You’re just a 17-year-old kid, and your father is the world’s most powerful superhero. When you discover he plans to conquer the planet, do you dare to join him or stand up and fight? These are the moral dilemmas you think about when watching only the first season of Prime Video’s Invincible. As the plot thickens, the story only gets more and more twisted, managing to catch viewers off guard at every turn. The show’s enthralling narrative has managed to transform an underdog of a superhero into one of the world’s most popular icons in the comic book community. But to see how we got there, we would have to travel back in time 22 years.
Invincible’s Origins
It’s 2003, and our author, Robert Kirkman, has just developed an all-new independent superhero for Image Comics. It followed Mark Grayson, a high school student struggling with friends, grades, girls, and his newly found superpowers. He got his abilities from his Dad, Omni-Man, an alien sent to “protect” the people of Earth. Invincible seemed like your run-in-the-mill generic comic series. The story looked like it was done a hundred times before and didn’t stand out to readers. But because Kirkman had complete creative control over the narrative, he could turn the story in ways you wouldn’t ever dream of back then. When comic sales reached cancellation numbers, Kirkman decided it was time to show us how to really tell a story.
The reader discovers the truth behind Omni-Man’s origins at the end of the first story arc. He never came to Earth to protect it but, was sent by his alien empire to prepare the planet for invasion. While comic book adaptations tend to have jaw-dropping moments like this plenty in the modern day, it was unheard of in the early 2000s. Companies like Marvel Comics and DC Comics wouldn’t even dare to step this far into a plot twist. It wasn’t every day that we would pick up a comic book and get caught so off guard. The cliché “evil Superman” trope exists because of Invincible.
Universes Collide at Marvel
People have loved Invincible since then. It was no longer marked for cancellation, and sales steadily climbed the ladder to success. Kirkman saw the promising future that Invincible held and decided to kick it up a notch. In 2004, he decided to join Marvel Comics in hopes Invincible would gain popularity off of Marvel’s publicity. He went on to work on stories like Ultimate X-Men, Marvel Zombies, the Walking Dead, and so much more. He even had a collaboration between Invincible and the main Marvel universe(Earth-616). Mark Grayson teamed up with the world-famous web-slinger, Spider-Man. And despite all of the fame and success, Kirkman hated it.
There was a lot of tension between Kirkman and Marvel’s editor-in-chief. Marvel wouldn’t grant him any of the creative freedom he was used to having when working for Image Comics. It was clear Marvel resented Kirman’s success. During an interview, Kirkman said, “I’m getting treated like crap and getting yelled at all the time for just trying to put an extra level of care in a book.” He grew sick and tired of the way he was being mistreated and flat-out left Marvel Comics for good. This time, he decided to not only work for Image Comics but to partner with them. In 2008, the shackles of Marvel were finally lifted, and he could solely focus on his best seller, Invincible.
Without Marvel Comics constantly looking over his shoulder, Invincible has since been a refreshing take on traditional superhero stories. It offered a new and engaging narrative for casual readers to enjoy. The way Invincible managed to take on mature and adult stories made it well worthy of its title, “The Best Superhero Comic Book in the Universe.” The young Mark Grayson we knew in 2003 grew into one of the most iconic comic book characters we know today. Popular side characters like “Rex Splode” and “Monster Girl” were great additions to the series, adding that element of comic relief that every story needs. The series went on to develop 144 issues until 2018, selling up to 10 million copies. But he was never as popular as other superheroes. Due to Marvel Studios’ success with the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the time, Invincible struggled to become a mainstream hero.
The Best Superhero Show in the Universe
Universal Studios saw the potential of an Invincible movie, and rumors began to spread of its development. Despite a movie being announced in 2018, it’s currently still technically under development. An Invincible movie was something Kirkman didn’t want to rush, knowing just how much promise it held. Rather, Prime Video wanted to bring Invincible to the big screens through an animated series. They were finally able to breathe this amazing story to life in a way new viewers could enjoy around the world during the brutal era of the infamous pandemic. Since Kirkman was an executive producer of Prime Video’s Invincible, he was able to reimagine a story that ensured people would love every episode, while also keeping the show true to the comics. Prime Video’s Invincible quickly became popular for being one of the only comic book shows not afraid of its source material.
Kirkman made some minor yet significant changes in the show’s story. This includes having Omni-Man’s betrayal right at the end of the first episode. This had viewers questioning Omni-Man’s actions during the entire series, keeping them invested for upcoming episodes. Even with terrible marketing and a low budget, Prime Video’s Invincible managed to finally be on par with Marvel Studios’ projects. J.K. Simmons and Steven Yeun’s performances as Omni-man and Mark Grayson are breathtaking, adding more for Invincible viewers to love. Invincible was in Prime Video’s top 5 most viewed shows. With an 8.7/10 on IMDb and a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, Prime Video’s Invincible was finally a worldwide success. Viewer Alex Cruz, a senior at Wayne Hills Highschool says, “I think that it’s one of the best shows out there right now. The character development is great, and the story manages to keep you interested in every episode. The fighting is nothing short of legendary. I can’t wait for season 4.” Speaking of upcoming seasons, let’s talk about how Invincible handled its latest season.
Invincible seems to have heavily regained popularity recently. Mark Grayson’s recent surge in fame is no accident. Season 3 of the show recently wrapped up on March 13th and was widely considered the best season of the show by the fans. People enjoyed how the season continued to build on stories left lingering in season 2. The villain, Conquest, became one of the best characters of the show, despite him being introduced in only the last episode. During his fight with Mark, he delivers a petrifying monologue that wasn’t in the comics. The monologue spoke of Conquest’s loneliness, and how his fight with Mark gave him something to live for. However, Mark doesn’t take Conquest’s words lightly. The delivery of Mark’s iconic line, “I can see the future, you don’t live to see tomorrow,” had fans at the edge of their seats during the season finale. Not to mention, fans thought the show handled the “Invincible War” story arc perfectly, a war between Mark and variants of him from alternate universes. It was spine-chilling to see what Mark could have become if he decided to join his father, or maybe even something worse.
“I believe that Invincible is probably one of the greatest animated shows of this decade,” says viewer Carter Jones, a sophomore at Wayne Hills High School. “I think Steven Yeun is a fantastic lead actor and J.K. Simmons is the perfect voice for Omni-Man. The story is immaculate, I love how the emotion conveys a suspenseful plot every single episode. On everything I love, if you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out.” It’s clear how passionate fans feel about the success of the show from listening to the viewers. However, what is success without criticism?
Epic Story, Stiff Animation
No matter how good some things are someone always has something to say. Despite Invincible quickly being renewed for 2 more seasons, some critics had some valid arguments against the show. The main problem was budget and animation. To start, the show had an extremely low budget. To put it into perspective, Prime Video’s other show, Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, has a budget of 1 billion dollars. Invincible’s budget is a fraction of that, with only up to 1 million dollars per episode. The problem is that Invincible has proven to be one of Prime Video’s top-rated shows, while Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power wasn’t that well received by viewers. Many fans have begun to question why the more popular show has such a low budget while the lackluster show has an insanely high budget.
Fans are rightfully upset that Invincible doesn’t receive the love and attention from its studio that it deserves. It reflects heavily on the animation of the show and tends to get hard to ignore. Viral posts have been uploaded criticizing Invincible’s poor animation. The animation problem also stems from fast production. Fans hated waiting for season 2 to come out, so the animators decided to cut back on the animation to push out season 3 sooner. This strategy wasn’t super well received by viewers. While people were happy Invincible season 3 was finally out, they wished the animation was cleaner. Also, the animators were saving a large quantity of the budget for the final episodes of season 3. While most of season 3 looks a little lackluster, the final 2 episodes are animated beautifully. Many fans appreciated the pay-off saving the budget had on the season 3 finale. But other fans would have rathered Invincible to have clean and consistent animation throughout the season over just 2 well-animated episodes. Despite this, all fans still agree that the story is what we truly watch the show for, and animation problems can wait if it means properly adapting the story for our confirmed seasons 4 and 5 of Invincible.
Trends that made TikTok Invincible
Invincible’s success isn’t due to just its awesome story. Ever since the show was released, almost every iconic line has been turned into a viral TikTok meme. The generic phrase, “Are you sure,” was turned into a viral meme recently due to Omni-Man’s stoic delivery of the line. Another meme going around is the hate for the side character Immortal. Fans realized that Immortal doesn’t do much during the whole show, and decided to take it upon themselves to point out all the times Immortal contributes nothing compared to the other heroes who do the bulk of the work. While it seems harsh, a lot of these memes are funny and intend no harm. Additionally, a trending meme is the infamous title card. For context, during the show in every episode, a character says, “Invincible,” casually in a sentence. But right before they start the word, the screen cuts away to a title card reading, “Invincible.” Many found the title card hilarious and would make videos of them using, “Invincible,” in a sentence before editing in a title card cutaway. These are only a few of the ever-expanding trends of the Invincible community. All these trends give us Invincible fans something to enjoy while we patiently wait for season 4.
It’s finally 22 years later, and Invincible is officially one of the most popular superheroes amongst our generation. From your average comic book to becoming one of the highest-rated shows of all time, analyzing Invincible’s success as a story is a rollercoaster. It’s crazy to think that if any other decision was made differently, we might not have had the show we’re so crazy about today. What if Kirkman never left Marvel? Or what if we actually did get that planned Invincible movie from Universal Studios? The fandom is head over heels for Invincible, and can barely wait for season 4. Invincible’s rise from an underdog of a hero to the beloved animated series we love today makes for an amazing story in itself. Robert Kirman redefined what it meant to be a hero, creating a story that refuses to be beaten.
