Invincible Season 1

 2021, created by Robert Kirkman - amazonprime

We haven't even come close to peak comic-book adaptation yet.  Frankly, until people stop watching TV or Movies they're never going to stop.  Superheroes, though, superheroes may be on the downswing.  If me, an uber comic-book geek for 40 years has gotten disinterested in most superhero TV shows and is wondering how much longer Marvel's steady output can sustain before the masses decide it's not their thing anymore... well, yeah.  We're at the point where so much superhero content is kind of anti-superhero content.  The Boys, Jupter's Legacy, even Watchmen are taking the stance that superheroes are kind of a bad thing, and that despite their altruistic comic book roots, the modern take on any human with any power is going to be one of corruption, or at least complete self-interest.  There's no place for heroes anymore.  Snyder's version of superheroes is very much this as well, and the heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to constantly have to reckon with the harm they've caused while doing what they think is right.

Invincible, an adaptation of the Robert (Walking Dead) Kirkman, Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley series, can seem like its sitting in that realm.  It's a series (both TV and comic) that trades in excessive ultra-violence, which is usually a signifier of something darker, more anti-heroic.

I read Invincible for a half dozen story arcs, but ultimately couldn't get into its groove, and yet the TV series really resonated.  The first episode was incredibly well done, positioning it as a wholesome, almost Saturday morning-ready affair.  Mark Grayson is finally getting powers inherited from his dad, one of Earth's mightiest heroes, Omni-man.  It's an awkward time with Mark juggle teenage life as well as his new inheritance, but he's up for it.  The set-up seems to be that the status quo is Mark learning to be a hero from his dad.  Then his dad goes and kills the planet's premiere super-team, covers it up and the world is rocked to its core.

The rest of the series deals with the fallout of Omni-man's actions, the audience the only ones initially aware that Omni-man is a bad, bad dude.  He trains Mark with some real tough love, often brutal love, in reality no love at all.  And life starts getting pretty traumatic for, well, everyone.

The show's episode-to-episode is pretty great, giving Mark very specific objectives to overcome, sometimes heroic, sometimes personal, and often both.  The supporting cast is pretty broad with subplots galore, most of which are very, very intriguing.  

The weak point of Invincible is in its reliance on hyper-violence.  It trades in it often, too often, to the point that it's just kind of numbing when an fight goes on for an extended 4 or 5 minutes (or longer).  The impact of these brutal, knock-down, drag-out fights would be so much more used sparingly.  The most visceral impact is the Omni-man fight at the end of the first episode because it's so unexpected given the set-up, but then it just becomes the norm afterward.

The voice cast is incredible (Stephen Yeun, Sandra Oh, JK Simmons, Gillian Jakobs, Andrew Rannells, Walton Goggins, Clancey Brown, Zachary Quinto, Jason Mantzoukas, Zazie Beetz, Seth Rogen, Mark Hamill, Jon Hamm, and on and on), breathing real emotion into this heightened reality.

The first season ends beautifully, but leaves a whole smorgasbord of loose ends to be explored.  I wasn't expecting to love it, but I did.