Revised Editions: Quick Thoughts on Lazarus and Invincible
By I spent over forty hours traveling to and from Hong Kong last week, and I found myself unable to sleep on the trip home. Overall, I did some academic work, read a good chunk of a history of the Qin and Han empires, and then finally gave up and looked at video screens. This is a post about what I watched.
I finally got around to seeing Shinichirō Watanabe’s most recent anime, Lazarus (2025), which is currently on Netflix (HBO Max). The show’s marketing, as well as its look and feel, lean very hard into the whole “new anime by the creator and director of Cowboy Beebop” thing. I don’t recall his intervening works having quite the same vibe, so I am sure there’s some kind of story behind this.
Lazarus pivots around a team of misfits assembled in search of a genius scientist. Per Wikipedia:
In the utopian year 2049, the world-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Skinner has discovered a miracle analgesic drug known as “Hapna” that completely relieves the user of any pain, shortly before disappearing off the face of the Earth. Three years later in October 2052, Skinner resurfaces to the public in an online video to announce the drug has a three-year half-life and that soon, everyone who took it will die. A task force of five agents, called “Lazarus”, is assembled to locate Skinner within 30 days and get him to divulge a vaccine before the first wave of Hapna users die
Lazarus was… fine. I enjoyed it, but the main plot really didn’t hold together very well, and one of its final “reveals” didn’t really add up. I am still unsure if the audience was supposed to spot Dr. Skinner fairly early on — thus putting us, in principle, into the domain of Hitchcockian suspense — in much the same way as I remain unclear as to whether the “drink switch” in Knives Out: Glass Onion was intended to be so obvious as to defy misdirection. But I won’t go into more details, since I think the statute of limitation on spoiler-free discussions doesn’t run out for another year or three.
I also caught up on the seasons 2–4 of Invincible, which I thought was terrific. The storyline and characterizations involve a decent amount of meta-commentary on the superhero genre, but it mercifully avoids becoming yet another retread of the arguments Alan Moore made four decades ago in Watchmen. So it’s interesting that James Gunn genuflected toward Invincible in his recent Superman film. Indeed, like Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, Invincible blends genuine humor with a bit too much gore — yes, even in the sanitized television adaptation.
Per my last comment, I just finished reading through the entire run of the core Invincible comic. My take is that the television show is the superior version. The show is a kind of revised edition. It recreates some scenes word-for-word, but it also rearranges plot elements for the better, uses superior models for some of its key characters, and mercifully addresses some of the more problematic ways in which comic handles sex and gender.
In the comic book, for example, Mark Grayson’s (aka Invincible) first girlfriend, Amber Bennett, has two character traits. She’s hot, and she wants to wait to have sex with Mark. Their early relationship mostly takes place “off panel” (so much so that I looked back over the early issues to see if I’d missed anything). In the cartoon, though, she’s a much more developed character and, more importantly, both exercises and cares deeply about her own agency. Regardless of what one thinks of the specifics of Amber’s retooling, the show at least tries to make its audience invested in Mark and Amber’s relationship. The comic book treats it as a throwaway — nothing more than a device to delay a coupling that readers have already figured out is inevitable.
These kinds of changes, while often subtle, are something of a leitmotif in the television adaptation. Allen the Alien’s girlfriend, Telia, is portrayed (mostly) as a scantily-clad sexpot in the comic book. In the show, she’s a general in the Coalition military. In the show, Telia actively participates in major storylines. In the comic book, she mostly seems to scold other characters in unpleasant ways. Simple gender swaps – such as making Shrinking Rae, Tech Jacket, and Green Ghost women — not only bring greater balance to the cast but also, in some cases, allows for better storytelling.
Anyway, I give Lazarus a generous B and Invincible an A-. If you have your own opinions, please share. Or just discuss anything you’ve been watching or reading in recent weeks. That’ll work, too.
This is your reminder that the LGM’s fundraiser is almost done.
