INVINCIBLE Season One
Dismember The Titans
UK/US Prime Video, streaming now Creator Robert Kirkman
Cast Sandra Oh, Steven Yeun,
JK Simmons, Zachary Quinto
You know how great series can sometimes come a cropper with a bungled finale? Invincible is the exact opposite.
For much of its first season, this animated adaptation of The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman’s ultraviolent comicbook take on superheroics feels like a cartoon alternative to The Boys, only not quite as good. Perfectly watchable, sure, with some memorable set-pieces and a wonderful cast of quirky characters, but all a bit derivative. Then comes an uncompromising, tense, full-on season finale, written by Kirkman himself, that leaves your jaw on the floor – and maybe the contents of your stomach too. Rarely have the potential dangers of superpowers been so graphically detailed.
It starts off in wearyingly familiar territory. Superman-style superhero Omni-man – an alien who’s become Earth’s protector – is part of a superhero team called the Guardians of the Globe. He’s also a family man, and is delighted when son Mark develops powers too, then sets about training him how to fly and punch things to a bloody pulp. Y’see, when Kirkman decides to deconstruct superheroes, he takes the word “deconstruct” literally – you won’t believe how many limbs get ripped off in this show.
Omni-man isn’t quite the hero he makes out, though. Pretty soon he secretly kills all the other Guardians. How long will it be before he’s found out, and is forced to reveal his true motives for coming to Earth?
The whiff of familiarity and a dull subplot about Mark’s beleaguered love life (which doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t learn from Peter Parker six decades ago) bog down the series for too many episodes. But the central mysteries are teased out well, the show grows steadily more intriguing as it progresses (with the exception of a tedious college campus/teenage traumas episode) and the finale makes enduring all the faff more than worthwhile. Dave Golder
Machine Head’s voice is done by putting the actor’s voice through infamous singers’ pitch-correcting software Auto-tune.