As the creator of The Walking Dead comic book series, the co-creator of Fear the Walking Dead, and a major creative force behind The Walking Dead TV series, Robert Kirkman helped change up zombie fiction and horror TV. During its 2003-2018 run, his long-running superhero comic Invincible was a consistently fun alternative to the marquee crusaders, and TV fans will now get to invest in Mark Grayson's adventures thanks to Amazon Studios, which has given Invincible a straight-to-series order for an "adult animation" adaptation.
As the first project happening under Robert Kirkman's overall deal with Amazon Studios, Invincible scored itself an eight-episode first season, which means viewers will likely get a fleshed-out and shock-filled adaptation of the first one or two comic arcs, which are named after classic TV sitcoms. ("Family Matters" and "Eight Is Enough" are the first two titles, for instance.) For some background, Invincible centers on teenager Mark Grayson, whose life is fairly normal beyond the fact that his father is Omni-Man, the most powerful entity on the planet. When Mark starts developing powers of his own, which creates complications both with his home life and with everything else. Not that the show would need to stick to every comic detail.
Far more fun and jubilantly energetic than The Walking Dead (and Kirkman's other comic-to-TV project, the haunting Outcast), Invincible is rife with electric, high-flying action, but also manages grand emotional beats that can pummel and lift readers with ease. Not to mention Mark Grayson being a splendidly developed lead character, balanced by humor, humanity and curiosity. All in all, a well-budgeted animated Invincible show is a win on all fronts.
Robert Kirkman's Skybound Productions will be behind Invincible, which found a showrunner in animation vet Simon Racioppa, who has written for such series as Teen Titans, Fangbone! and the more recent George of the Jungle show. (Not to mention Grossology, which had an A+ concept.) According to THR, Racioppa and Kirkman are joining The Walking Dead's David Alpert and Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Catherine Winder as executive producers. Chris and Justin Copeland, who have worked in the art department for many of DC's animated films over the years, as well as on TV shows such as Ultimate Spider-Man and Ben 10: Omniverse.
Interestingly, the Invincible TV show got its official go-ahead just over a year after Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg teamed up with Kirkman and Universal to write and direct a feature film adaptation. There haven't been any big signs that the film iteration is in big trouble, so perhaps there will be both a live-action and an animated Invincible in fans' lives in the next two or three years. That, or Amazon's show negates any other projects for now. Plus, this makes yet another project Kirkman has lined up outside of his original TV home at AMC, where lawsuits have made things more testy.
Since the show just got ordered, Invincible definitely doesn't have anything set up by way of a release date. But you can be sure to find all kinds of other shows hitting the small screen in the meantime, and you can find a bunch of them in our summer premiere schedule.
