Invincible Season 3’s Conquest Casting Just Set Up an Unlikely Walking Dead Rematch

This article contains spoilers for Invincible season 3 episode 7 and The Walking Dead.

The penultimate episode of Invincible season 3 just set up one of the biggest showdowns from the comics. After Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) and the heroes of Earth face off in a deadly battle against Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown) and his army of Evil Invincibles from across the multiverse, the true final villain of the season appears. The Viltrumite, Conquest, has arrived on Earth to confront Mark about his failure to prepare the planet for a takeover by the Viltrum Empire. 

While we’ll have to wait until next week to see this big fight go down, Conquest’s appearance didn’t just set up an epic battle in the world of Invincible. We now know that the Viltrumite villain is voiced by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, an actor that starred alongside Steven Yeun in The Walking Dead. In the AMC zombie series, Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays Negan, a character who became infamous for bashing in the head of Yeun’s character, Glenn, with a barbed baseball bat named Lucille. Thanks to this casting, it seems like Yeun and Morgan will finally get a rematch – hopefully one that Yeun’s character will leave victorious.

This isn’t the first time that Invincible has reunited Walking Dead alumni in the series, which makes sense given that both shows are based on comics written by Robert Kirkman. Khary Payton, who played King Ezekiel in TWD, voices Black Samson, one of the Guardians of the Globe. Ross Marquand (Aaron in TWD) voices Immortal, Rudy, and a number of other characters in the series. Lennie James (Morgan Jones in TWD) voices Darkwing. Green Ghost is voiced by Sonequa Martin-Green, who played Sasha Williams in TWD. War Woman is voiced by Lauren Cohan, who fans will recognize as Maggie from TWD. Chad L. Coleman (Tyreese Williams in TWD) and Michael Cudlitz (Abraham Ford in TWD) are also in the cast.

The meta nature of casting Morgan to once again face off against Yeun is something that the cast and creators have acknowledged and are just as excited about as we are. Kirkman, who also serves as co-showrunner on the Invincible TV series, told Entertainment Weekly that casting Morgan in this role felt “too great not to do,” adding: “Conquest needs a lot of nuance. There’s a tremendous amount of personality there, even though he is this giant, powerful brute that’s just wrecking things. And I knew Jeffrey could bring that.”

Meanwhile Morgan acknowledges the similarities between Negan and Conquest, emphasizing that he wanted to be “as far away” from that as possible. “I was trying to be aware of just voice inflection. It’s so easy for me to get into Negan mode after this many years.” But ultimately, Morgan was just “thrilled to get to be a part of it and give Steven his chance at redemption.”

From what we know about Conquest, Yeun’s redemption might not be so easily won. Conquest is a formidable opponent and he’s incredibly strong, even by Viltrumite standards. Mark certainly has his work cut out for him next week.