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Invincible season 2's finale saw Mark Grayson take on the villainous Angstrom Levy who threatened to hurt his mom Debbie and brother Oliver. Angstrom Levy possesses the power to open portals to the multiverse and in comics this leads to a crossover between Invincible and Marvel Comics' Spider-Man which many fans expected to see in the recent season of the show.
With fans posting edits of Invincible and Spider-Man together online in the Invincible season 2 finale, fans believed the two actually interacted in the episode; however, that's actually far from the case. Spider-Man did not have a cameo appearance in the season 2 finale for Invincible, and instead, those behind the show found a smart way to work around the cameo and still honor the crossover from the comics.
How did the writers work around the Spider-Man cameo in the Invincible season 2 finale?
Invincible creator Robert Kirkman initially explained that he "wouldn't count" on Spider-Man having a cameo appearance in Invincible season 2. With fan expectations rising, he quickly denied any rumors prior to the release of the second part of the season in an interview with IGN. Here's what he said:
“Would that we could pull the powers of Amazon and Disney and Marvel and everybody together!”
He continued:
“Wouldn’t that be an amazing thing? But I wouldn’t count on it. And that’s not a tease.”
Considering that the cinematic rights of Spider-Man are owned by Sony, the creators of the show found a much smarter way to still honor the iconic team-up from the comics. Instead of having Spider-Man himself show up, the creators created an original character called Agent Spider, who does everything that Spider-Man does.
Josh Keaton, who is best known for playing the Webhead in The Spectacular Spider-Man, voiced Agent Spider and Mark Grayson was sent into his universe by Angstrom Levy. The interaction between Mark and Agent Spider in the Invincible season 2 finale mirrors the interaction he had with Spider-Man in the comics, and the web-slinging hero can be seen fighting Prof Ock who is a parody of Doc Ock.
While Mark didn't spend much time in Agent Spider's universe in the finale of Invincible season 2, his interaction with him was verbatim picked from the comic panels that he shared with Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #14. In the comic, Mark is sent to the Marvel universe by Angstrom Levy, and in their initial interaction Spidey asks for Invincible's help to defeat Doc Ock.
The two then proceed to spend the issue fighting the villain and bonding over their stories, after which Mark is pulled back into his universe.
Why did fans expect Spider-Man to make a cameo appearance in Invincible season 2?
The first hint of a Spider-Man cameo came when the first teaser for Invincible season 2 featured the comic book cover for Marvel Team-Up #14. This quickly made fans wonder if we would get to see the highly anticipated crossover, but the creators didn't officially confirm it at first.
Expectations were then heightened when Josh Keaton's name was spotted on the cast list for season 2 but it wasn't revealed which character he would be playing at the time. Since Keaton's most notable role was portraying Spider-Man in The Spectacular Spider-Man, fans were even more excited.
However, while a Spider-Man cameo didn't come to fruition in the episode, we still got to see Keaton portray Agent Spider and the show still honored the crossover from the comics. Invincible season 2 is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now.
