In an era when the cultural dominance once enjoyed by the MCU seems to be slipping, and DC Comics is still trying to get some coherent version of a shared universe off the ground, our continued love affair with superhero media is being propped up by stories outside the Big Two’s framework. Amazon’s adaptation of The Boys was a massive success for five seasons, and even though it and its YA college-set spinoff Gen V are ending, the upcoming prequel Vought Rising means that its vision of superheroes as mascots for military agitprop and capitalistic advertising will stick around in some form. Amazon also has the other big current superhero fixation that doesn’t belong to Marvel or DC: Invincible, an adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s nearly 20-year-long superhero satire/parody/epic.
So much of what made the original comic work was Kirkman’s ability to both lampshade and engage with longstanding superhero trends: weightless fights between walking weapons of mass destruction, an overabundance of alternate universes, the meaninglessness of death, company-wide reboots. Part of what allows the Amazon adaptation to still feel fresh and engaging is that it can now respond to a larger ecosystem of superhero media that’s still repeating those trends, while also updating certain aspects of the story for a new medium and a new audience. Now, Mark Grayson and his supporting cast are looking to repeat those successes in another new medium, and with the help of a clever gimmick.
