This week's fifth episode of Invincible season 4 featured the debut (well, they were briefly glimpsed fighting off Mark Grayson's evil variants last season) of a new female hero who was written as a male in the comics, and creator Robert Kirkman has now explained the change.
Spoilers follow.
When Omni-Man and Allen the Alien are assembling a team to take on what remains of the Viltrumites, they decide that Tech Jacket's Gelderian armor would come in very handy against the all-powerful conquerors.
The young crime-fighter is introduced during a battle with The Order's Walking Dread. When she defeats the hulking zombie, she unmasks to reveal that Zack Thompson has now become Zoe Thompson (voiced by Zoey Deutch).
During an interview with Den of Geek, Kirkman revealed that the reason for the gender-swap was really quite simple.
“When it came time to introduce Tech Jacket, I realized that if we had brought him straight to comics, he’d be very similar to Mark. We decided early on that it would be interesting to gender swap this character. We started thinking about who Zoe would be instead of Zach. There are some exciting things that come up when you change that character."
“The vibrancy of that character and the energy that she brings is so much more affecting coming from Zoey Deutch,” continues Kirkman. ”She’s just a really, really cool character that we’re having a ton of fun with.”
“Also, Robert was like, ‘You can only cast actors who match the character’s name! Zoey’s for this role,'” joked co-showrunner Simon Racioppa. “No, I’m kidding, she’s incredible. She came in and knew the character. She’s so professional and fun to work with, and she has a great sense of humor, because the character is fun. They go through things, but she has great jokes, great one-liners, and Zoey just delivers on all that. We could not be more delighted when we cast her for the show.”
Tech Jacket, who has been aged-down from the comics, shares a moment with Oliver Grayson in the episode, and a lot of fans are convinced that these two will ultimately embark on a relationship.
This would mark another significant change, since Oliver ends up marrying a lobster-like alien named Haluma in the comics!
"While the world recovers from catastrophe, a changed Mark fights to protect his home and the people he loves," reads the season 4 synopsis, "setting him on a collision course with a threat that could alter the fate of humanity forever."
Invincible stars Steven Yeun, Sandra Oh, J.K. Simmons, Gillian Jacobs, Seth Rogen, Walton Goggins, Lee Pace, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jason Mantzoukas, Zazie Beetz, Grey DeLisle, Zachary Quinto, Chris Diamantopoulos, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, Andrew Rannells, Kevin Michael Richardson, Ben Schwartz, Clancy Brown, Jay Pharoah, Mark Hamill, Matthew Rhys, Danai Gurira, and Melise.