Following the events of the first three episodes of Invincible 4, the on-demand streaming platform Prime Video has shared a brief teaser for the next episode of the animated TV series... and it looks like Mark Grayson’s latest mission will take him to Hell—literally. As you can see in the post at the bottom of the article, Prime Video has released a teaser for episode four of Invincible 4, and the clip hints at a descent into the underworld for the protagonist.
In the post-credits scene of the Season 3 finale, the demonic detective Damien Darkblood (Clancy Brown)—whom we haven’t seen since Cecil banished him in season one—summons a more powerful demon (Satan?) voiced by Evil Dead legend Bruce Campbell, and tells him about a “surface dweller” who might be able to restore his master to his former glory. This sets the stage for a Season 4 storyline that didn’t play out in the Invincible comics and could potentially see Mark Grayson traveling to Hell to battle the Devil himself.
“In the comics, Mark was never sent to Hell,” Robert Kirkman said last year regarding Darkblood’s unexpected return. "He was a fantastic character we’ve loved since the first season. Clancy Brown’s performance was flawless and truly exceptional. We always wanted to find a way to bring Damian Darkblood back into the series, and then... Oh my God, am I giving something away? There’s a comic book storyline I never got around to doing. Every superhero story has a chapter where the characters go to Hell and fight the devil. It happens in DC and Marvel comics. It’s a big deal. I never got around to doing anything like that in the Invincible comic. I kept getting distracted, and there was never the right moment. So we’re going to do something like that in the animated series, and that post-credit scene is really just setting up that storyline. And oh my God, we were lucky enough to work with Bruce Campbell. It’s the best. Bruce Campbell playing the devil? He could be the devil. He could be. We’ll see. Maybe I shouldn’t have revealed that...".
In an interview with The Direct, however, Robert Kirkman and co-showrunner Simon Racioppa promised that the fourth season of Invincible will contain the most violent sequence in the entire series.
“The escalation of violence is intentional,” Kirkman said when asked about this season's bloodbath. "Every time we shoot one of the series' key scenes, we always try to keep in mind how to top it in the future, so we know where we want to go. But yes. I mean, it's all about the emotions. It's never gratuitous. We want to make sure that, as the series progresses, that same feeling of ‘Oh my God, what am I watching?’ that’s been with us so far stays with us. It’s gone from the clash with Omni-Man at the end of season one to the various things we’ve done in seasons two and three. We never want the audience to get used to what they’re seeing, or to become desensitized to the twists. And so we always try to maintain that balance."
He continued: “I mean, the scene in question gives us chills. We feel uncomfortable watching it too. It’s in those moments that we realize we’ve done a good job.”
Racioppa added: "Exactly. When you see it for the hundredth time, and for another hundred times, you still ask yourself: did we go too far? Maybe yes, maybe no."
Although Invincible offers much more than just its visceral violence (superb storytelling, voice acting, soundtrack, animation), the Prime Video animated series has become famous for raising the bar when it comes to bloody carnage: from Omni-Man’s brutal beating of his son, Mark Grayson, in the first season, to Mark’s destruction of Angstrom Levy, all the way to the insane battle with Conquest in the Season 3 finale, fans have come to expect a certain level of brutality from this show…and it looks like Season 4 will raise the bar even higher!