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When the animated superhero show Invincible first hit Amazon Prime, audiences were quickly enamored with this new look for comic book adaptations. Invincible was a showcase of next level action-choreography for American animation. The show is both a love letter to and a deconstruction of everything great about superhero stories. Proving that we need more adult centered animation, like Invincible, produced in the US.
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No! No
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Why have you done this? This is from Season 1 of Invincible. It showcases a new level of action choreography for American animation
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which has propelled the show into the reputation of being the bloodiest superhero TV show on the block
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The show is both a love letter to and a deconstruction of everything great about superhero stories
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However, if this show had been greenlit 10 years ago, more than likely it would have been completely unrecognizable
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which is why we need more animation to follow in its footsteps
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I will burn this planet down before I spend another minute living among these animals
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Also, this is your spoiler warning for all things Invincible. Invincible, the comic book series, was first published in 2003 by Image Comics
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The book, initially co-created by Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker, and later illustrated by Ryan Otley, ran for a total of 144 issues
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This is a gargantuan feat for any indie comic, let alone one made by, at the time, relatively unknown creators
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The story follows Mark Grayson, the son of a Superman og named Omni-Man
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as he attempts to navigate the gap between being a teenager and an adult with the added complication of newly burgeoning superpowers
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On the surface, this book is an amalgam of every trope and cliche
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present in teen superhero comics. But unlike its contemporaries, Invincible actually has a tone, voice, and ambience all its own
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Because, here's the twist, it's hyper-violent. I always loved drawing very dynamic violence when I was a kid
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I mean, the red crayon would be the first to go. If you're a longtime fan of the property, you probably thought we were going to talk about Omni-Man's dark secret, that he's a villain
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While that twist is inarguably what saved the book from cancellation and what propelled its eventual TV adaptation to success
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That's not the true secret sauce that separates Invincible from the rest of the crowd
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It the fact that Kirkman Otley and Walker always pushed the characters and stories into arenas that a typical Marvel or DC comic never would have had the creative license to attempt Despite being the inarguable kid brother to The Walking Dead
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Invincible has had Hollywood interests circling almost from the beginning of its run. However
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it wasn't until The Walking Dead blew up on the small screen that things got serious
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After the creation of multiple spinoff shows, it was announced that Amazon Studios had struck
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a deal with Kirkman to move all the development of his film and TV projects over there
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ending his overall deal at AMC. And it was off the back of this deal that two Invincible-related announcements were announced
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An animated TV show created and showrun by Kirkman, and a live-action film to be written and directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen
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It's said that the perpetually in-development live-action feature is going to be significantly different from the comics
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allowing the TV show, currently punching its way through the airwaves, to be a more direct adaptation
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Perhaps the most important aspect of this adaptation's boundary-pushing approach to narrative
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is the fact that all the original creators are involved in the show
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Kirkman is the head honcho, and both Oddly and Walker are producers and work as character designers on the show
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Just look at the anatomy and the style of the animation. It's so deeply rooted in the way Cory Walker breaks down the human form
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The maturity and humanity on display in the series is a direct reflection of the fact that the people telling the story
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are deeply invested in the characters and understand them on an intimate level
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You don't have to explain the source material to them. They made it. However, it's the fact that the same thing that helped the comic break out in 2003 is the same thing that enabled the show to really draw attention in 2021 when it premiered
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The show's approach to hyperviolence. Whether it be Omni-Man fighting the guardians of the globe and quickly dispatching all of them
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or Omni-Man literally using Mark's body to end an entire subway train car full of people
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it's safe to say that Invincible earns its TVMA rating. And to state the obvious, this is both the reason for the show's success and a huge new precedent for American animation
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If Invincible had been produced 15 years ago it would have been watered down into being a straight after animated TV show aimed at 6 to 11 But the existing version of it had the strength of The Walking Dead and the prospect of a live feature pushing it forward
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allowing Kirkman, Otley, and Walker to replicate the maturity, gravitas, and humanity
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that they put into the books. Just look at this scene from Season 1, Episode 8, titled Where I Come From
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We see Mark trying to save a building from collapsing. He's single-handedly holding the building up
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while also attempting to save a single mother from falling to her death
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Then, when the inevitable comes to fruition and the building does collapse
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we find Mark on the ground holding hands with the woman's severed arm
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And this moment isn't played for laughs. It's traumatic. It's dark. And what it would actually be like if something like this actually took place
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Invincible should be a call to arms that we need for animation produced that's not strictly aimed at children
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Look, not every show needs this over-the-top level of violence, but it would be great if we had more animation aimed at slightly older audiences
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In Japan, animation is produced on virtually every subject imaginable and with every demographic possible in mind
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In the States, we have children's shows or 30-something bong rip theater, and there's no in-between
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Even the aesthetics of the shows produced have to fit a very narrow stylistic window
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and children's shows need to be safe and approachable and usually involve rounded shapes
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And the adult shows are ugly. Yeah, that's the best way to describe it. Just usually ugly
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The American animation industry has so many thriving and talented people, they just need the opportunity to tell their stories
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They need the right series of events to line up, like a live-action feature and a heavyweight celebrity coming off one of the most successful TV franchises of all time in order to make something even remotely adventurous
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Where's the American version of Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress? Or the American version of Keep Your Hands Off Izu-ken
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We need more shows that come from a diversity of viewpoints with a diversity of aesthetics
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Invincible is still something that's steeped in the tropes that Hollywood execs
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can recognize. It's a superhero story at the end of the day, but it's
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different enough that if supported the right way which it apparently has been it could open the door to much more mature engaging and exciting animation produced for a plethora of age rages Like Guillermo del Toro said in his Pinocchio Oscar acceptance speech
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Animation is cinema, animation is not a genre, and animation is ready to be taken to the next step
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Animation has seen some big strides in the last few years, but most of them have been produced outside of the studio system or with independent backing
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Remember the Charlie Kaufman film, Anomalisa? Yeah, that got produced because of a Kickstarter
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Same thing with Phil Tippett's Mad God. That was produced over decades of self-financed work with intermittent crowdfunding campaigns
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And while the majority of innovation is being made outside of traditional channels, there are some highly exciting and boundary-pushing works being produced within those systems
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Just look at the Mac show Scavenger's Ring or the Netflix shows Love, Death and Robots or Oni Thunder God's Tale, for examples, of work that doesn't look like anything else being produced
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Like del Toro said, animation is cinema. And yet for much of its history here in the US, it's been relegated to children's entertainment
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This is highly ironic because today live action movies are almost entirely animated
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Every Marvel movie, Star Wars, or Harry Potter features actors interacting with computer-animated backgrounds, characters, and effects
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And yet, because it's photorealistic, we don't think of them as animated in the traditional sense
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Look at one of the most recent of Disney's live-action remakes, The Lion King
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Literally nothing in that movie is live-action. It's all CG animation. But because it's photoreal, it bears different weight in a different conversation
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Today, more than ever, we need bold new visions of what the world can be to inspire hope and
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faith in a better tomorrow. If the world around us is shown in a more adventurous way, maybe that can help us all
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to evolve at a more rapid pace. Animation as a medium has limitless potential, and shows like Invincible are leading the
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way proving that artistically adventurous projects that take big swings can push the
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medium forward. People want new experiences, and animation is the way to give it to them