The Boys Meets Spider-Man In Prime Video's 4-Part Sci-Fi Series

Published Sep 2, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT Tom is a Senior Staff Writer at Screen Rant, with expertise covering everything from hilarious sitcoms to jaw-dropping sci-fi epics. Initially he was an Updates writer, though before long he found his way to the TV and movies team. He now spends his days keeping Screen Rant readers informed about the TV shows of yesteryear, whether it's recommending hidden gems that may have been missed by genre fans or deep diving into ways your favorite shows have (or haven't) stood the test of time. Tom is based in the UK and when he's not writing about TV shows, he's watching them. He's also an avid horror fiction writer, gamer, and has a Dungeons and Dragons habit that he tries (and fails) to keep in check. When The Boys arrived on Prime Video in 2019, it did more than give Amazon’s streaming platform a new flagship franchise. The adaptation proved that adult superhero series based on comic properties outside Marvel and DC could succeed, and that there was an eager audience waiting for them. Its cynical vision of caped icons being corporate-controlled products combined with incredibly graphic content established a major new lane for small-screen superhero adventures. Amazon was quick to capitalize on that success. Within two years, a second mature superhero series based on a popular non-Marvel/DC property arrived on the platform. Although it changed medium from live-action to animation, Invincible debuted on Prime Video in 2021 and confirmed what The Boys had hinted at: viewers were hungry for superhero TV shows with TV-MA sensibilities. Still, while the two shows share a platform and an appetite for extreme violence, their approaches to superhero stories are very different. Based on Robert Kirkman’s comic series, Invincible follows teenager Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun), the son of the Superman-esque Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) as he develops extraordinary powers and becomes the titular superhero. While Invincible and The Boys are equally mature, they take that foundation in different directions. The Boys builds a gritty, realistic setting that happens to contain superheroes, whereas Invincible embraces a colorful comic-book world, centering on a wise-cracking Spider-Man-like young hero before injecting his adventures with adult themes and ideas that constantly challenge genre conventions. Invincible Is Superheroic Coming-of-Age Story In A World As Dark As The Boys One of the key reasons Spider-Man has remained such a phenomenon is that it’s a coming-of-age story as much as a superhero one. Peter Parker's journey has always been shaped by the difficulties of growing up with the responsibilities of extraordinary power. Invincible, both the show and the comics it adapts, builds its narrative around a remarkably similar foundation. Invincible’s Mark is also a teenager attempting to balance school, family, friendships, and romance alongside the demanding life of a young superhero. Like Peter Parker, Mark in Invincible also has a wise-cracking personality and an initial enthusiasm for superheroism. Mark wants to become a great hero, and much of Invincible's early appeal comes from watching him learn what that actually requires when his powers aren’t enough. The masterstroke is placing this familiar Spider-Man-style premise inside a world with the dark and violent atmosphere of The Boys. Invincible doesn’t treat its young protagonist's age and inexperience as a reason to soften its world. Instead, Mark's coming-of-age story unfolds amid brutal deaths and horrifying injuries of the kind that would feel right at home in The Boys. That combination makes Mark's journey especially entertaining, because the optimism and energy associated with Spider-Man are constantly colliding with a world that is often as merciless as Homelander and Butcher. The Scale Of Invincible Rivals Any Other Superhero Show Blending a Spider-Man-style superheroic coming-of-age narrative with an adult, The Boys-like tone is already an incredibly compelling premise. However, Invincible does not spend four seasons simply extracting as much narrative material as possible from Mark's transition into a superhero. The series expands rapidly, turning what initially appears to be a relatively personal origin story into something considerably larger. Mark's journey quickly evolves beyond discovering his identity as Invincible. His powers and father, Omni-Man, connect him to the Kryptonian-like Viltrumites, expanding Invincible into an increasingly vast conflict involving alien civilizations, interplanetary warfare, alternate realities, and eventually multiversal threats. The scale grows so dramatically that Invincible begins to rival the MCU and DCU in the sheer breadth of its mythology. This scale even gives Invincible an edge over The Boys, which is naturally more restricted. The superhero concepts in The Boys are intentionally grounded in semi-plausible science fiction to maintain the illusion that its grotesque version of a world with supes could actually exist. The approach is essential to its satire actually working, but it also means The Boys could never comfortably explore the most outlandish and fantastical corners of superhero comic-book fiction. Invincible has no such limitations. Animation gives the series additional freedom to depict alien worlds, enormous battles, bizarre powers, and realities that would be prohibitively expensive in live-action. Combined with the fact that realism was never a goal for its tone, just violence, Invincible has been able to become a much broader mature exploration and satire of superhero media than The Boys could ever be. Its four-season story is as violent and cynical as The Boys, but Mark’s journey is much, much grander. Release Date March 26, 2021 Network Amazon Prime Video Showrunner Robert Kirkman, Simon Racioppa Cast Mark Grayson / Invincible (voice)