#marky murphy

(CW: Spoilers from some of the last issues of the Invincible comic, and references to a SA plotline)

Hey there.

I unfortunately don't use this blog a lot, man. But today we've got a curious thing to speak about, 'cause this is really a case to study of how a fandom can collectively create some fanfic and turn it canon in their heads lmao.

Outside of jokes, this is a post about two characters who debut in the later part of the Invincible comic, the children of Mark: Terra Grayson and Markus 'Marky' Murphy.

These two are secondary characters in the part of the comic they appear in, but obviously get focus for being part of the Grayson family. If you ask me, I dig them both.

Terra is generally a fun character with her violent child antics, and it's thanks to her that we can get my favourite moments of the comic: Mark being a dad! ❤️

(Remember, child Terra loves violence)

Marky, on the other hand, unfortunately suffers from being related to a certain plotline of the comic, which I am not going to mention because everyone knows about it due to it being the most common spoiler. I want to speak a little bit more of that plotline another day, but since it's not the subject of this post I'll do a quick tldr: I generally find it very underdeveloped and I also think it's overhyped by the fandom due to morbidness, even though I understand why it's conceptually important for some people and respect their feelings.

But, apart from that, Marky is a character who had some good moments in the two final issues, and that has a lot of potential which I would like to see explored, if only in possible one-shots in the future or fanfics.

Now, since both Terra and Marky are characters from the final issues of the story, there are many random YouTube shorts and the likes spreading misconceptions about them (happens with everything related to the final issues, trust me). I consider it a real shame, since, as I have said, both characters are interesting to me, and I really would prefer the vision the fandom has of them to be as little tamed as possible. That's the reason why I have decided to make this post.

With that introduction done, let's go to the misconceptions:

'Terra hates Marky'

To explain to anyone who doesn't know the context: in the final issue of the series, after certain events end in Mark becoming the ruler of the (reformed) Viltrumites and deciding to leave Earth, Marky stays in the planet alongside his family for reasons I will explain later (it's related to other misconception). A particular consequence of this is that Terra and Marky grow up in different planets, although Mark and his family still visit Earth occasionally. During the final issue, Terra's whole life from childhood to adulthood is shown in two pages:

And since we don't see much of Terra and Marky's relationship afterwards (because unfortunately, even if I like them, they're just not much developed characters due to how rushed the final issues are), people have just assumed her opinion on Marky never changed.

I just don't think this is the story's intention: Terra is purposely being framed as immature (like any child) in many of these panels. Of course a heated child would be mean, but that doesn't mean they would do the same as a fully grown adult.

Now, I think something that fuels this misconception is the reader's point of view. We know that later in the story Marky is very emotionally affected due to discovering the way he was conceived, so knowing that, in retrospective, 'He's not my brother!' seems like a bigger deal than it actually is. But in-story, neither Terra nor Marky knew of that by that point. Hell, we see Marky's reaction to Terra's words: he's just mildly annoyed, because the comic just sees this as what it is, a children's discussion.

And here Marky is also mean to his other half-sister, Molly. Do we assume he hates her for all his life too?

Now, if I may guess about Terra's feelings about Marky as an adult. I just don't think they know each other that much. They have grown apart, in literally different planets. She isn't close to him, but I don't think she hates him. I think this is supported by the next time she meets him in the comic: she barely recognizes him and calls him by his full name, Markus. To me, this just expresses distance between them.

And Terra and Marky not feeling close to one another is just very logical when one thinks about it. They were both raised in different planets, by different families, of course they would be distant. Terra's 'He's not my brother!' is the mean child version of expressing that idea to the public, in my eyes, not the setup for a life-long hatred.

'Marky hates Terra'

This one has some truth to it, to be fair, but I still think some people ignore any and all nuance about it.

In the final issue of the comic, this (unfortunately not followed on) moment happens just after the prior page:

Where yes, Marky heavily implies he is jealous towards Terra. However, I feel people in the fandom generally fail to take into account that the moment lets very clear this is far from Marky's most emotionally stable moment. Hell, he's saying far worse things about himself than about Terra. And he's also clearly regretful about many things he's done and said right afterwards.

Marky does have some negative emotions towards Terra? Yes (although not even that strong, again, he's feeling worse about himself). Do they stay there when he's calm and cold-headed? It's up to us to decide, but given that the last panel tells us that Mark and Marky are going to deal with their trauma and heal with time, I would like to think Marky just abandoned them eventually in any case.

'Mark abandoned Marky on Earth'

I especially blame the comic itself for this one.

One could start thinking this is related to a delicate subject, and perhaps start a discussion about forced parenthood, reactions to trauma or something similar. I may like to talk about how the comic handles those issues one day (I think it has problems related to that), but don't worry, today it won't be necessary.

Remember when I said Marky stayed on Earth for plot reasons? Well, those reasons are that his adoptive (and real) father, Scott Murphy, wanted to stay on Earth when Mark decided that the Viltrumites should leave Earth:

Mark himself expresses that he wanted Marky and his family to come with him, but he had to respect Scott's decision or else he would be literally kidnapping them:

And by the way, if you wonder, at this point of the comic Mark isn't that uncomfortable being around Marky. He lets him play in his house in the page above. Before he was also perfectly fine personally explaining him everything about Viltrumites (Marky didn't know beforehand) and afterwards he takes his time to say goodbye to him and his family:

And look, Mark is a flawed character (and I love him for that), but if I have to defend him and say he did the right choice in something, is in this. He didn't abandon anyone, he allowed Marky to live with the man who raised him before Mark was even able to know Marky existed, the one who Marky himself rightfully calls his real dad.

Now, you may be wondering where Marky's abandonment issues come from then? Well, Mark started visiting Earth far less at one point. I think the implications of issue 144 are a simple 'he's very busy', although I would like to think things like the fact that Debbie, William and more people must have died by the point Mark and Marky fight has something to do with him not wanting to visit Earth anymore. We can assume that a Marky with self-esteem issues due to learning how he was born and with no context of why Mark left him on Earth would (wrongfully) assume it was his fault, especially taking into account that by that point in time Scott and Debbie must be dead. Again, I wish this was more developed than it is in the actual comic.

Unfortunately, the comic fails to remind anyone of all the facts I have mentioned in the pages after the Mark and Marky fight, so of course people just take Marky's words in those pages at face value despite them being contradicted in the very same issue 144.

'Terra is an spoiled brat'

This one's just curious to me. It may be because I have a particular definition of 'spoiled', I guess, but I just fail to see this.

Mark doesn't really 'spoil' Terra in my eyes, to be honest. And I am not saying this to deny the flaws of a character I like or anything, he's far from a perfect character and I love him that way, but I just genuinely don't see this.

Terra's childhood is a pretty regular first world childhood with loving parents to me. I don't see how Mark lacks any discipline or is irresponsible as a father. In the two pages I have shown that sum up Terra's life, we can see him doing basic parenthood stuff like denying her things she shouldn't have (those adorable lava puppies), telling her things she needs to do (him telling her to learn how to fight would be the equivalent of an irl parent telling their children to do their homework) or scolding her when she's being immature (when she's mean to Marky).

I don't know, if someone wants to give me reasons for this, I'll listen, because nothing I have heard about this really convinces me.

'Terra never suffered/faced any difficulty in her life'

Um. Objectively incorrect statement, I don't know what I can say about it lol.

Well, I lied. When discussing about this, I was told once 'But it was only this, though', because she was being compared to Marky, so trauma olympics I guess. I will elaborate more why this weird competition some people make up between Marky and Terra goes against the core themes of the comic at the end, but for now let's move on.

'Terra hates her father'

Alright, so at the end of the comic there's a certain conflict started by the Coalition Of Planets against Mark's Viltrum Empire:

And we later get to see Terra's reaction to it:

Which yes, feels like an underdeveloped (I know I am saying that a lot about events here, but it's just true lmao) father-daughter conflict, which I think is not very interesting due to how little it matters.

However, I can confidently say that people assuming Terra hates her father over this are just wrong. In fact, this conflict it's solved in the very next pages.

And even in Terra's page with Ursaal you can tell she feels bad for disagreeing with Mark due to her mannerisms and facial expressions, so this is just a little not much relevant part of the story blown out of proportion by some people lol.

It's even a little infuriating for me because, as I have mentioned, Mark relationship with Terra is one of my favourite things about the story, so I really dislike how YouTube Shorts and the likes spread misconceptions about it.

'Terra and Marky will compete to see who succeeds Mark as the ruler of the Viltrumites'

None of them seems even particularly interested in doing so from my point of view. Terra has issues with the way the Empire is going, shown by her page with Ursaal, and Marky spent his entire childhood light years away from them.

If you ask me, there may not even be a future ruler of the Viltrumites. Mark had to take the responsibility after his father's death because Nolan feared that without someone guiding them in the ways of compassion, they may fall in their old ways again. After Mark's rule, with a new generation of Viltrumites led in the right direction, they may not need a single ruler anymore.

But outside of personal readings, I have seen that people spreading this misconception usually prefer Marky to be the successor, which leads me to my final point.

Closing thoughts

The ending of the Invincible comic, with its many, many flaws, it's overall heartwarming and usually satisfying to me, but I think some people fail to see why.

It's not a happy ending because Mark has become stronger. It's not a happy ending because he's now a ruler. That's a responsibility, not a prize, and not even one he wanted to have before Nolan told him. It's a happy ending because he is trying to make things better, and because he's happy with his family despite all the difficulties he has faced.

And I point this out because it's important to understand why I am really annoyed by these misconceptions.

Some people have seen Marky, a clearly traumatized young man, and the answers they have for it is: give him something he can win. They want him to become the ruler of the Viltrumites, and may as well do it by winning an imaginary competition against his mean, spoiled half-sister who always had everything while he had nothing, never suffered a day of her life and is also ungrateful to everything her father does for her (I really hope I have showed why it's much more nuanced than that in this post).

Oh, my favourite ship!!!! Hetslop thrark🤤🙏

Clean Version: