Invincible has neglected a key character - now season 4 needs to do him justice
What exactly has happened to William Clockwell?
Being a superhero is never easy, but Mark Grayson is having an especially hard time of it lately.
Invincible season 4 starts on a downer following the messed up place we left Mark in season 3.
Following his battle to the death with Conquest, not to mention all the casualties that happened along the way, Invincible is now completely disillusioned with life as a superhero. And what's worse is that he's starting to see killing as a potential option if it will stop villains from doing more harm.
Never mind all the horrors that came with his girlfriend (briefly) dying and everything that went on with his father beforehand.
In short, Mark needs a friend. And not just another superhero on the Guardians team, or even his girlfriend, but an actual friend who knows Mark inside out, someone who's been there with him since the start. You know, someone who can be entirely objective about the superhero stuff.
If only someone like that was available… Oh wait, there actually is someone who perfectly fits that bill. Anyone else remember William Clockwell?
Before Prime Video's adaptation of Invincible began, creator Robert Kirkman promised that “William is an essential part of the Invincible story” (via Metro Weekly). And at first, it seemed like that was definitely going to be the case.
In the very first episode, William's sexuality was immediately established without it becoming a topic of discussion. There was no turmoil or big coming out scene, which stands in stark contrast to William's introduction in the comics, two decades prior.
The original William doesn't come out to Mark until #80, published back in 2011. Before that, there were a few scenes where Mark and even Atom Eve described things as "so gay" in the derogatory sense that was (unfortunately) popular to say back then.
By skipping over all that, the TV series also sidestepped the awkward homophobia, updating this story for modern times. The problem, however, is that William still ends up falling into the gay best friend trope, always hyping Mark up with very little agency of his own.
In an early interview with Digital Spy, William voice actor Andrew Rannells star suggested that "William's not a typical 'this is the gay friend of the lead character'."
"They did a really fantastic job of making sure that he's not just a side character," Rannells added, yet William's actual trajectory in the first season tells a very different story.
Across the first five episodes, Mark's best friend barely even registered as a character. Instead, the writers were far more focused on our hero's romantic feelings for Amber. And when Invincible did need advice, he turned to Atomic Eve, not William, because she knew what he was going through as a fledgling superhero.
The sixth episode of season 1 briefly attempted to re-establish William as an important character when he became the star of his own storyline.
Watching William visit his boyfriend Rick at university, it was refreshing to see him enjoy a relationship completely separate from the friendship he shares with Mark. However, things took an unfortunate turn when William's boyfriend was transformed into a monster and beaten up pretty bad by the end.
After being sidelined for so long, William was finally given a proper love interest of his own, only for them to suddenly face trauma and violence in their first (and only) spotlight episode together.
There's not enough space here to list all of the ways queer couples have previously been "punished" like this and defined by tragedy across TV and film.
Things haven't exactly improved since then either as William started fading into the background even more after that.
By the time season 3 came around, he only appeared in half the episodes and did very little of note. Now season 4 is upon us and William isn't included at all in the first three episodes that dropped on launch day. And as far as I can recall, there's no mention of him so far either.
So where did William go, exactly? We don't know, because the writers couldn't even be bothered to explain his absence.
And you thought Mark had it bad this season.
I appreciate that there are a lot of characters to juggle in this world, especially when you introduce new alien races and multiple side quests. But William isn't supposed to be just another character. He's Mark's best friend who started out in what looked like it was going to be a key role throughout the series.
The optics of this aren't great either, especially when you consider that William is the only queer character of note here. Without him, there are no queer people at all in Invincible.
During that aforementioned interview with Metro Weekly, Kirkman suggested: "There are a lot of different stories that come from [William's] sexuality that will be worked into the series."
Let's hope the rest of season 4 actually lives up to that promise at last or Invincible risks falling into the same clichés that the comic did 20+ years ago. Except this time round, it's 2026, and there's really no excuse for history to repeat itself.
Invincible season 4 is available to stream on Prime Video.
Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Authors
David Opie is a freelance entertainment journalist who writes about TV and film across a range of sites including Radio Times, Indiewire, Empire, Yahoo, Paste, and more. He's spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and strives to champion LGBTQ+ storytelling as much as possible. Other passions include comics, animation, and horror, which is why David longs to see a Buffy-themed Rusical on RuPaul's Drag Race. He previously worked at Digital Spy as a Deputy TV Editor and has a degree in Psychology.
