Amazon’s Invincible series can repaint superhero tropes with fresh blood
It’s called ‘the best super-hero comic in the universe’ for a reason
“Invincible” — a contemporary superhero comic co-created by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker, illustrated by Ryan Ottley, and published by Image Comics — is a genre-defining modern classic.
After spending a few years of development hell, an animated adaptation produced by Amazon Studios is set to release in March 2021. The marketing campaign promises a familiar coming of age story about a teenaged superhero learning to live up to his father’s legacy while also teasing something darker just around the corner.
If you haven’t read the series, let’s get this straight: Throw any assumptions about how this story goes out the window.
Here’s why — Invincible transcends its seemingly simple premise by embracing what makes superheroes great while tactfully playing with tropes that modern audiences are well familiar with.
Invincible hit the scene in 2003, one year after Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” would reinvigorate mainstream audiences’ appetite for superheroes. Invincible ended in 2018 after an impressive 144-issue run (that means one issue released nearly every month for 15 years) as American superhero media reached its apex as a cultural juggernaut.
Since 2003, audiences have experienced enough of the genre’s trappings and tropes in the last two decades to fill a Batcave and a self-referential Lego-version of that Batcave. We’ve seen three different pasty white boys get bitten by a spider and several pairs of Waynes drop pearls in an alley. HBO just released a 4-hour director’s cut of a mediocre Justice League movie four years after it hit theatres and somehow my mom heard about it.
For my $5, now is the perfect time for Amazon Studios to give Invincible the attention it rightly deserves.
The new streaming series is produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who also guided live-action adaptations of “Preacher” and “The Boys.” Like their last ventures, Rogen and Goldberg are tackling a property that examines the moral implications of classic comic storytelling while delivering humor and a healthy dose of ultraviolence.
If there’s one question driving the narrative of “The Boys,” it’d go like this: If power corrupts, who holds superheroes accountable?
For “Invincible” it’s probably something close to: What if Superman had to deal with the consequences of his actions?
The ending of “Avengers: Infinity War” was so effective because for once the heroes had to deal with the crushing consequences of their failure. “Endgame” was satisfying because it delivered payoffs to character arcs developed over a decade of serialized story-telling. Invincible has dozens of powerful moments like this.
Mark Grayson, the main character and titular hero, is more or less literally invincible. But he’s constantly met with the product of his mistakes and short-sightedness while living in a world that irrevocably changes with each titanic swing of his fists.
What keeps Invincible fresh throughout its run — which has a very clear beginning middle and end — is the commitment to change. This allows the world to evolve with the characters, who use their considerable power to bend the universe toward their own personal sense of justice.
Mark’s father Nolan is the all-powerful Omni-Man — think Superman with a Tom Sellek mustache. In the second issue, he lays it all on the table. They’re aliens from a utopian space-faring civilization tasked with protecting the universe. “Viltrumites” are naturally gifted with flight, strength and incredible durability that allows them to survive the vacuum of space.
Mark is well-intentioned but hot-blooded, a product of his alien lineage and being a teenager. He’s pretty straight-forward in his approach to solving problems: Punch really hard.
At a certain point, that’s just not enough. Multiple characters come to terms with the reality that putting on spandex and stopping bank robberies isn’t solving complicated intersectional problems that produce crime in the first place. Invincible can stop a giant monster destroying the city, but he can’t end economic inequality. Hungry children in third-world countries don’t tend to get much attention from Superman.
Without giving too much away, this creates interesting conflicts between heroes who have different points of view on what it means to “save the world.”
There are mercifully few do-overs, take-backs, or retcons in Invincible. Narrative threads are followed to their logical conclusion. The main cast of characters feel layered and three-dimensional, in large part thanks to their flaws.
Watching Mark mature is a satisfying experience. He starts the story just wanting to go on adventures and do the right thing with the powers he’s given. We see him struggle to find the right path, fall in love, deal with betrayal, grieve, grapple with his own motality, become a leader, let down his loved ones and even build a family of his own. He’s a different person by the end, made wiser by his experiences.
Most superhero comics don’t allow for that. For every Earth-shattering crisis, there’s a return to the comfortable status quo. Characters learn lessons, then revert back to their factory settings in time for the next story arc. Even death rarely stays permanent.
Death is not only permanent in Invincible, it casts an ever-present shadow on the cast. There is a lot to say about the level of violence in this comic, but for now I’ll just say that it illustrates how the commitment to consequences permeates Invincible at its most basic level.
Meatheads punching each other is one of the core appeals of superhero comics. So it follows that superheroes are inherently violent. They use force to resolve conflict. Batman spends his nights breaking the bones of mentally ill people.
But fistfights in your typical Marvel book are pretty sanitized. Brawls rarely result in a split lip or black eye even though the people involved can throw a car with ease.
Invincible embraces that aspect of the genre. Mark has to grapple with his violent nature — as a comic book hero and Viltrumite.
The book does question whether the use of force is justified. More often, it strives to present a gory reality.
Fights in Invincible usually look something like this:
The mayhem is beautifully rendered by Ryan Ottley, the slobbering god of blood and viscera. Ottley handles pencils for a majority of the book and is a key component of Invincible’s appeal. His art conveys a tangible sense of weight and physics that are just delicious.
It can be a bit gratuitous at times. Deep into the run there are a few particularly gruesome and cruel depictions of violence that seem more about shocking the reader than elevating the genre.
Granted, Invincible could get away with a lot more on its pages. Invincible’s story exists in its own part of the playground that’s independent of the shared media universes popularized by Marvel and DC. It belongs to Image Comics, the third-largest American publisher in the game.
You may know Image from long-running books like Spawn, the guy with the big red cape, or Savage Dragon, the guy with the big green fin on his head. Those and other meatheads had a big impact on the 90s but by the turn of the century, Image was searching for fresh ideas to fill a new roster of superhero books.
Robert Kirkman, who would later become hyper famous for creating “The Walking Dead” and its ensuing multimedia empire, originally pitched Image another comic about a talking, mystery-solving dog. Image didn’t bite.
Kirkman and his collaborative partner Cory Walker, who stayed on as lead designer of the animated adaptation, quickly put together a new pitch about a teenager with superpowers navigating villains and homework, etc.
The establishing chapters retread familiar ground, as fledgling hero Mark Grayson discovers his powers, gets a costume, foils a few nefarious schemes and teams up with super friends.
Kirkman keeps it fresh by making two things immediately clear: Invincible’s world is full of caped crusaders who have been at this long before he showed up and everyone on Earth is pretty used to it.
There are some really fun moments in those first few issues that give you a good feel for the world while building up the relationships of the characters. All the while there are in-jokes about secret identities, the logistics of putting a costume in the washing machine and how heroes workshop their one-liners.
Then it all comes crashing down around them.
Invincible has a lot of twists, but this one sets the tone for the rest of the story. For me, it justifies the whole book.
The twist comes in issue #11, right when you’re starting to wonder if there’s more to this villain of the week set up. That’s pretty early in the run, so I don’t feel too bad about spoiling it here. It’s more or less unveiled within the first episode of the Amazon series.
I’m going to talk about it, so go do something else if you want to experience this for yourself.
Seriously, go water your plants or something.
Call your grandma. She’s lonely.
Have you filed your taxes?
OK, here we go: Turns out, Mark’s dad isn’t Superman. He’s evil Superman!
Instead of being from a benevolent society, Nolan is the top agent of a bloodthirsty, fascist warrior race conquering their way across the galaxy. Basically they’re like the Saiyans in Dragon Ball, but they all have mustaches. It’s pretty rad.
Not only that, “Viltruminites” like Mark and Nolan live for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years, giving them a cold perspective on life. Nolan thinks humans are weak livestock destined for slavery.
He’s been slowly working himself up to take over the Earth, and now that his son has powers it’s time to make their move.
Mark is justifiably a little sketched out by all this. He decides not to join his father. It doesn’t go well.
In a shocking display of violence and mayhem, Omni-Man brutalizes his son. Their battle spans the globe and causes destruction resulting in the death of thousands.
Just before he’s ready to land the finishing blow and kill his son, Omni-Man has second thoughts. He flies into space, visibly torn over having to choose between his family and his empire.
You could say this is where Invincible really gets started. I have a lot more to say about this series but for now, I’ll leave the rest for you to discover.
