Are the Mauler Twins truly dead in Invincible? The comics may hold the answer

In the opening episodes of Invincible Season 3, the Mauler Twins appear to be killed by Oliver in cold blood. However, if you dig into the original comics, there’s a chance they could come back.

They’re two of the longest-running villains and strongest characters in Invincible, constantly cloning each other and getting into scraps with the Guardians (in Season 2, they even helped Angstrom Levy in exchange for the promise of becoming gods in another universe).

Alas, they seem to bite the dust in Season 3 Episode 3 – and it is brutal. After breaking into a nuclear silo (the same place the Lizard League nearly killed Rex and Shrinking Rae), they’re briefly halted by Invincible. They still launch the missile, so Mark chases after it… leaving Oliver to deal with the twins.

It doesn’t go well for them. Oliver shatters one of the twins’ jaws, before flying through the other one and killing him instantly. As the remaining twin looks on in horror, Oliver uppercuts him so hard that his head turns to mush, Mortal Kombat style. It’s gnarly, but do they survive somehow? Spoilers to follow!

What happens to the Mauler Twins in the Invincible comics?

Prime Video

Just like in the show, Oliver kills the Mauler Twins. However, as explored in the Guarding the Globe spinoff, they left a third secret clone in Kuwait.

The spinoff follows Brit (who’ll appear in Season 3) as he forms a new incarnation of the Guardians of the Globe. The Mauler storyline specifically unfolds in Volume 2, which is included as part of the Invincible Universe Compendium).

At the end of the first issue, we see a lone Mauler surrounded by blue babies. When the Guardians find him, he says he’s no longer a villain. “I’m simply a family man… I just happen to want a very big family,” he explains.

After his “less-than-successful experiments” attack them, it’s revealed that Mauler has been building a gene bomb. “All of those infants are the results of Mauler’s experiments with implanting his own DNA in multiple hosts,” the comic explains.

Image Comics

It’s effectively a virus that “rewrites the genetic code of the infected” to mirror the Maulers, altering the reproductive system of every male the bomb hits. So, if they get a woman pregnant, they’ll technically give birth to a Mauler.

In Issue #5, after evading the Guardians, Mauler shows up with his lawyer – who claims all of his test subjects agreed to his experiments in writing. Invincible (the spinoff’s version of him, anyway) can’t accept it, so he attacks him, knocks him out, and asks the GDA to charge him with something.

That’s the last we see of them… until much later in the mainline Invincible story. That I won’t spoil, but if the show keeps adapting the comics faithfully, we may see the Mauler Twins again.

Make sure you know exactly when each episode drops with our Invincible Season 3 release time & schedule guide. Until then, find out why Mark’s blue suit is so important, and if you want to jump ahead, you can read the Invincible comics for free.