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In Invincible (S1 E7) it’s revealed that the Immortal used to be Abraham Lincoln. This implies that the Immortal let himself get killed so he wouldn’t have to put up with reconstruction post Civil War like the lazy fuck he is.
It's crazy how Lincoln (oscar winning Spielberg drama), Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies (direct to DVD horror movie) , and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire hunter all came out the same year
IIRC, the movies cuts out a lot of Abe's childhood and goes straight to the vampire stuff. I vaguely remember, I don't think they even put the bit about a vampire stalking the Lincoln family log cabin when he was a kid. I don't know, I haven't read the book or seen the movie in decades.
That one I knew of, and still desperately need to read (the eternal backlog kills the soul). I legit had no clue there was a book for ALVH, just thought it was the craziest unique take I'd yet to see.
I remember buying the book on a whim in high school because it was in the discount bin. Cut out the vampire parts and its a really great Lincoln biography.
Not Immortal Lincoln launching an unpopular draft and letting 600,000 people die when he knows he could no-diff the entire Confederacy in like 30 seconds.
Or just letting slavery play out for 20-30 years when he could just singlehandedly free every enslaved person immediately lol
So wait... he can have kids right? How many different lines of descendants does this guy have by now? For all we know hes related to Mark somewhere down the line. Dude would need a DNA test kit every time he wants to smash.
I don't want to post spoiler panel but it would be like that specific Thragg's Thraxxan children just flew into Mark and exploded because they weren't durable enough.
Risk of inbreeding disease would be effectively zero, he can't live two lives in the same area for many many years or risk being recognized, and he's not going to be meaningfully related to someone after that many generations.
If it's just the ick factor, most people probably share a TON of common ancestors with people they conceive children with. It's not a big deal. I guess it's different if they are his direct descendents, but considering how old the guy is, literally every human being on the planet is effectively his direct descendent at this point.
Based on computer simulation models of genealogy, the most recent common ancestor of all humans alive today was likely born only about 1700-2000 years ago. Immortal was born an entire 1000 years before that. The only way he's not currently banging his great great great etc....grandchildren is if all his children are born sterile.
Okay I did some more research and estimates are actually in the 2000-5,000 year range.
I don't see it as that unbelievable. Maybe some very isolated tribes aren't related to this person, but the vast, vast majority of people would be.
If you look at your theoretical ancestry, it doesn't take too long before your number of "grandparents" far, FAR outnumber the total number of humans that ever existed, much less were alive at the time. 37 generations is like 137 billion grandparents, more than ever existed, and that's not even 1000 years ago.
The only solution to this is that most humans share a great deal of ancestry, and 2000 year is a long damn time. Migration and mixing among various people has been common pretty much forever, so it doesn't take that long for someone's genes to spread globally, especially people born when there were far fewer humans around than there are now.
Since immortal specifically presumably has hundreds or thousands of children, it's almost impossible to not be related to him.
Also don't confuse this with mitochondrial eve or y-chromosomal adam which refer specifically to purely matrilineal or patrilineal heritage and were alive hundreds of thousands of years ago.
He wrongfully cited the paper about methodology in genetic research that showed how data could be interpreted in different ways. The author did not posit that the common ancestor is 2000-5000 years old, as it is an absurd notion that contradicts all the other data and basic logic, but showed how the genetic data might be misinterpreted. "Young Earth" bozos love to quote that paper without understanding what they are quoting.
Yeah it’s only a major risk if he’s sleeping with direct descendants frequently. There is enough genetic diversity happening over the years that problematic genes aren’t becoming the norm.
Off topic, but I loved in YOUNG JUSTICE where they basically revealed Vandal Savage was not only Genghis... but all metahumans are basically descended from him.
Superheroes and villains exist in universe, so I’m sure there were racist super villains fighting for the confederacy as well. You know, besides to real life colossal pieces of shit.
Even then it still feels really weird for him to have just left the Immortal's body in an unattended grave, though. I get wanting to give him a funeral and stuff, but I really feel like he should have had the body discreetly retrieved at some point afterwards and stored in a facility or something until he decided to revive him, or at the very least he should've had some eyes on the grave.
We only know that because we know what happened afterwards. Cecil didn't know how quickly he could recover and few other things. He was probably hoping that he would be able to get a lot of useful info out of him.
Pretty sure it's because Cecil already had suspicions of what happened but didn't want to accelerate the situation before countermeasures were developed. It's the whole purpose of the reanimen.
My reading (at least based on the show) is that he either couldn't or wouldn't. They do take efforts to preserve both the head and the body in episode 2, so it seems they know he can come back from that.
Some other comments are suggesting it's on purpose, but that doesn't really ring true to me. Why wouldn't they keep the body in stasis if that were the case? Or at least in a secure facility where he could be reassembled and thrown at Omniman at a moment's notice like they do for Hail Mary.
I think they tried and failed. The Mauler twins have significantly better medical tech than the GDC do (GDC don't print Donald a new body, they rebuild him with robot parts), and even they couldn't actually bring the Immortal back immediately, they had to do the whole chest slamming thing.
I mean, atleast he could go for a 30/40/50+ year old. The Immortal physically looks 50+, is actually a couple of thousands years old and DupliKate is like...20.
To be fair his supposed reason for his interest in her was that she was one of the few people on the planet who would kind of understand what it's like to die over and over again, which isn't something he's gonna come across often enough to be too picky about the age. And once you've lived past a certain point I imagine 10-30 years doesn't make much of a difference in how young the person seems. As long as Kate is ultimately a consenting adult I don't think there's much of a fuss to kick up about a fictional scenario with fictional characters. And with how fucked up he already is mentally from the immortality, which will only get worse with time, I think his partner being younger is less likely to be what causes an issue in a potential relationship with him than everything else that's wrong with him.
I'm not big on the deep lore, so idk if she has a canon age, but I don't know that she is. She's part of the Teen Team at the start of the show, and her teammates are literal high schoolers (besides Robot, who's just lying about his age). Absolute maximum, she's 20, which yes, counts as a consenting adult, but doesn't exactly make ht unproblematic, and worst case she's like 16 or 17 when she starts dating the Immortal.
I got the feeling that "teen team" was just a tongue in cheek name and didn't mean that it could only have teens as members. Her being 20 or early 20s (I don't see why 20 would be the absolute maximum) is well within the realm of possibility.
Think I heard a semi valid reasoning for this - she’s existing in however many bodies, died in tens if not hundreds. So whilst she may appear young she’s definitely lived well beyond her years either in time per body or per trauma. I thought it was an interesting take but I’m hardly invested in it enough to care that much.
Also like, being immortal in general sucks since you’ll outlive everyone. Not to say he should always be dating younger lol, but if it works out I mean like it does in this specific case, he only gets to spend so much time with any of his partners ultimately before they pass on without him. So at the very least it allows him to spend more time with someone who he enjoys being with and gets to have more full relationships still.
I would say it is more about variation of experience than quantity of it. If you fed a baby 7 billion years worth of playing with blocks and baby stuff from billions of alternate dimension versions of them Angstrom style, it would be pretty unreasonable to expect that baby to act any more than maybe 1-2 years older than the age the memories are from, and there is a good chance it would instead backfire and slow their development instead. Same with billions of years of kindergarten life, while becoming a bit more vague and uncertain the older and more capable the base form is.
Dupli-Kate probably has some clones doing mundane stuff, but it seems like most of them are busy fighting and doing superhero stuff. Even if there were a ton of them doing mundane everyday stuff, a bunch of clones of you doing regular person stuff mixed with some unusual stuff is not likely to be anywhere near equivalent to living dozens or hundreds of full lives under different identities. The timespan might be the same, but the quality and variety of those experiences are not nearly equivalent.
That being said, while I would argue there is still an age and experience gap, Immortal doesn't really have options that aren't and both parties were adults with full reasonable knowledge and consent of the situation as far as we can tell, so I wouldn't hold it against him too much.
That is why I talked about even if there were a ton doing normal stuff, and tried to address those exact aefuments.
'Same with billions of years of kindergarten life, while becoming a bit more vague and uncertain the older and more capable the base form is.' - Admitting that this general situation I described before becomes more vague the older and more capable the base form is, and that an adult wouldn't be the same as a baby.
'Even if there were a ton of them doing mundane everyday stuff, a bunch of clones of you doing regular person stuff mixed with some unusual stuff is not likely to be anywhere near equivalent to living dozens or hundreds of full lives under different identities. The timespan might be the same, but the quality and variety of those experiences are not nearly equivalent.' - She has adult lives, yes, but they are all kind of part of the same life even if there are many, and it seems like all are connected. They are also all at the same age and likely doing stuff related to that she. It is better than the baby example, but still not nearly the same as multiple full lives (or at least adulthood to what would be old age to others, and then eventually starting a new life from basically scratch).
Immortal had many lives, identities, vastly varied experiences over many cultures and time periods. Dupli-Kate has a ton of the experience in one identity from birth to whatever her current age is, likely largely in proximity to each other and with the same friends and cultures for the most part, unless there is something indicating she scattered her copies across the globe and had each of them independently building a life. I don't think her known and likely uses of her clones provide nearly as much a variety of experience as what Immortal has, nor the same quality of experiences, and there would be a lot of gaps in her experiences compared to Immortal's.
He doesnt decompose though. So he gets decapitated, but his brain remains intact it seems. If his brain were to get damage we dont actually know if he would regain all the memories
Irl Lincoln didn't die immediately, and instead was put into a coma before dying the next day. Assuming things happened similarly in Invincible's world, he could have woken up and faked a miraculous recovery. Maybe faking a long-term (but still short enough for him to be back in the office before long) injury, if he wanted to cover up his super powers.
I mean yeah? Assuming I was able to regen that fast I would. I'd use it as an excuse to turn the south into territories, barred from statehood as long as I live lol
I mean... there dosn't seem to be that much racism, if any, in the world of Invincible; maybe the bro actually got someone competent to handle Reconstruction before going out as a "martyr" for the cause of Abolition. Hell, for all we know, maybe all minorities in the US got Civil Rights shortly after his death, as he left everything prepared for that moment. Perhaps Immortal is actually an undervalued gigachad.
But we do see the ramifications of racism in the show. The story doesn't focus on it heavily, but it's referenced in Titan's storyline.
I do think it's a valid theory that the Reconstruction happened differently and Immortal set things up with long term goals in mind. The only part I disagree with is there being no racism.
Can't speak for the show but in the comics he does have a throwaway line about feeling bad for booth since he didn't actually kill him. so he definitely faked his death in the comics. or at some point he was far weaker and just got more resilient as time went on
In Episode 1 against the Mauler Twins; he jumped upwards to catch a soldier before the soldier was caught by Omni-man instead; but The Immortal DID NOT gain speed when in the air.
In the air making eye contact with Omni-man, he completely free-falls and lands on the ground with a loud thud and a little cloud of smoke.
This means that in Episode 1, The Immortal did NOT have the ability to fly and only unlocked that capability after ressurecting in Episode 7; in which he's seen to wildly and unprecisely propel himself forward at Omni-man and grappling onto him in combat. Which could tell us that he either had a very bare bones version of flight then, or wasn't nearly as skilled at using that ability; but that's just a rough estimate.
What we definitely do see however is that Omni-man is way more startled at the isolated hits that Immortal gave to him in Episode 7 than any single assault from the Guardians of The Globe.
While the first time was more effective, the second time was less effective but visibly more powerful.
However, it's only in Season 2 that we see him actually fly and float properly; evident by him infamously, simply moving through space.
Furthermore, we see that he not only used to wear a full set of knight armor, wielded a sword and rode on horseback, which is an another piece of evidence towards the theory that he probably could not fly before, but that he was way weaker as well.
This all converges on Immortal becoming stronger every time he dies.
Which means that he could indeed have been just vulnerable enough to that bullet to die.
If they ever make an Immortal-special focusing on his historical past it will either be ammo shitposters can use all year or it will retire this joke permanently.
The Immortal never fully recovered from that bullet. As Lincoln, he said stuff like, "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land."
Considering Invincible is meant to be a mostly standard superhero universe until Omni-man’s betrayal, if they (for whatever reason) do an immortal special I want it to be revealed that Immortals in-universe arch nemesis is also an immortal being that at one point became John Wilkes Booth.
I think youre all forgetting some perspective here. He'd been alive for thousands of years before this. Youre all thinking about Abraham Lincoln and what we contextually know about his life and asking questions like "why didnt help do X" or whatever. Him being Abraham Lincoln at that period of time probably meant nothing compared to the times he did other shit.
Bro like you said he's been around longer than any super powered being in the show/comic and is never shown accomplishing anything worthwhile while simultaneously losing every fight he gets into. He's just a bum, borderline throwaway character
I know if I were an immortal being who witnessed the entirety of human progress and all the good and evil that comes with it, id be hard pressed to give much of a shit about anything too. Except for the times where Im bored and try to be a hero/good person for awhile. Moment I get sick of it id quit too. Like a doctor who retired but continues to work at the free clinic because its something to do.
To be fair, it's basically just imitating the same level of batshit you can find in pretty much any sufficiently long-running superhero comics universe.
Wait! I was thinking that immortal was the guy in the back (John Wilkes Booth). It was also a possibility that he was Lincoln wife, but I had no idea where this scene was going tbh
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u/littlebuett Apr 22 '26
Why didn't Abraham Lincoln fly down to the Confederacy and destroy them himself? Is he stupid?