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Invincible's Showrunner Discusses the Challenges of Creating Season Finale

The finale of "Invincible" showcased the true destruction that can happen when a city is turned into a battlefield by two overpowered people.

Still image from Invincible
Still image from Invincible
Image: Amazon

The finale of Invincible showcased the true destruction that can happen when a city is turned into a battlefield by two overpowered people. Robert Kirkman and the team behind Amazons’ animated series Invincible went balls to the wall with death and chaos, showing how people caught in the middle of personal vendettas are the ones who suffer most.

The season finale shocked Invincible comic and animation fans with its violent and gory fight between Mark (Steven Yuen) and Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons). Showrunner Simon Racioppa talked to /Film about the finale of Invincible, expanding beyond the comic book, and why that helped tell an engaging story.

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“We actually follow the comic books as closely as we can, or pretty close. If there are panels or events or moments that happened in the books that we’re like, “That should be in the show,” we put it in the show.” He continues on to say that the comic had moments that they just took the liberty to expand.

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“There is a section in the books that happens when Mark confronts his father, who ends up taking Mark, and they smash down into the subway. You don’t see what happens down there, but you see that some trains are crashing. It’s a much smaller moment, and it only happens across two panels.”

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Kirkman (who wrote the finale) wanted to make clear to the audience how worthless humanity is to them and forcing Mark to see the extent of his powers, so he made the scene as brutal as possible. Not just this scene, but the entire episode was challenging to pull off. Everyone involved wanted gore but also wanted to pack an emotional punch and not just use violence blindly.

“We used some 3D software to help simulate crowds that are a little further away from cameras just to make it even possible,” says Racioppa. “If we didn’t use that, our crowds would be like eight people. We don’t have the time and the budget to do any more than that. It’s hard with huge crowds.”

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Invincible was so well received by fans and critics that before the season was over, Amazon renewed the show for a second and third season, so expect the stakes, and body count, to be even higher.

Please read the full interview, as Rapcioppa breaks down what it took to make the episode come to life.

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