Invincible: The Name Of Mark's [SPOILER] Means More Than You Might Think
"Invincible" has taken the animated world by storm with its brutally violent and incredibly adult take on the world of superheroes and archvillains. Though the series contains plenty of classic superhero staples like fighting giant monsters and saving civilians from certain death, it also has a shocking level of violence that most shows can't even begin to approach.
That's not to suggest that it's all doom and gloom on "Invincible," though. The show, which features comedic actors like Andrew Rannels, Gillian Jacobs, Seth Rogen, and Jason Mantzoukas, regularly skewers the genre's tropes for laughs and contains plenty of acerbic wit to match its more nasty bits.
There's also a really sly reference that has been hiding in plain sight throughout the show. The high school that Mark (Steven Yeun) and his friends attend is called Reginald VelJohnson High School, a tiny detail that ties to a few other aspects of "Invincible" as well that fans of a certain age can appreciate. The first and most obvious is that VelJohnson himself is in the show and plays a character named Principal Winslow, but that's just the tip of the iceberg for this multi-layered joke.
Younger viewers could easily miss the joke in Invincible
If you didn't grow up in the '80s or '90s, you could, of course, be forgiven for missing all of this, as Reginald VelJohnson is best known for two roles from that era. One is as Al Powell in the first two "Die Hard" films, and the second is his role as police officer and father Carl Winslow on the long-running family sitcom "Family Matters."
How this ties into "Invincible" is that the first issue of the comic series is also titled "Family Matters." This seems to be the seed of where the gag began, but that hasn't stopped the team behind the Prime Video series from running with it as far as they can. The final touch and the easiest one to catch once you're in on the joke is that Principal Winslow is also designed to look like VelJohnson, with the actor's trademark mustache, balding head, and facial features on top of his body shape.
Though VelJohnson only voiced the character of Principal Winslow in one episode of Season 1, fans will hopefully see more of him in "Invincible" Season 2, even if the characters are old enough to begin aging out of high school.