Destruction of Chicago

The Destruction of Chicago is the second sweeping worldwide catastrophe of the series, an all-out battle in which Omni-Man turns on Earth's defenders one after another: the Global Defense Agency, a briefly revived Immortal, and at last Invincible himself. The clash publicly unmasks Nolan as a Viltrumite conqueror and plants lasting distrust toward both him and his son.

The truth begins to surface at the Grayson home, where a drunk, grieving Debbie presses Nolan about why he slaughtered the Guardians of the Globe and receives only evasions before the G.D.A. escorts her away. Nolan soon realizes Donald and the agency have been spying on him; Donald evacuates the safehouse and dies triggering an explosion that Nolan easily survives. Cecil throws everything at him, the Hammer, the ReAnimen, and eventually a summoned kaiju, all barely slowing him down. Invincible and Atom Eve arrive to help, and after Omni-Man and Mark team up against the monster, the Immortal appears only to be killed again on live television. Nolan then confesses the full truth: the Viltrumites are conquerors who culled their own weak, spread across the stars, and planted him on Earth to soften it for takeover. When he coldly dismisses Debbie as a mere pet, Mark rejects his father's worldview and vows to defend the planet, and the two come to blows. Omni-Man dominates, hurling Mark through the city and forcing him to watch civilians die, including a pilot he had just saved and a mother whose severed arm Mark is left holding. The brutal lesson continues through a wrecked train and across the country to Mount Everest, where Nolan nearly beats his son to death while demanding what he will have left after five hundred years. Mark answers that he would still have him, and the reply stops Nolan cold; shaken and weeping, he flies off into space.

Cecil recovers Mark from the mountain as his friends watch the disaster unfold on the news. With Omni-Man's betrayal exposed, humans and heroes alike come to despise him, and Debbie sinks into depression over twenty years of a marriage built on lies while Mark fears becoming his father. The rampage kills 2,341 people, among them Scott Duvall's sister, whose death drives him to become Powerplex, and it wrecks the livelihood of Eve's father, Adam Wilkins. Nolan drifts through the cosmos contemplating suicide until he rescues a Thraxan ship, earning a second chance and eventually a throne on Thraxa. The Viltrum Empire, enraged by his desertion, launches a galaxy-wide hunt, and Allen carries word of a growing power vacuum back to the Coalition, information Thaedus finds full of promise. Years later Oliver adopts the Kid Omni-Man identity, and Chicago, rebuilt at heavy cost, is destroyed once more during the Invincible War.