Invincible is Incredible

Last night after my wife fell asleep, I watched the first three episodes of Invincible on Amazon Prime. She indulges my nerdy tendencies, but I don’t want to overwhelm her, either, so I’m judicious with the tv shows and movies I share with her.

I’ll talk about Invincible in a moment, but first I want to give you my bonafides.

I grew up reading comic books. I don’t remember when I first started reading them; I only know it was part of our family routine. When I was four years old, my dad and I would walk to the local restaurant and order some subs or a pizza. While we waited for our meal, we’d go to the corner store and pick up a bottle of soda and a comic book or two.

Comic books were my gateway to reading. My dad would sit down and read that week’s comic book with me. I’d memorize every word and later “read” the comic book to my friends. Very quickly, I learned how to read on my own, and I was on my way!

I’ve read comic books for over 30 years. But after all that I time, I grew tired of them. I was no longer surprised. I was familiar with all the tropes and clichés, and they no longer delighted me as they once had. I finished three decades of reading comic books in 2000 with Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. It was the last series that I felt was truly unique and that I was passionate about. It seemed an excellent way to wrap up my favorite pastime.

Since then, I’ve picked up the odd comic book here and there. I also listen to podcasts or read articles about comic books now and then, but I’m no longer a “reader”. Except for glancing through a couple of pages of Invincible, I’m largely ignorant about the series. While I no longer read comic books, I am a sucker for tv shows and movies based on comic book characters, so of course I was going to watch Invincible.

I loved it.

The animation is fantastic. It’s beautiful. And importantly, the animation hews closely to Cory Walker’s illustrations from the comic book series.

What Invincible gets rights is how superhero comic books feel. The tv show captures the awesomeness of superheroes as well as the epic battles. I felt the impact of every blow. Things felt like they had heft. I think that’s something many animated shows based on comic books get wrong because usually, things feel weightless.

Other animated shows also tend to fail at making their worlds feel like a place where people actually live. They often feel empty with a sprinkling of a population to suggest a town or metropolis. The only animated production that felt lived in was Akira, with its crowds of people and riots. It’s not fair to compare Akira with animated tv shows because that movie had a crazy budget for its time. Even so, Invincible’s world feels inhabited.

But a show like this can’t rest on gorgeous animation. It has to deliver on a great story with compelling characters, and once again, Invincible nails it. I’m not going to go into the plot because I don’t want to spoil your experience. Trust me when I tell you the story is fanatastic, and I wanted to know more about each character. And it doesn’t hurt that the voice talent is spectacular. With a cast that includes J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, and Steven Yeun you could animate the series with stick figures, and it’d still be gripping.

The last thing I wanted to talk about is that Invincible contains adult content. People curse, there’s sexuality (including a foursome with one character who can make duplicates of herself. Oh, sorry, spoiler alert!), and violence, another thing Invincible aces.

The violence is what you’d imagine if godlike beings faced off against each other. Bodies beat to a pulp. People decapitated, or their limbs ripped off. Vehicles thrown, buildings leveled, and satellites hurled from their orbit. While the violence is brutal, it never feels ghoulish, like say what you’d encounter in The Boys tv series. I’m not knocking The Boys; the ultra-violence is the point of the series. The point I’m trying to make is that the violence in Invincible gruesome; it felt believable. The shock value was earned.

I hope the animated series is as long as the comic book series because I’m in the bag for Invincible. I may have to make a trip to my local comic book store and pick up a few issues.