What Happens To Rex Splode In The Invincible Comics? His Fate Explained

Prime Video

The show may be called "Invincible," but Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) is just one of many superheroes out there, from Mark's girlfriend Atom Eve (Gillian Jacobs), who has the power to rearrange molecules, to her ex, Rex Sloan (Jason Mantzoukas), code-named "Rex Splode" because of his ability to create explosive energy.

Rex was introduced in "Invincible" season 1 as a member of the Teen Team, and you weren't supposed to like him. He was loud, cocky, arrogant, and dating Eve, thus preventing her and Mark from getting together. Worse, it soon turned out Rex was cheating on Eve with their teammate Dupli-Kate (Malese Jow). But Rex stuck around on "Invincible" and slowly grew more likable.

Part of that is because of Mantzoukas' charismatic performance, and part is because Rex matured; he's supposed to be a hero, so he decided to act like one. Late in "Invincible" season 2, he also narrowly survived being shot in the head by super-villain King Lizard (Scoot McNairy), giving him a new lease on life.

Unfortunately, that new lease ended tragically. In "Invincible" season 3 episode 7, "What Have I Done?", several evil Invincibles from alternate universes invade Earth. Rex gives his life to kill an evil Invincible in a heartbreaking death scene, blowing up his own skeleton to cause a massive explosion.

Rex's fate in the animated "Invincible" is almost identical to the original comics by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley, where he met his demise in issue #60.

Prime Video

The beats of the scene are the same in the comic and cartoon: One of the Invincibles is attacking Rex, Rudy/Robot (Ross Marquand), Amanda/Monster Girl (Grey DeLisle), and Bulletproof (Jay Pharoah). Rex stays behind to let his friends escape. The Invincible grabs Rex by the throat, so a near-death Rex blows up his own skeleton.

But the show gives the sacrifice more weight. In "Invincible" #60, Ryan Ottley uses double-page collages to show all the gruesome violence happening at once. Rex's death is blocked off into a thin vertical column on the end of the right hand page. Turn the page, and it shows Rex exploding (the faint outline of his skeleton visible) and the Invincible being caught in the blast. Rex's sacrifice thus passes by quickly, just one more brutality swept up in a breathless pace.

In "What Have I Done?", Rex puts up more of a fight, grabbing various objects and making them explode to soften up the Invincible variant. The episode also explicitly shows Rex reaching into a wound on his side to grab one of his ribs and using that physical contact to blow himself up. When he does so, the scene cuts to a wide shot of the explosion from far away, as Billie Eilish's somber song "when the party's over" plays.

The animated "Invincible" also spends more time with Rex in episodes before his death. In particular, he starts a relationship with his teammate Shrinking Rae (DeLisle). (In the comics, Shrinking Ray was a man and already dead.) The two consider quitting being superheroes because they enjoy being normal together so much. When Rex stays behind to hold off the evil Invincible, he asks his friends to "Tell Rae I'm sorry I didn't finish helping her move."

Image Comics

"Invincible" season 3 jumped straight from one cataclysm to another, as Mark had to fight his strongest villain yet: the Viltrumite Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Once that was taken care of, though, the season 3 finale, "I Thought You'd Never Shut Up," concluded with Rex's funeral. Rudy, whose own body is a genetic clone of Rex's, announced he would be taking Rex's name to honor his friend's sacrifice.

Superheroes tend to have on-and-off relationships with death. Could Rex return to life? Sorry, but going off what happens in the "Invincible" comics, he won't. Following his death in issue #60, Rex is never returned to life ... at least, not the Rex we knew.

One of the last "Invincible" comic storylines is "Reboot?" (issues #124-16), where a mysterious alien intelligence sends Mark back in time to "Invincible" issue #1. With all of his memories intact, Mark is able to avoid early mistakes and, arguably, everything turns out better. Rex and Eve, though, never break up and so Mark and Eve never get together. Unwilling to lose the life he made, Mark returns to the original timeline and leaves the "Reboot?" one (including the still-alive Rex).

"Reboot?" is of course a parody of how often superhero comics reset their continuity, often done in the name of detangling complicated lore and/or attracting new readers. (Sometimes it works, like "Absolute Batman," which is selling as well as any manga right now.) "Invincible" explores that sort of reset and rejects it. One major advantage "Invincible" has over Marvel/DC stories is that it's a single story, with a beginning and end, told by the same creators. Looking backwards, even to revive a fan-favorite like Rex Splode, goes against that spirit.