Invincible is a new animated superhero show airing on Amazon, with the the first three episodes (of eight) appearing a couple of days ago. It’s based on a comic by Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead, which ran from 2003-2016. As a fan of the comic, I was really eager to see how this would come out on screen, and I liked it a lot – it looks great, it’s got a talented cast, and the long runtime really gives the episodes room to breathe. (Is this the first animated show that has ever had a 45-50 minute runtime, outside of specials or things like OAVs? It seems impossible that it’s never been done, but I can’t think of any.)

Invincible is the story of Mark Grayson, a teenage boy whose father is Omni-Man – his world’s equivalent of Superman, an alien visitor from a superpowered race who’s revered as Earth’s strongest protector. The world of Invincible is the standard superhero kitchen sink, with aliens and mad scientists and wizards and demons and ghosts and characters from other Image comics all running around. As the comic begins Mark’s superpowers have just come in, and he begins training under his father and meeting other supers. There’s also a pretty massive twist early on that ends up affecting almost everything else, and it’s hard to discuss the comic/show in any depth without going into it.

It’s that twist that made me wonder if this was finally greenlit due to the success of The Boys, which also features an ultra-violent superhero world, a Justice League analogue, and… other similarities. Looks like this has been in development since well before The Boys first aired, though. They’re also making an (unrelated) movie; wonder how that’ll come out?

Watching these first three episodes was an interesting experience – I haven’t done a full readthrough of the comic in a long time, and where it starts is very different from where it ends – and it felt odd to go back to the early days and see how all these characters met, as well as reunite with some that aren’t destined to make it to the end. Probably. Flipping through the first volume to compare, it looks like the TV show is keeping more-or-less to the comics’ story in the broad strokes but is changing or fleshing out a lot of details.

I also noticed that the art in the first volume is… kinda ugly! Not badly done, just a lot of unappealing aesthetic choices compared to the beautiful art of the later volumes. The TV show improves on it a lot and generally looks great, although there’s a heavy reliance on CGI for background characters that becomes obvious once you notice it.

What did you think? I have no idea how many people here are watching this; if there’s enough interest, I’ll do discussion threads for the upcoming episodes as they air. Feel free to talk about anything that’s aired, but use spoilers if you talk about future events in the comic. Favorite character? Favorite ship? Favorite storyline you’re hoping gets adapted? Things from the original you hope they change?