Spoilers for Invincible Season 2 Part 2: Episode 5 ahead!
The first episode of Invincible Season 2 Part 2 dropped on Amazon Prime Video recently and has shocked fans with its story arc. The episode saw two major deaths of the new Guardians of the Globes members and fans were taken aback by the level of violence portrayed in the premiere episode of Season 2 Part 2. While Shrinking Rae’s death was anticipated as it paralleled what happened in the comics, Dupli-Kate’s death was totally unexpected by fans.
Robert Kirkman, the Invincible creator, was asked about starting Part 2 with world-shattering events and the death of characters. His reply was even colder than George R. R. Martin’s response to why he killed off major characters early in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Robert Kirkman Has A Heartless Reply To Characters Being Killed Off In Invincible
Robert Kirkman is all about subverting expectations with his Prime Video series, Invincible. Part 2 of the second season recently dropped its first episode (of this season) amidst criticisms for the delayed release of episodes. In an interview with Variety, Kirkman opened up about the recently dropped episode that had some banger moments in it.
In the episode, two major events happen — the major heroes of Earth are off in space fighting the Sequid’s invasion of the planet, while the remaining weaker heroes counter the Lizard League’s attack. In the attack on the Earth, Dupli-Kate gets killed. In his interview, Kirkman explained the motive behind killing off the character.
The creator shared that he wanted to make sure that the scenes involving the Lizard League should have the desired weight and gravitas. To raise the stakes of facing such a non-serious villain, the series had to lose a character. It also provided the audience with the sense that nothing could be predicted in an Invincible episode. Kirkman was then asked if Rex Splode was spared due to him becoming a new fan-favorite character.
Kirkman shared that he could only do dramatic things to characters if there’s drama around them. The creator suggested that even Rex Splode is not safe from a brutal death in the series. He shared that as the audience grew closer to a character, the writers could also feel the popularity of the character. For Kirkman and the Invincible writing team, this meant that the character was ready to be killed off anytime now. Kirkman shared his brutal comments with Variety:
“We’re, in a sense, kind of falling in love with them, learning to like them. We’re seeing the things emerge, where we’re like, ‘Oh, you know, look at Rex, he’s cool now; I like that guy. That guy’s got some heart,’ and that makes us go, ‘This is great.’ And so, I think we’re feeling it along with the audience, and that tells us that that fruit is ripe and ready to be plucked, and then we can kill them off.”
The episode ends in a cliffhanger, leaving the fates of Mark Grayson, Atom Eve, and the rest of the Guardians in a vague state. The episode also includes a post-credits scene that sets up Seth Rogen‘s Allen the Alien as another central character in the series.
Robert Kirkman’s Comments Are Worse Than George R. R. Martin’s GoT Comments
Game of Thrones creator George R. R. Martin revealed to The Independent that he hated low-stakes storytelling from his childhood. He was unsatisfied with the superhero stories that went nowhere, as everything would fall back in place at the end of the issue. The first change he noticed was from Stan Lee, who raised the stakes of the stories in the Marvel Comics. Martin revealed that Lee was all over his work. He shared with The Independent:
“That’s all Stan Lee, and you can see it all over my work. Unexpectedly killing characters, characters who are not what they seem, characters who are partly good and partly bad. Grey characters. You don’t know which way they’re going to jump when the moment of crisis comes. Stan Lee’s fingerprints are all over that.”
In another interview with Portuguese magazine Bang!, Martin shared that he would make sure that people would feel the deaths in his stories. He shared that he was unimpressed by the death of planet Alderaan in Star Wars since it had no emotional impact on the viewer. Martin shared with Bang!:
“When I kill a character, I want my readers to feel that death. I don’t want to be the death of Alderaan. And that’s why I think people remember the deaths in my books more because I give them more emotional impact, I think.”
While people thought Martin’s response was a bit heartless at the time, his comments were pretty on point compared to Kirkman’s. The new episode of Invincible will be released on March 22 on Amazon Prime Video.
