Underwater Trial

The Underwater Trial, also called the Depth Dweller Incident, sends Invincible beneath the waves to reckon with a crime he did not commit. When Omni-Man slew King Aquarus, the undersea kingdom of Atlantis fell into grief and turmoil. His widow, Queen Aquaria, took the throne carrying deep resentment for the surface world, and with the true killer gone she demanded that his son answer in his place, threatening to drown the Eastern seaboard if he refused.

Mark was called down to Atlantis to stand accountable for Omni-Man's actions. Working from outdated briefings supplied by the Global Defense Agency, he arrived under the mistaken impression that custom required him to wed the queen. Aquaria set him straight, explaining that such traditions had been discarded ages earlier, and that what awaited him was combat rather than marriage. The Atlanteans then loosed an enormous creature, the Depth Dweller, as the opponent he would have to face. Mark managed to hold ground at first, but the monster's sonic shriek staggered him. The agency tried to help by firing missiles from beneath the water, yet the strike only shattered the beast's bindings and set it loose to rampage. Battered but unwilling to quit, Mark went back in and finally hauled the creature down into a deep trench by the length of chain still fixed to it.

In the struggle Mark also saved Aquaria's life, and his courage moved the grieving queen to reconsider her stance. She called off the hostilities she had threatened and instructed her guards to send word to the surface that Atlantis no longer regarded itself at war. What began as a demand for blood ended in a fragile peace between the two worlds. The episode played out alongside the broader Viltrum Empire's Expansion, one thread among many pulling at Earth during this stretch.