Invincible Season 4 Premiere Post-Credits Scene Explained: What Happens To Conquest?

Spoilers for "Invincible" season 4, episodes 1-3 to follow.

Season 3 of "Invincible" ended with Mark Grayson's (Steven Yeun) toughest battle yet when the Viltrumite known as Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), one of the strongest villains in all of "Invincible," came to Earth. The season 3 finale, "I Thought You'd Never Shut Up," was almost completely an extended fight scene between Invincible and Conquest that ended with Mark pounding Conquest's head into pulp.

But the episode revealed Conquest wasn't truly dead. Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins), head of the Global Defense Agency, had recovered the barely-alive Conquest and intended to interrogate him about the Viltrum Empire. As a safeguard, Conquest was locked in a 400-ton block of steel alloy (with only his head exposed) and buried six miles underground, with an explosion set to go off if he tried to escape. 

Even with those precautions, though, it seemed like Cecil's plan would backfire. And it has! In the "Invincible" season 4 premiere, "Making the World a Better Place," the recovered Conquest wakes up. "The boy left me alive? How stupid," he mutters, unaware Mark very much intended to kill him.

Conquest breaks out with about as much effort as it might take you to throw off a weighted blanket. What sounds like an underground explosion can be heard, but if Cecil's tripwire got switched, it left no mark on Conquest. With no regard for modesty, the completely naked Conquest flies off, taking one last look at Earth from its upper atmosphere before flying out into space. Cecil, watching remotely, gives an appropriate response: "Sh*t." 

(The scene is a beat for beat adaptation of Conquest's escape in "Invincible" issue #68, by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley.)

Where does Conquest go rather than trying to, well, conquer Earth again? The next episode explains.

Conquest might be the oldest and most brutal of the Viltrumites, but he's only at most the second strongest of them. The most powerful Viltrumite, and the most dangerous man in the galaxy, is their emperor: Grand Regent Thragg, who finally makes his animated debut in "Invincible" season 4, episode 2, "I'll Give You The Grand Tour."

Voiced by Lee Pace, Thragg is heard at certain points throughout the episode, but he only makes his full debut in the post-credits scene. Conquest comes before Thragg, scared and supplicant, in the Grand Regent's throne room. Conquest apologizes for failing Thragg on Earth, and begs for a painful death as punishment. Thragg rises and, looming over the bowing Conquest, declares: "You have work to do yet."

This scene is adapted from "Invincible Returns," a special issue set between "Invincible" #70 and #71. The dialogue, though, is slightly different (for one, there's less of it). In the comic, Conquest is begging Thragg to spare his life, and has to convince the Regent he made a one-off mistake by underestimating Invincible. The TV show's change gives Conquest more dignity, and Thragg having less dialogue makes him more ominous. 

The scene uses a common writing tactic in battle show like "Invincible": make the new villain look extra terrifying by having the old villain be scared of or subservient to him. The episode mostly follows Nolan (J.K. Simmons) and Allen (Seth Rogen) assembling allies and weapons to fight the Viltrumites, so this post-credit scene underlines how hard it'll be to defeat Thragg.

"Invincible" season 4 episode 3, "I Gotta Get Some Air" moves away from Conquest and the Viltrumite War set-up to focus on Mark and his supporting cast's problems on Earth. One of them is that Mark's girlfriend, Atom Eve/Eve Wilkins (Gillian Jacobs), is losing her powers to rearrange atoms with pink energy constructs. Whenever she tries to make one of those energy constructs, it quickly collapses into goo.

Back in season 3, Eve almost died fighting Conquest, but it turns out her powers have a defense-mechanism: if she's on the brink of death, they kick in and rebuild her body to a healthy state. The episodes want to make the assumption that Eve's near-death experience might have messed up her powers, even if Rex/Robot (Ross Marquand) couldn't find anything off with her body. But then the post-credits scene of "I Gotta Get Some Air" suggests another cause.

The scene begins with Mark waking up in the middle of the night and noticing Eve is in the bathroom, but she slams the door ... because she's holding a positive pregnancy test. (This scene, like Conquest's escape, is taken from "Invincible" #68.)

Eve buries her head in her hands — an understandable reaction. As Cecil reminded the audience earlier in "I Gotta Get Some Air," Mark (and therefore Eve as well) isn't even old enough to legally drink yet. Plus, a baby can only complicate Mark and Eve's messed-up lives. Of the three post-credits scenes, this is the one that poses the most questions, because what does Eve do from here?

"Invincible" is streaming on Prime Video.