Robert Kirkman, the prolific comic writer behind The Walking Dead and Invincible, is gearing up for the second season of his superhero satire. But when he’s writing out the seasons of the Prime Video show, he has the benefit of hindsight; the original Invincible comic book series was first published in 2010, from Image Comics.
Variety sat down with Kirkman and directly asked how he decided what “keep from the comics” and what parts were open for tweaking. “The goal is to take what’s in the comics and enrich and deepen it,” he said. Unlike with The Walking Dead, where the show was being created while he was still writing the comics, he has a lot more room to arrange the story.
With Invincible “it’s down to the point where it’s like, that line of dialogue is going to have a bigger punch if we tweak it a little bit, because we know what we would theoretically be adapting in season six.” One of the big things that he’s able to adjust has been in response to the performers. For example, the “spectacular” Sandra Oh as Debbie really convinced Kirkman to give her more of a role, saying that she wasn’t the “biggest character in the comics.”
Debbie has “a unique perspective that’s more relatable to the audience because she has no superpowers. Her story is interesting because of everything that’s happening with her husband and her son and her being at the center of this insane world … So a lot of plots come from, ‘OK, well, what are we doing with Debbie that we didn’t do in the comics?’”
Season two of Invincible will premeire on Prime Video November 3.
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