Invincible

I know I am late to the party on this post. I meant to say something sooner, but that's life. So let's talk about the show Invincible, that appeared on Amazon Prime. From what I can remember in reading the comic, it is very faithful. Simultaneously, it evolved with the times in some of the roles of the characters. There are other sites out there to do that work for you. I'm not going to do that here. 

I thought this show is excellent. The comic itself was excellent, so that translated into a great show. I think the biggest thing that will jump out is the great talent they assembled for the voice acting. I'm happy to see Steven Yuen getting his due this year and he was the perfect choice for the main character, Mark Grayson. I am convinced that J.K. Simmons can do no wrong and he is perfect here as Mark's Father, Nolan. He has an underlying menace throughout this whole first season that you can just feel. Also, I'm glad they gave Sandra Oh plenty to do. 

The rest of the cast is great too, but I wanted to call out the main actors. 

The animation was also really good. This show is really colorful, which like the comic, really belies how hyper violent it is. I don't think the cartoony nature makes it more palatable, so I would warn people that if they don't like violence, don't watch this show. There are a lot of truly gruesome scenes. One in particular is in one of the last episodes involving a subway train. That is all I'm going to say. If you've seen the show, you know what I'm talking about. All of the fight scenes are very well done. There are real consequences, so you are on the edge of your seat to see if someone will seriously get hurt because the stakes are that high.

From the first episode, for readers of the comics, one of the big twists of the first arc of the series is introduced right away. That was a surprising choice to me, but I can understand why they did it. I think everything else happened about the same from what I can remember. To be fair, I read all of this about fifteen years ago and I read a lot of comics, so I just can't remember all of it. 

What I loved about this show is how it shows the trials and tribulations of trying to navigate being a super hero in your teenage years. I also like the way they play around with the idea of a secret identity. Unless you wear a full mask, the idea of a secret identity is always flimsy at best, so I'm glad they play with the trope.

A lot of people will want to compare this to the other Amazon, hyper violent series, "The Boys". I think that it is a mistake. These shows are completely different. They only thing they share is how violent they are. I would argue this is the far superior show and would push people to watch it first.

If you have Amazon Prime, I highly recommend giving it a try. At only 8 episodes this season, it's not asking a huge time commitment and all of the episodes move at a good pace.