We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.

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The Show

‘Invincible’

The Scene

Why it’s great

With spooky season now upon us, and Halloween fast approaching, we’re getting plenty of monsters, ghouls, zombies, and ghosts in pop culture. But while we’re used to jumpscares, teeth, growling, snarling, and buckets of blood as helpless victims are torn apart this time of year in TV, movies, and games, rarely do we see what I like to call Ultimate Evil: Evil that isn’t funny, humorous, or jokey in any way, like Freddy Kruger, Ghostface, Chucky, Pennywise, or so many other monsters and villians. The type of evil I’m referring to is the kind that is focused on its goal and doesn’t tolerate anything in its way. If you try to stop it, it will destroy you without cracking a joke, tormenting you, or otherwise trying to terrify you. This kind of evil doesn’t care what you want or think, and can’t be threatened because it knows it can’t be beaten. As Cassian Andor said in ‘Andor,’ “Power doesn’t panic.”

One of the best scenes I’ve found that demonstrates this comes from the (extremely bloody) animated adaptation of ‘Invincible.’ Here, Nolan Grayson (AKA, Omni-Man, the most powerful superhuman on Earth, and one who has murdered untold millions of beings) confronts his son Mark’s best friend, William, to find out where Mark is. Their subsequent talk is nothing less than a hyper-focused predator starting at panicking prey: William realizes that Nolan could crush him into bloody pulp in an instant and that there’s nothing he could do about it. Worse still, Nolan’s patience is running thin, leaving William with only a few seconds to appease him. But not once does Nolan raise his voice or even threaten William; he doesn’t need to. All he has to do is glare at William, crush part of the car’s roof, and he gets what he wants.

This scene is, to me, the perfect representation of what facing evil would really be like: knowing that your adversary can destroy you (or worse) without any effort, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them, and the only way you get out of this is by using your wits and cunning… assuming you have enough sense of mind to do so.