Amazon has ordered eight one-hour episodes of an animated series based on the Image Comics title ‘Invincible’. The book was created by ‘The Walking Dead’‘s Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker. Kirkman wrote the comic book series while Walker provided the artwork in the earliest issues, with Ryan Ottley taking over after that. The book recently ended in February after a 15-year run. The ‘Invincible’ animated series will be available globally “on Amazon Prime Video in over 200 countries and territories.”
Kirkman issued this statement:
“I couldn’t be more proud of the series Cory Walker, Ryan Ottley and I did together for over 15 years. To know our characters will live on in multiple iterations in other media is almost too exciting to bear! What Amazon is allowing us to do in animated form is nothing short of ground-breaking, and I can’t wait for our rabid fan base to experience it!”
‘Invincible’ is sort of a parody of superhero conventions. The main character, Mark Grayson discovers that his father, Nolan is actually the Superman-like hero Omni-Man, a member of the alien race, the Viltrumites. But in a twist, after living life on Earth for decades, Omni-Man reveals that he is actually an advance spy for the Viltrumites who plan to conquer the planet. Omni-Man’s first hostile act is to murder his teammates the Guardians of the Globe, thinly veiled stand-ins for the Justice League. Mark stands up to his father, who almost kills him. It’s up to Mark, who is just discovering his powers to stop the Viltrumite invasion and battle other threats.
While in many ways, ‘Invincible’ follows conventional coming-of-age superhero stories like Spider-Man and the character is named after Robin/Nightwing Dick Grayson, it is also extremely violent and deals with mature themes.
Just last year, Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg were said to be developing ‘Invincible’ as a feature film for Universal. It’s unknown if that has derailed and this series is a substitution or if plans for the movie are still in place and the two will exist separately.
Amazon has only announced that this series has been ordered, but there is no further information. Check back for more as it becomes available.
