Prime Video's 10/10 Superhero Series Makes The MCU's Multiverse Look Small

While Prime Video’s dark superhero show might technically be a far smaller project than the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe, the show’s take on the source comic’s multiverse ironically feels far larger. As Castlevania’s ability to outdo The Witcher’s fictional worldbuilding proves, animated projects have a leg up on their live-action competitors when it comes to realizing immersive imaginary worlds onscreen. Put simply, animation as a medium offers creators more freedom, which is why Netflix’s Love, Death and Robots can pull off plots that would simply be impossible to realize onscreen in live-action shows of the same genre, like Black Mirror.

That said, Prime Video’s darkest R-rated superhero series has another edge over one of its biggest competitors that has nothing to do with its animated format. Based on the Image Comics comic book series of the same name by The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman, this show’s story initially focuses on Mark Grayson, a conflicted teen who inherits superhero status from his father, Omni-Man. While not as darkly satirical as Prime Video’s The Boys or Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy shows, the series does darkly deconstruct the tropes of conventional superhero stories.

One of many ways that Prime Video’s Invincible toys with comic book genre conventions is the introduction of its multiverse, which highlights the fact that most of Mark’s alternate selves from parallel realities are more likely to give in to temptation and join forces with Omni-Man than he is. In Mark’s season 2 showdown with Angstrom Levy, his first taste of the multiverse saw him cycle through numerous new versions of his reality as he attempted to beat the villain to death.

Invincible’s Multiverse Avoids A Major MCU Problem

Since then, whenever the show has invoked the multiverse, its various versions of Invincible’s reality have felt bigger, more ambitious, and more interesting than the surprisingly limited view of the multiverse put forth in the MCU. For example, the various takes on Invincible are a lot more varied compared to the MCU’s different iterations of heroes, where viewers are given little more than Benedict Cumberbatch with a different haircut as evidence of an entire alternate reality’s existence.

Although the MCU’s multiverse has allowed a lot of fun team-ups from old and new versions of the same characters, that is generally where the franchise’s ambitions end when it comes to this trope. Much like Invincible’s brutal deconstruction of superhero tropes DWQDWQ already took the maxim of great power coming with great responsibility to a darker, more morally ambiguous place than the comparatively family-friendly MCU, Invincible’s take on the multiverse also feels more morally fraught and complex.

Ironically, despite its multiverse feeling deeper and more believable, Invincible also resolves the opposite issue of the MCU’s experimentation with the concept. Even though the multiverse is usually a conduit for cameos and one-off Easter eggs within the MCU, the massive franchise still doesn’t really have a “main” universe, per se. By incorporating older franchise continuities that viewers love as much as the new movies, like the 2000s X-Men or Raimi’s Spider-Man movies, the MCU tacitly devalues the primacy of its own universe.

In contrast, the world of Invincible has one universe that the audience is supposed to truly care about, and an ever-present multiverse that is only utilized on occasion and never threatens the audience’s attachment to the main storyline. This doesn’t diminish the show’s stakes as much as having 3 equally “real” Spider-Men, or having Jon Krasinski’s Mr. Fantastic die before viewers have even seen Pedro Pascal’s version of the character onscreen. Thus, despite having a much smaller, more limited scope, Invincible has ironically managed to make its multiverse feel far bigger and more daring than the MCU’s take on the concept.