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The secret behind Invincible's Viltrumite character names is there is no secret says Robert Kirkman, and he's even had to change some names for TV

Robert Kirkman says he didn’t put much thought into naming the Viltrumites because he was worried about deadlines

An image of Conquest from Invincible
Image credit: Prime Video

One of the coolest things about Invincible is the Viltrumite names. Seriously, can you think of anything more badass than a villain named Conquest? As clever as names like Thragg or Kregg seem, Invincible creator Robert Kirkman says he never actually put that much thought into it.

“There is no rhyme or reason whatsoever to any of the Viltrumite names, which is kind of funny,” Robert Kirkman says during a recent appearance on Robservations with Rob Liefeld. “Conquest is just a cool sounding name. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, has there been a villain named Conquest?'"

There in fact was a villain named Conquest before Invincible, in Kurt Busiek's '90s Thor run.

"Like, that’s a great villain name," Kirkman continues. " So, that was just a random name.”

When Invincible was adapted for television, Kirkman discovered that some of the names were never meant to be said aloud.

“You’ve got names like Thula and Lucan, and General Kregg in the comic, which is spelled K-R-E-G-G, but in the TV show we realized he would just be General Craig, which just sounds like the name Craig, so we changed that to Kregg [pronounced like Krieg], so it would sound a little cooler. Thragg, I guess because Kregg and Krieg, I don’t know, I thought it would be nice if it was based on a sound effect. Thragg seems like a sound effect name.”

“Grand Regent Thragg had a nice ring to it. But people need to know how absolutely haphazardly I name most characters, because most of the time I am writing a script, I am late, the artist needs pages to keep working, and I go, I don’t have a name for this character.”

Invincible is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.


 

Joshua Lapin-Bertone

Joshua Lapin-Bertone: Joshua is a pop culture writer specializing in comic book media. His work has appeared on the official DC Comics website, the DC Universe subscription service, HBO Max promotional videos, the Batman Universe fansite, and more. In between traveling around the country to cover various comic conventions, Joshua resides in Florida where he binges superhero television and reads obscure comics from yesteryear.

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