Invincible’s Robert Kirkman on Why Hope Is Important in Superhero Stories

The season finale of Invincible hit today, and while the episode was largely consumed by an epic, bloody throwdown between the titular hero and his father, the former hero known as Omni-Man, the next generation of heroes had a very different story. While Mark’s father was the source of most of the episode’s conflict, the heroes who are Mark’s age had a different, more idealistic, almost Silver Age sensibility to them. Their friendship, compassion, and cooperation served to show the audience that, no matter how violent things got or how badly Omni-Man was dedicated to making things, there was still hope.

That idea — hope — is something that means a lot to executive producer Robert Kirkman, who wrote the comic the show is based on as well as this week’s episode. He told us during a recent interview that he wanted to steer away from feeling cynical.

“I think the main thing there is, I don’t want to mean to have Invincible be a cynical superhero story,” Kirkman told ComicBook. “I think there’s still an optimism to it. There’s still a wide-eyed, hopeful superhero energy to it, because I feel like that’s a great superhero story. You want that optimism. You want a superhero that can smile. You want some cheers. It doesn’t need to be grim and gritty and it doesn’t need to be dark, just because it is horrifically stark and violent sometimes. I want to make sure that there’s always a counterbalance. I don’t ever want Invincible to just be one thing. You’re not going to recognize how dramatic, and scary, and dark you get if you don’t have those moments of optimism and joy that you can take away”

From The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, and based on the Image/Skybound comic of the same name by Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley, Invincible is an hour-long, adult animated superhero show that revolves around seventeen-year-old Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), who’s just like every other guy his age—except that his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons). But as Mark develops powers of his own, he discovers that his father’s legacy may not be as heroic as it seems.

Invincible stars Sandra Oh (Killing Eve), Seth Rogen (This is the End), Gillian Jacobs (Community), Andrew Rannells (Black Monday, Girls), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), Mark Hamill (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Walton Goggins (Justified), Jason Mantzoukas (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek), Mahershala Ali (Moonlight), Melise (The Flash), Kevin Michael Richardson (The Simpsons), Grey Griffin (Avengers Assemble), Khary Payton (The Walking Dead) and more.

You can stream the whole first season of Invincible on Amazon Prime Video.