According to Robert Kirkman, the gore and ramifications displayed in Invincible were intentional to demonstrate what would happen if superheroes truly existed in the world today.
When Invincible hit Amazon Prime Video in 2021, it took the world by storm when it brought fresh material into the superhero genre. In a recent interview, Kirkman explained that because he wanted to make a world with superheroes look as real as possible, the show went the extra mile with its violence and blood.
In an interview with Polygon, Kirkman delved into why he made the show as brutally realistic as it was. “For Invincible, it’s a representation of realism. This is an animated series, this is a superhero world; how do you make these stakes feel real to an audience? Well, you show them horrifically graphic images that illustrate how dire these situations are! How vulnerable the civilians in these worlds are, where superheroes are crashing through buildings and decimating landscapes," he said. "Some superhero stories collapse entire cities, and you feel nothing. The goal of Invincible was to collapse one building and make you really sad for the people that were there. You’re feeling bad about Mark having to face his father.”
What separates Invincible from your typical superhero story is that Mark taking on the mantra of being a hero makes his life worse because he sucks at balancing both his work as a superhero and as a person. Superhero stories commonly delve into the latter but not the former. Usually, when Mark gets into a fight, he more often than not loses, and when he does, he loses badly to the point where he narrowly avoids death. Much like the viewer, everything he thought about super life was subverted because of how many stops his enemies pull to ensure that they win, which was a pretty foreign concept for superhero media that preceded Invincible.
The real question is, can Invincible keep this up going forward? The show stood out as strongly as it did because it consistently kept subverting expectations episode by episode. Through its constant subversion of expectations, it kept showing its viewers that things could get worse. When things went from bad to worse, it all flowed organically. The show never pulled any punches when diving into just how brutal things can get in this world. To keep the material fresh, they'll have to go even deeper from here when Invincible season 2 is released, and it might reach a point where audiences can no longer bare what Mark Grayson has to suffer.
But fans should be optimistic about the direction the show is headed in knowing how long it will be between when Invincible season 1 ended and when season 2 begins. In the streaming service era, multiple top-rated shows took everyone's breath away in their first season, then didn't quite keep it up the following season, like Stranger Things and Ted Lasso. Luckily, shows like The Boys, which has similar issues in its second season, got its groove back to create arguably its best season yet with season 3, restoring hope for The Boys season 4. Fans are getting ahead of themselves with Invincible in this context, but knowing how well-received season 1 was and how long it's been since it finished, fans are eager to see what else it has in store for its viewers.
Invincible season 1 can currently be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: Polygon