Robert Kirkman explains that ultra-violent twist in Invincible

Are you watching Invincible, the subversive superhero show on Amazon Prime Video that isn’t The Boys? If not, it might be be worth your time. The first three episodes are earnest, fun and full of superhero action, with some major twists along the way.

The biggest came right at the end of the first episode. (Go no further if you want to avoid SPOILERS.) The premiere introduced us to a pretty wholesome-seeming cast of characters: there was Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), a Superman equivalent, his wife Debbie (Sandra Oh) and their teenaged son Mark (Steven Yeun). Mark is finally coming into his powers, and his dad is teaching him how to be a hero. It’s practically Leave It To Beaver with superheroes.

Except then Omni-Man pops off on the Guardians of the Globe, this world’s version of the Justice League, and slaughters all of them for reasons yet unknown. Who saw that coming?

Well, if you read Robert Kirkman’s comic book, you did, but for the rest of us it was a surprise. Kirkman, who’s also responsible for The Walking Dead comics, talked to The Wrap about the twist, which happens several issues in on the page.

“By moving that event up– in the comic book series, it happens much later and there isn’t this sense of, ‘Oh my gosh, when are people going to find out? And what are they going to do when they find out?’” Kirkman said. “Because everything just kind of rolls from there. By having it move up, we do get an extra sense of like, ‘Oh my gosh, Debbie has no clue what’s going on with her husband. And how is she going to find out, if she finds out or when she finds out?’ It should build a lot of tension in the series and should be something that keeps you guessing episode to episode.”

"I think that’s kind of the ticking clock of the series is, who is going to find out and when and what they are going to do with that information? Damien Darkblood is definitely hot on the trail. Whether that comes to a head in Episode 4 or Episode 5 or Episode 6 I’ll leave to the mystery of the series. But you know, you should very much be worried."

I am worried! And I am wondering when people are going to find out, and would prefer it be sooner rather than later. So the twist definitely had the intended effect on me.

Why did Omni-Man kill the Guardians of the Globe?

There’s also the matter of why Omni-Man did what he did. Again, if you’ve read the comics, you know, but the rest of us are in the dark. It’s even possible to wonder if he’s being controlled or manipulated or something. Confusion reigns!

“Yeah, that’s by design,” Kirkman said. “There should be a little bit of mystery to that. Why did he do it? Was he being controlled? Is this something that he was aware that he was doing at the time? What purpose could killing these heroes actually serve? these are all questions that you should be asking yourself. And there’s little glimpses of a different kind of Nolan that we see from time to time that might make you possibly worry, like, ‘Oh man, maybe he did do this deliberately. I don’t understand.’ That’s all there by design.”

New episodes of Invincible drop on Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.

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