While Amazon Prime Video's animated adaptation of Invincible has stayed relatively faithful to the original comic book story, there have been deviations, including an earlier introduction of Cecil Stedman.
Heading the Global Defense Agency, Cecil Steadman appeared in the aftermath of the Guardians of the Globe's massacre at the hands of Omni-Man, suspicious of the superhero's role in the murders. This culminated in Cecil confronting Omni-Man directly in Season 1's penultimate episode to stall him until reinforcements arrived. With this scene is not in the comics, series creator Robert Kirkman explained Cecil's earlier inclusion in the story.
"That's been a lot of fun because you're making a decision here and there that's very small and there's a cascading effect that moves through the series. And that's something that we experienced awhile on The Walking Dead," Kirkman told CBR. "We were doing little changes in Season 1, 2 and 3 so, then by Season 6, okay this story has to be completely different now because all the beats are different. We decided very early on to introduce Cecil in Episode 2 and Cecil is not introduced in the comic book series until after the confrontation between Omni-Man and Invincible."
In the comics, Cecil had operated from the shadows until the full extent of Omni-Man's intentions and his Viltrumite mission was exposed. Given the stakes of the story and Cecil's earlier introduction, Kirkman and the writers felt Cecil playing a more active role in the battle against Omni-Man closing out Season 1 made perfect sense.
"Basically every scene with Cecil this season is new because he's present and you're aware of him," Kirkman said. "In the writers' room, me and [showrunner Simon Racioppa] and everybody else are putting our heads together to figure out how to get these scenes to work, and you get to point where you go, 'Of course there's going to be a confrontation between Omni-Man and Cecil because Cecil is actually here.' He was present and in the shadows but hadn't been revealed yet in the comic book series so you have to change things to make that work."
Invincible stars Steven Yeun, J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, Seth Rogen, Gillian Jacobs, Andrew Rannells, Zazie Beetz, Mark Hamill, Walton Goggins, Jason Mantzoukas, Mae Whitman, Chris Diamantopoulos, Melise, Kevin Michael Richardson, Khary Payton, Grey Griffin and Max Burkholder. The series is produced by Skybound, and executive produced by Robert Kirkman, Simon Racioppa, David Alpert and Catherine Winder. The first season is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.