voice in these moments, you would be hard-pressed to believe they are the same person.

These moments fade from view though, as Invincible: Atom Eve moves into the final phase of its narrative. When Samantha learns of her more active superpowers, she quickly starts exploring her gifts. Realizing just how powerful she might be, she soon decides to become a superhero.

Her earliest encounters deliver Samantha’s first attempts at heroism with a fair mixture of trial and error. Despite her incredible powers, she is still just a kid. These early battles aptly deliver the air of accomplishment for the character as she grows into her powers. As one would expect from this franchise, the action holds nothing back in depicting how brutal super-powered combat would be. Despite Samantha’s clear attempts to reign herself in, the hits still land hard, causing the viewer to flinch more than once.

But as Samantha adopts her superhero moniker of Atom Eve, her previously unknown past catches up with her. Drawn to her displays of power, those looking to protect her, as well as exploit her, soon arrive in her life. And the government intends to get its weapon back.

While the combat in Invincible: Atom Eve is brutal, nothing is harsher than the government agent in charge of the project, a man named Erickson (the late Lance Reddick). In every scene that Erickson appears, his cruelty towards those he sees simply as weapons to be used overpowers every other personality that appears with him. Reddick’s performance serves as the perfect villain beyond redemption — one the viewer has no problem utterly despising.

Erickson’s attempts to capture Samantha leads to her confrontation with the experiments that followed in the wake of her escape. What was created by Erickson and his scientists in the intervening years causes the viewer to be both incensed with rage towards Erickson, while also filling them with pain for the hell the subjects themselves have endured.

While these new experiments evoke pity in the viewer, Smanatha has little time to share in this tender emotion as they force her to push her powers beyond the limits that she has previously used them. The battle between them is an incredible series of well-thought-out moments, filled with incredible displays of power, amidst an ever-shifting set of circumstances that keep the battle unpredictable and tense.

While I won’t spoil how the film concludes after the mega-battle winds down, I will say that its closing moments highlight just how awesome Samantha’s powers truly are. The moment when she gets pushed too far and unleashes her full potential is simply phenomenal. Mark may have been the one to choose the name Invincible, but I’m fairly certain it comes far closer to describing Samantha.

Invincible: Atom Eve delivers action, trauma, and just enough uplifting moments to make it all feel meaningful. It cuts Samantha no breaks in its portrayal of both her physical and emotional pain, but in the end, that just helps to prove how super she truly is.

Invincible: Atom Eve is streaming now on Prime Video.