Prime Video giveth and Prime Video taketh away. It may have cancelled a great show like The Wheel of Time, leaving fans like me in a lurch. But it's getting an early start on the fifth season of Invincible, the hyper-violent animated superhero series based on the comics by Robert Kirkman.
How early? According to a new video featuring the cast members in the recording booth, they're already done with the voice acting, which means they're already done with the writing, which means they're well ahead of schedule. Season 3 wrapped up back in March and season 4 is due out until sometime in 2026. At this rate, we can expect season 5 in 2027, meaning we'll actually be getting a new season of Invincible every year. In an age where more and more shows go multiple years between new seasons, this is good news.
The gang's all here in this video: we have Steven Yeun (Invincible), Gillian Jacobs (Atom Eve), J.K. Simmons (Omni-Man), Sandra Oh (Debbie), Walton Goggins (Cecil Stedman), Clancy Brown (Damien Darkblood), Jonathan Banks (Conquest), Ben Schwartz (Shapesmith), Seth Rogan (Allen the Alien), and more. There's also a surprise visit from The Americans star Matthew Rhys, who is playing an undisclosed role. No show puts a cast together like Invincible.
Season 3 ended with Mark Grayson, aka Invincible, taking on Conquest, a Viltrumite invader who put up the toughest fight of any opponent Mark has faced yet. The battle was brutal and, this being Invincible, unconscionably gory, but Mark pulled out a victory with the help of Atom Eve.
And then Cecil Stedman locked up Conquest deep below ground so he could be studied, rather than killing the guy as everyone and their mother knows he should have done. Obviously that won't come back to bit anybody square in the ass.
There's a lot of story ahead of Mark in the Invincible comics. Most immediately, there's an all-out war with the Viltrumites on the horizon. Kirkman has said he sees the show lasting anywhere from eight to 10 seasons. That's an ambitious target for most shows these days, but clearly Amazon believes in the series; it's their most successful animated outing, per The A.V. Club. With Amazon taking steps to keep waits between seasons to a minimum and the story about to enter very exciting territory, I have no doubt it make last that long.