Robert Kirkman talks Invincible adaptation, importance of violence in series

Following the debut of the new adult animation series Invincible on Amazon Prime Video, executive producer and series creator Robert Kirkman joined cast members Lauren Cohan, Lennie James, and Ross Marquand for a special panel at WonderCon@Home. Based on Kirkman’s comic of the same name, the hour-long series follows the story of teenager Mark Grayson as he starts following in his superhero father’s footsteps.

The first three episodes of Invincible are currently available to watch on Prime Video, and though the series is animated, there’s notably an excessive amount of violence in the story. When asked about the choice to incorporate violent sequences into the show, Kirkman explained why the realistic portrayal was so important to him.

“Invincible is striving to be a series that shows, you know what it’s like to exist in this world, and how, realistically, we would deal with incredibly super-powered beings who are trying to kill each other,” he said. Kirkman explained that too often in superhero stories, we don’t see the trauma and the effects superheroes have on the surrounding communities.

It’s these moments that are often glossed over, and Kirkman wanted to focus on how cities and everyday citizens would be affected by these situations. “When there are attacks that happen, we want to show that the normal people that inhabit our world are very much in danger, and that terrible things happen.

We want to deal with those terrible things,” he shared. “The violence is there to show you how ugly this world can be, how sad, how scary this world can be. And without that, I feel like we will be doing the world a disservice.”

Will the Invincible series closely follow the comics?

Later in the panel, Kirkman explained that when he was in the writer’s room on The Walking Dead series, he was often keen to kill off fan-favorite characters as a way to shock the audience and tell stories that were unexpected. Though he’s leaned toward making surprising changes when adapting stories from comics to television in the past, Kirkman assured fans that Invincible won’t have many significant changes.

“When it came time to adapt Invincible, it’s like a second draft for me. I get to come in and say, ‘Okay, I can make this better and I can make that better.’ But I have gotten over that urge to change things completely,” he said. “It is a well-worn path that I’ve traveled down in comic book form. I think I’ve gotten a little bit better at adapting my own material, and I didn’t spend every hour in the writer’s room trying to kill Daryl Dixon.”

Watch the complete interview from WonderCon@Home to learn more about the series from Kirkman and the cast:

The first three episodes of Invincible debuted March 26 on Amazon Prime Video. The remaining episodes will be released weekly on Fridays until the Season 1 finale on April 30.