On Saturday, WonderCon 2021 held a panel for Invincible, which just had its first three episodes air to critical and audience acclaim on Amazon Prime. The panel, hosted/moderated by Amy Dallen, featured series writer/creator Robert Kirkman along with a some Walking Dead alumni who helped voice the Guardians of the Globe:
- Lauren Cohan, who voices War Woman.
- Lennie James, who voices Darkwing.
- Ross Marquand, who voices both the Immortal and Aquarus.
We’ll summarize the panel (which you can watch in its entirety below) by highlighting the most informative/interesting portions. There weren’t any big reveals, but there are a ton of spoilers about the first three episodes, so be forewarned if you haven’t gotten on the Invincible bandwagon yet.
Kirkman started the panel by discussing his decision to have the big Omni-Man reveal happen much earlier than it did in the comics (Invincible #7). He took his time in the original series establishing a fairly standard superhero story before turning everything on it’s head. For the show, however, the very end of the first episode seemed like the perfect time to reveal to a new audience just how different this series will be from what they might have been expecting.
As far as the extreme level of violence, Kirkman explained that it serves the story as it strives to show how devastating it could be if superheroes and supervillains actually existed. He also stated that Invincible being animated gives them much more freedom to have huge action sequences and incredible locations (like going to to the moon in Episode 2).
After discussing a few behind the scenes items (including how much Kirkman wanted to kill off Daryl Dixon during his time writing on the Walking Dead television series), the cast admitted their genuine shock at seeing what happened to their Guardians of the Globe characters. They recorded their lines back in 2019 without having much context aside from knowing that their deaths would happen eventually…just not in the first episode.
Ross Marquand also revealed that the Immortal would be back, which was probably obvious due to his name.
The panel finished up with the cast discussing what superpower they’d like each of their Walking Dead characters to have. Lauren Cohan wanted limited flight capabilities for Maggie and Lennie James wanted Morgan’s staff to shoot fire. Ross Marquand suggested double mace hands for Aaron, although he admitted that doing ordinary things like making a sandwich would be extraordinarily difficult.
Before signing off, Robert Kirkman teased that we still haven’t seen just how crazy or violent Invincible is going to get during it’s first season. Those of us who’ve read the source material know he’s speaking the truth and them some.
Invincible‘s fourth episode will premiere this Friday, April 2 on Amazon Prime Video.
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