Will Mark Grayson be on the receiving end of a third one-sided beatdown in Invincible, or is the veteran Viltrumite warrior Conquest fated to die at his hands?
The arrival of Conquest has been teased in Invincible since Ainssa warned Mark about him in Season 2 and how he "[would] demonstrate the error of [Mark's] ways." Since then, Mark has done everything he could to get stronger and make sure he doesn't die at the hands of this next Viltrumite visitor.
While Invincible has remained fairly faithful to the source material, the series has still made some big changes, such as the survival of Shrinking Rae. But it hasn't saved other characters like poor Rex Splode. Will Conquest's fate fare any better in this animated adaptation?
Fate of Invincible in Conquest's Hands
Mark Grayson has been grappling with the sanctity of life in this season of Invincible and whether there's moral justification in taking a life to prevent the loss of even more lives. The return of Angstrom Levy, someone Mark had thought he killed, put all of his moralizing to his brother Oliver into question.
After twisted reflections of himself laid waste to the Earth and Levy fled, Invincible couldn't help but blame himself for all the death and disaster they left behind. For Mark, Conquest's inconvenient arrival was a welcome excuse to vent his pent-up anger.
Sadly, it's a decision he will quickly regret, especially on a meta-level, with Conquest voiced by The Walking Dead's Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who famously bashed in Steven Yeun's head in that series. But at least in Invincible, Yeun's Mark Grayson has more of a fighting chance against Morgan's Conquest.
Warning - The rest of this article includes major spoilers for the Invincible comics and potential future events in the Invincible animated series.
Does Conquest Die in Invincible Comics?
For a frame of reference, the multiversal douplgangers of Mark Grayson laying siege to the Earth lasted only a single issue in the original Invincible comic. In comparison, the bloody brawl between Invincible and Conquest lasted three whole issues, from #62 to #64.
The arduous battle spanned the globe and almost ended with the death of Oliver and Atom Eve, the latter's near death giving Invincible the drive to finally find his strength and overpower Conquest.
In what will become hilariously ironic in the series, Invincible caves in Conquest's head with a flurry of headbutts, reducing it to a bloody pulp. The comic leads Mark and the reader to believe Conquest is dead, but Cecil makes the unwise decision to keep his survival a secret and attempts to imprison Conquest for questioning.
With his Viltrumite healing factor, Conquest fully recovers and easily escapes the GDA's pitiful excuse for a prison, reconvening with the rest of the Viltrumite Empire. Grand Regent Thragg of the Empire decided it was time to retaliate against the Coalition of Planets, with Conquest leading the charge.
Thragg also tasked Conquest to hunt down and eliminate Mark and anyone else who helped him prevent the Earth from joining the Empire. When Conquest hunted down Mark, who was with his father and brother, he left him for last to prolong his death.
However, when Conquest tried to kill Oliver, Mark was sent into a rage, getting an iron grip around the Viltrumite's throat. The two would tussle across a barren alien world, Mark unrelenting in his stranglehold even after Conquest disemboweled him.
Conquest is finally put down, for good, after being strangled to death by Mark. Nolan and Oliver manage to find him with Conquest's corpse, who is left in a coma as he recovers from his mortal wound.
It's unlikely that the series will make many changes to how Conquest will die. But it will likely try not to make Cecil and the GDA seem nearly as incompetent as they were in the comics.
The finale of Invincible Season 3 will stream on Amazon Prime Video on March 13.
