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Robert Kirkman Breaks Down Invincible Season 2’s Multiverse Elements: “Extremely Different Than Everything Else”-TGN

Summary

  • Robert Kirkman teases that Invincible season 2 will introduce villain Angstrom Levy and explore the concept of the multiverse, but promises a unique and character-based approach.

  • The introduction of the multiverse in Invincible predates popular comic book adaptations like Spider-Verse and Flashpoint, but will have a fresh take on the concept.

  • Kirkman aims to use the multiverse as a storytelling tool rather than just a way to showcase different versions of familiar characters, bringing a cool and exciting twist to the narrative.

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With the concept becoming popular across the comic book genre, Robert Kirkman is sharing how Invincible season 2’s multiverse will be different from other similar efforts. Season 2 of the animated Prime Video show will see Steven Yeun’s eponymous hero and his mom, Sandra Oh’s Debbie, struggling to process the shocking reveal that patriarch Omni-Man secretly had villainous intentions and has left the world. With the world seemingly left unprotected, a variety of villains scheme to rise up, including Sterling K. Brown’s Angstrom Levy.

In honor of the franchise’s San Diego Comic-Con 2023 panel, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with Robert Kirkman to discuss Invincible season 2. When asked about what audiences could expect from the show’s return, the comic book creator teased how the introduction of villain Angstrom Levy will also bring with it a trip into the multiverse, but assures that it will be “extremely different than everything else,” further noting that his comics explored the concept before the likes of Spider-Verse and Flashpoint. See what Kirkman explained below:

For season 2, I’ve talked about how Angstrom Levy is maybe not necessarily the main villain of the season, but he’s a core aspect of season 2. I think that there’s a lot of multiverse stuff going on in the media, and it’s frustrating because when the Angstrom Levy storyline was happening in the comic books, the Spider-Verse didn’t exist. Flashpoint had never happened. There was a multiverse in DC Comics, but there wasn’t a myriad of multiverses like there are in media now.

It’s really cool because the way that we’re handling alternate dimensions is extremely different than everything else. It’s a little bit more character-based. It’s a little bit more focused. It’s not just used as a tool to give you a hundred different versions of a cool thing that you love. It’s really a storytelling tool that we use in a cool way. I think that coming in at this time and treating the multiverse in such a different way is going to be really neat, so I’m really excited about what we’re doing with Angstrom Levy.

Editor’s Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the show covered here would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.

Can Invincible Save The Multiverse Story Concept?

Introduced in 2006’s Invincible #14, Angstrom Levy is a man with the ability to create portals to alternate dimensions who, in an attempt to harness the knowledge from his alternate versions with the help of the Mauler twins, is left disfigured and desiring vengeance against Invincible. Levy would go on to become one of the most recurring villains in the comics and is largely considered by many to be his arch-nemesis, frequently using his dimension-traveling abilities to enlist multiple versions of villains and evil incarnations of Invincible himself.

Though it’s unclear how much of the multiverse Invincible season 2 will feature, it will be interesting to see if it can save the story concept from feeling overused. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was the first of the live-action comic book franchises to tap into the concept with the likes of WandaVision, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the former two of which were critically acclaimed, while the latter garnered more mixed reviews for how it handled it. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania finally introduced The Multiverse Saga’s big bad with Kang the Conqueror, including a post-credits tease with countless variants of him.

Related: Every Version Of Kang In Quantumania’s Post-Credits Scenes

The DC Extended Universe, now becoming the DC Universe, finally broke into its multiverse storytelling with The Flash this year, though it was similarly met with mixed reviews and left the future of the franchise still unclear for its various actors. Given Kirkman got a jump start on the multiverse with his comics, and the show being just as much a satirical look at the superhero genre as a sincere one, it will be interesting to see if Invincible season 2’s dive into the concept will help revitalize it for audiences, or if it succumbs to the same issues of its counterparts.