Amazon hits another super hero home-run with gory, funny, INVINCIBLE

“What if the greatest me isn’t enough?”

Amazon Prime’s INVINCIBLE aired over the course of these past two months and is now available to stream in it’s entirety. And you will watch the entire 8-episode run in one night and beg for more.

Adapted from Robert Kirkman’s 2000’s superhero subversion comic, INVINCIBLE has a bright color palette, recognizable and stylish art, and a story that starts off similar to your average Marvel or DC superhero adventure. That is, until it takes a deep, dark, turn down south and forks before simultaneously being a fun coming-of-age tale and a bloody-soaked, dark, conspiracy story before these finally converge into something that tonally smashes WATCHMEN and INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE together.

It’s amazing.

Earth, under constant threat of alien invasion and super villain machinations, is protected by a wide variety of super hero organizations including the “Teen Team” (a riff on Teen Titans) and “The Guardians of the Globe” (a mash-up of the Justice League). None of them are more powerful than Omni-Man, an alien son of a lost alien world who came to Earth to protect it’s people (sound familiar?)

Omni-Man’s son, Mark Grayson, is a high-school nerd with no apparent super powers of his own, and spends his time working at a fast food burger joint and reading comics with his best friend. He watches his dad and other heroes in awe. But after Earth’s defenders, The Guardians of the Globe, are brutally slaughtered Mark’s powers soon awaken as he finds himself in the middle of a power-vacuum and a shocking plot at world domination. I’m being as vague as I possibly can, because I don’t want to spoil the first episode’s gut-wrenching finale.

INVINCIBLE is Amazon’s second “adult superhero” show behind THE BOYS, and while the latter is a live-action drama with great special effects and costumes, the former brings the pages of Kirkman’s comic book (done wonderfully by artist Cory Walker) to life with hand-drawn 2D animation, bright visuals, disgusting gore effects, and a rocking, kicking, boisterous soundtrack with tunes from Cage the Elephant, Vampire Weekend, Run The Jewels, ELIO, and Bazzi.

Told over the course of 8 episodes, INVINCIBLE is funny, action-packed, and even thought provoking. It does an excellent job and setting up the world well enough that it feels authentically lived in but not excessive enough that the audience feels bogged down or that they have to catch up on 200+ issues of the comic book to get any in-depth information.

Now let’s talk about any animated series’ crutch. Pillar. Kryptonite. Salvation: the voice cast.

A literal Who’s Who of talent includes leads J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson from the Spider-Man films) as Omni-Man and Steven Yeun (Glenn in The Walking Dead) as Mark Grayson aka Invincible with Sandra Oh (Gray’s Anatomy) as Mark’s mom, Zazie Beetz (FX’s Atlanta) as his love interest Amber, Walton Goggins, Gillian Jacobs, Zachary Quinto, Khary Payton, Clancy Brown, Mark Hamill, Mahershala Ali, Seth Rogen, John Hamm, Ezra Miller, Jeffery Donovan, Djimon Hounsou, and even more if you can believe that.

The direction of the show elicits some fantastic vocal work from this cast of stars, and it is the dedication from all these players that keeps the show grounded and soulful when it is bouncing between wacky plots like a road trip to Mars and serious drama.

With super hero shows dominating network TV and streaming services, Amazon was smart to green-light INVINCIBLE as an animated series so that it wouldn’t get lost between the DC and Marvel live action soap operas.

I could honestly say that after I finished episode 8 of INVINCIBLE, I wanted to run it back and watch it again. It was a ridiculously good time, and you won’t regret it.