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| “ | It's me, Mark. It's just me. This isn't how I wanted to do this, but I don't have a choice. It's time for you to know where I really come from: I am from Viltrum, but it's not the planet I've told you about: We have created a perfect civilization, but it took all of our strength, determination, and courage to get there. In order for our people to reach their full potential, we had to remove the weak from our society. It was a long and difficult process. When it was over, our population was cut in half but what emerged from the ashes was unstoppable. By the time I was born, Viltrum was already the greatest empire in our galaxy. We decided to make it the only empire in our galaxy. Once I was old enough, I joined the war effort. It was hard, but I believe in our cause. Some species resisted, of course, but no one could withstand us for long. Soon, our empire encompassed thousands of planets, but as territory grew, our forces were stretched thin, and our expansion stopped. We needed a better, more efficient way to conquer worlds. Our most trusted officers were each given a planet to weaken by themselves. I was one of those lucky few. I couldn't tell your mother why I was here. But that time's come to an end, and now, we need to get Earth ready to join the Viltrum Empire. | „ |
| ~ Nolan to Mark, revealing the truth about Viltrum and his purpose on Earth. |
The Viltrum Empire are the main antagonists of the Image Comics comic series Invincible and its animated adaptation of the same name. They are also the overarching antagonists of its interquel comic series Invincible Universe: Battle Beast.
They are an empire of alien warriors and planetary conquerors who seek to expand their territory and take over the galaxy, if not the whole universe.
History[]
Comics[]
Omni-Man explaining the true origin and history of the Viltrumites to his son.
Originating from the planet Viltrum, the Viltrumites thrived as a society of darwinistic-like warriors and conquerors as they ruled their planet with an unbridled iron fist for centuries led by their emperor, Argall. However, amongst the population there was one Viltrumite by the name of Thaedus who begin to question if his race and society's values were truly perfect as he started to see the faults and evil within their warmongerings culture and cold logic. Determined to surmount his people before they could start a galaxy wide war campaign, Thaedus assassinated and murdered Argall. Thaedus fled the planet as he became the first rebel amongst his people and against their ways.
Thrown into utter disarray with the death of their ruler, the Viltrumites engaged in a vicious civil war against each other to kill off the “weak”. After at least a century, the population was cut in half but was made into an unbeatable race of merciless warriors led by the new grand regent Thragg, a Viltrumite who was trained in all manners of combat techniques and styles as he was bred to be the strongest amongst them and lead them since his birth. The Viltrumites later established the Viltrum Empire and turned their attention towards the universe as they start to conquer planet after planet. Seeing this, Thaedus formed the Coalition of Planets in order to stop his people from taking over the galaxy and to combat their tyrannical ways as they begin a centuries long proxy war.
The Scourge Virus[]
Desperate to stop his people as they continued to advance throughout the galaxy, Thaedus and the Coalition of Planets created a highly infectious bioweapon called the Scourge Virus. This virus infected almost the entirety of the Viltrumite population as it killed off 99.9% of the population with infection or as a result of the virus causing a Viltrumite's strength and invulnerability to become greatly diminished. However, the empire would survive this genocide but with a heavily reduced population consisting of a small pocket of Viltrumite adults surviving the virus.
TV Series[]
At the outset of the series, Mark, Debbie, and Nolan's associates at large are fed a false narrative by Nolan, who claims that the Viltrumite race is an advanced, peaceful, and just society of heroes like himself but that he has no inkling on where in the universe they are located. At the conclusion of the series however, Nolan is forced to confess everything to Mark about himself and his race.
Nolan reveals that several thousand years ago, the Viltrumites were involved in a brutal and bloody civil war, the cause of which is not clearly defined. Nolan himself described it as a way to remove "the weak from our society." When the war ended, the Viltrumite population of just over 6 billion had been reduced to just over 3 billion. This transformed the Viltrumites into a militaristic society of ruthless warriors. By the time Nolan was born, the Viltrumite Empire was the most powerful empire in the galaxy, and soon sought to make it the only empire in the galaxy. As a result, legions of super-powerful Viltrumites spread out into the galaxy in all directions.
The Viltrumites conquered system by system and planet by planet, using their super-powerful soldiers and advanced technology. Despite facing some resistance from alien species, they managed to conquer over 70% of the galaxy. However, as their empire expanded, the Viltrumite war-machine began to show signs of strain. With thousands of planets under their control, the Viltrumite military forces became stretched thin. The Viltrumite leadership decided to pause the expansion and consider more efficient ways to conquer worlds without extensive and costly military campaigning. They devised a solution: deploying several hundred of their strongest soldiers to prepare planets for immediate occupation without any fighting. Nolan was among these soldiers and was deployed to the planet Earth.
While Nolan labored on Earth, his Viltrumite comrades did the same on their planets while the Viltrumite race at large focused on managing their massive galactic empire, rebuilding their society on Viltrum itself and taking steps to restore and boost the Viltrumite population in order to create more soldiers for their armies.
Members[]
Royalty[]
- Argall † - First Emperor
- Nolan/Omni-Man † - Second Emperor
- Mark Grayson/Invincible - Third Emperor
- Oliver Grayson †
- Terra Grayson
- Markus Murphy - Emperor In waiting
- Argall’s unnamed heirs
Pure-Blooded Viltrumites[]
- Argall † — Emperor
- Thaedus † — Betrayer
- Conquest † — Warrior
- Thragg † — Grand Regent
- Kregg — General
- Thula
- Anissa †
- Nolan/Omni-Man † — Emperor
- Lucan
- Randee
- Vidor †
- Bernarrd †
- Two unnamed executioners †
Part-Viltrumites[]
- Mark Grayson/Invincible — Emperor
- Oliver Grayson †
- Terra Grayson
- Markus Murphy
- Onaan †
- Ursaal
- Kalmon
- Numerous alternate versions of Mark Grayson
- Numerous unnamed children of Thragg
- Multiple unnamed children of Kregg
- Two unnamed children of Oliver
Trivia[]
- Viltrum is named after the body part "philtrum", which is the upper lip, as a nod to male Viltrumites having mustaches.
- As stated in The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe, Viltrumites and Humans share a common ancestor, explaining their perfect resemblance in both appearance and DNA.
- The Viltrumites are essentially villainous pastiche of the Kryptonians from DC Comics, being a super powerful and highly technological advanced alien race, each member of which has super-strength, super-invulnerability and flight powers, which is currently on the verge of extinction cause of some great catastrophe (destruction of Krypton in the case of Kryptonians and Scourge virus epidemic in the case of Viltrumites). But instead of being a peaceful and wise race, lead by scientists, Viltrumites are the race of cruel genocidal space conquerors, which near-extinction wasn’t a natural cataclysm, but a karmic punishment, organized by their own former soldier.
- Robert Kirkman's idea was that originally Omni-Man was going to be the only member of his race with a mustache, but then afterwards decided that the every male within the race should all have mustaches instead, to make more a deep rooted cultural aspect of the Viltrum Empire that every male Viltrumite sports a well groomed and thick cop styled mustache when they’re elite soldiers come of adult age. Thragg, Conquest, Omni-Man, Thadeus, and the unnamed Executioners all sport this mustache.
- But it was also established by Kirkman according to a reaction on Honest Trailers' video on Invincible, that he gave the viltrumites mustaches (manily Omni-Man at the time) because he was a fan of his father having a mustache when he was a kid.
- Viltrums society and culture consistently for the most part Is set based on valuing only the strongest and who’s the most combatively capable through extreme ruthless battle prowess as they test their limits to get more powerful. As they share distinct similarities to the Saiyan race from DBZ.
- It’s often heavily debated among the fandom that characters such as Conquest and Omni-Man, are In the same high tier of Substellar class of raw power, albeit some fans mainly edge Conquest as the victor due being the physically superior warrior to Omni-Man, but there also some that say Nolan’s cunning could help him win. This topic is still discussed heavily to this day currently, with artist Ryan Ottley favoring Nolan, but with 0 sign off from author Robert Kirkman the debate is at a stand still on who’d “truly” come out on top.
- Viltrumites often prioritize H2H combat over all else when In battle, as they use their knife hands to cut slice or stab their opponents to disembowel them like their long swords, blades, or daggers. As they opt to use their opponents body weight against them to leverage their own power to ruthlessly maim or quickly subdue with sheer aggressive tactics In order to dominant them In battle, showing they attack based on emotional impulse. Viltrumites such as Conquest, Thragg, and Omni-Man are the most notorious for such brutal techniques.
External Links[]
- Viltrum Empire — Image Comics Wiki
- Viltrum Empire — Invincible (TV Series) Wiki
- Viltrum Empire — Hero Database
