Zombies Ruin Everything

The title character of The Best superhero comic book in the universe! was a tough one to figure out. The books themselves focus on so many characters in their 100-plus run and we see Mark Grayson go through a lot.

It also seemed crazy that in Invincible’s world of heroes, villains, crazy alien monsters and superfreaks galore that there would be such a thing as an ENTP character that wasn’t a mad scientist or something of that nature. But Mark starts out as just a regular guy and it seems that his way of reinventing things is by trying to keep his hyper complicated world a little more simple.

I don’t know what type writer/creator Robert Kirkman is but he’s had to have put a lot of his own personality into this character. He’s meant to be the everyman in a world where aliens are always attacking and Mark will often play the devil’s advocate when trying to figure out how to get the job done. His indecisiveness is also what gets him smacked around a lot when he’s trying to deal with a villain without flat-out killing them.

But once Mark develops his powers while taking the trash out and accidentally throwing the bag into the stratosphere, his entire world changes and everything takes off for him. And like an ENTP, due to the exciting possibilities his new life as a superhero holds is way more interesting to him than his fast food job and eventually college. Because he quits both of them.

While it’s not a problem for Mark because well, he’s Invincible, ENTPs do have a problem with following through in the areas of life that might take more focus and determination than the ENTP is willing to put forward once the “start-up” phase is over.

Anybody can have trouble finishing things, Perceiver types more so, but it’s the lead Ne users that really can’t make up their minds. This can explain why Mark has no problem taking orders from Cecil, who clearly knows how to use Mark’s powers to the best of his ability, only to be choking Cecil out when he (surprise) finds out he’s being manipulated by the government spook.

There really is so much to the character it’s easy to see a little bit of everybody’s good and bad side in the character. Not that he’s untypable or belongs in the “Can he be typed?” section, but there’s a lot to soak in. Mark likes the idea of keeping society safe as SJ superheroes do, he’s idealistic and sticks to his principles as NFs do, he’s in the moment as SPs are, and honestly, NT seems like the least likely fit until you get into the details of the story.

Details!

Upon first meeting Allen the Alien, they go their separate ways after talking about why Allen is attacking, much to Mark’s dad, who had been fighting Allen for years and never bothered to reason with him. This helps to take away the idea of the -STP types, whose Se is so prevalent, shooting first and asking questions later is their thing.

While I don’t want to pretend the functions are ever present in fiction, it is interesting that Mark seems to display inferior Si (Introverted Sensing) as ENTP and ENFP users do. While he has a strict “No killing” rule that he’s able to keep up with until Angstrom Levy drives him to extremes. And while he feels guilt over the murderous beatdown he deals out, it soon becomes harder and harder for Mark to deal with a villain that doesn’t involve taking their life. Being as powerful as he is (able to lift in excess of 400 tons) and recognizing the futility in keeping alive a psychotic genius that is telling you that you haven’t seen the last of him would make it easy to just flick a guy’s head off.

And this also shows Mark’s Thinking preference in going so far as to break Dinosaurus out of prison to help him in create a new world. He didn’t think that one through though, did he? If you notice something about Mark, it’s that he has a hard time making up his mind and works best in the moment. This is what seemed like Se at first but he’s he’s action oriented because of his powers and not by his initial motives.

Meaning, he’s not a natural athlete but a guy who is athletic, putting it lightly. But if he thinks for too long, the possibilities seem to pile up.

After emailing with a friend who sees Invincible as some sort of NF, I had to disagree when Mark’s supposed Feeler preferences showed themselves in Mark’s way of talking things through with the villains that let him. This would make enough sense in itself but Mark uses rational arguments for his stance, nothing that appeals to anyone’s good nature.Not to mention, it’s the Thinkers that have a harder time with the moral decisions as opposed to NFs, who can be too cold or too soft in areas that require objective thinking. Mark always hopes for the simplest situation where he can just punch something really hard because he knows how to solve those problems.

This isn’t to say that “NFs don’t use logic” because you’re logic is whatever it is to you, but that Mark’s way of talking to people is by valid points rather than speaking to the good in who he’s talking to.

Even when that person is a dinosaur.

I feel like I’m on Invincible overload right now. I have now read every single issue of Invincible and over sixty of them were in the span of three days. So yep, I’m a little burnt out on…words.

This entry was posted on 03/31/2015 at 11:31 am and is filed under MBTI Rationals, MBTI Stuff with tags comics, entp, Invincible, mbti in fiction, Robert Kirkman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.