First off I'd like to thank wikipedia who, many years ago while The Walking Dead was still pretty good, kept me from overly spoiling myself for Kirkman's second biggest claim to fame. An ultra violent superhero deconstruction called Invincible.
The surface level of the comic, as well as Amazon's 40 minute animated treatment, doesn't give the sense that there's anything overly special about it. A teenage son of superman stand in, omni-man, gets superpowers and learns how to use them while navigating high school relationships. Synopsis wise it's been done to death. What can a little blood and emotional trauma really add to that sort of thing? For me, quite a damn bit.
I'm a sucker for a good inverted murder mystery and this first season revolves around a damn fine superhero Columbo caper. What's more is the cast is stacked to the gills both with guys you've known for years (Stephen Yeung, Sandra Oh, J.K. Simmons) as well as Saturday morning cartoon wrecking crew dudes (Grey Griffin, Clancy Brown, Kevin Michael Richardson). Holy balls do I love this cast.
For one it shows that it, like it's source material, it isn't embarrassed of where it came from. It loves a good supervillain quip fest but it also has realistic expectations for the actions of teenagers put in charge of life and death circumstances. The innocent lives lost in a downtown laser gun fight are given the weight of a war movie and it just. frikken. works. Pile on some government intrigue with a healthy dollop of Walton Goggins and I'm in for the long run.
There are some sour notes, unfortunately. Some comedy bits work better than others, Invincible's gay best friend feels more like a ticked box than a human being, and a lot of the teenage romance dialogue falls uncomfortably flat. Though the slow disintegration of Omni-man's marriage really worked for me. J.K. Simmons has earned a black belt in passive-aggressive rage.
There's alot more I'd like to share, Clancy Brown's homicide detective for one and Jon Hamm's character for another. But the less you know going in the better. It's a solid "coming of age" superhero yarn first then it lets politics, biology, greed, and human error get in the way. I can't recommend it enough.
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| Put some pepper on the next one |
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