Invincible: A Superhero Fathers a Family

In a new animated series, a high school senior lives life with a superhero father 

Fans of the Invincible comic books will get to see their fave superhero universe come to life, in animated form, on Amazon Prime Video.

Invincible, based on the Skybound/Image comic of the same name, follows the adventures of 17-year-old Mark Grayson (voiced by Steven Yeun, late of The Walking Dead), a normal high school kid with one major difference: his father is the most powerful caped crusader in the universe.

Omni-Man (Whiplash‘s J.K. Simmons), while being everything one might want in a superhero, is also a great dad to Mark. But as the boy starts to become a man, develops powers of his own and becomes “invincible,” he discovers his father’s legacy might not be so heroic as it seems.

Created by Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) and Cory Walker, the series also features Sandra Oh (Killing Eve), Seth Rogen (This Is the End), Gillian Jacobs (Community), Mark Hamill (Star Wars) and Walton Goggins (Justified) in the talented voice cast.

Kirkman has been working in this universe since 2003, when he and Walker first conceived the Invincible comic book series. But he says once he heard the actors speaking as the characters, he discovered new dimensions in Debbie Grayson, Atom Eve, the Mauler Twins and the others.

“It’s really a process of me getting to know these characters over the course of this show in a way that I never did before,” Kirkman explains. “Because once you hear the way that Steven Yeun is portraying Invincible, even as a co-creator of this, I get to have a new understanding of who this character is, just from that performance.

“And it’s just a really remarkable experience that’s very difficult to put into words,” he continues. “Like, there’s a tangibility of hearing Sandra Oh portray Debbie, a character I’ve known for almost 20 years, that just kind of shows you new layers to that character that you never knew existed. And it really brings a lot of depth to the show that I think is really amazing.”

And, the writer adds, it also changes how he writes the characters.

“It gets to a point where you can kind of hear the actors in your head,” he says. “It’s almost a religious experience. It’s like you’re hearing a fictional character speak for the first time.”

Invincible streams Fridays on Amazon Prime Video