When the season finale of Prime Video’s adult animated series Invincible aired in April 2021, Amazon announced that it had been renewed for two more seasons. Fans presumed that the second season would be getting underway almost immediately, but star Steven Yeun has revealed that the cast have not started recording their dialogue for the second season yet.
Appetite for ‘grown up’ superhero fare that involves sex, swearing and oodles of violence has been climbing in recent years, with Watchmen, The Boys, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and spin-off show Peacemaker. Once the Netflix Marvel shows (which skewed far darker and more adult than the Disney Plus MCU shows) ended, it left a gap that these shows have filled.
Invincible was a critically-acclaimed entry into both adult animation series and the darker, more violent superhero shows. Now, we all know that animation takes time, but it is still somewhat surprising that when Yeun (who plays main character Mark Grayson) was interviewed by Collider a few days ago, he said that they haven’t started on season two yet.
Yeun says; “We haven’t started. I know we’re starting at some point soon. I’ve talked to Robert [Kirkman], here and there. He’s super excited about it. He thinks Season 2 is gonna be even better than Season 1, which I have no doubt about.”
“If you go to his source material, Invincible is an incredible comic, and just thinking about how much story hasn’t been told from that run, it’s gonna be bonkers. I’m really excited about it.”
Yeun also expressed surprise at the reaction to the show; “I’ll be honest, I did not expect this level of response. People really enjoyed the show. That’s not to say that I thought the show wouldn’t be enjoyed. I just didn’t know how many people were coming to it like that.”
Yeun discussed adult animation more generally, with shows like BoJack Horseman, Big Mouth and Tuca & Bertie all becoming cult favourites; “To me, I think it speaks to America’s appetite now for adult animation, which is really cool. I grew up on it. I think all of us, of our generation and below, grew up on it. Largely, our programming was dictated by the generations before us, that didn’t necessarily love animation that way. We’re in a weird, cool time where I’m seeing so many kids watch anime and so many people watch adult animation.”
Yeun concluded; “People are learning about Don Hertzfeldt [director of the World of Tomorrow series]. It’s thriving. I think we’re probably on the precipice of right before things really pop off. I think we’re gonna get some hopefully Hayao Miyazaki levels of animation. We do with Pixar, but I just mean coming from different places. It’s a new world. It’s certainly all brand new.”
Check out our guides to the best anime series and the best animated series here.