Star Trek's Michael Dorn Was The Only Choice To Voice Battle Beast On Invincible [Exclusive]

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The voice cast of "Invincible" is an astonishing line-up of talent. Steven Yeun voices the lead, Mark Grayson aka Invincible, and J.K. Simmons plays his father, Nolan Grayson aka Omni-Man. The supporting cast includes Sandra Oh (as Mark's mom Debbie), Gillian Jacobs (Atom Eve), and Walton Goggins (Natsec spook Cecil Stedman). Guest stars have ranged from Aaron Paul (Powerplex) to Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Conquest) to Michael Dorn as the alien warrior Battle Beast.

Resembling a white-furred humanoid feline, Battle Beast lives for, well, battle. He dreams of finding an opponent worthy of his strength. Now, "Invincible" writer Robert Kirkman and artist Ryan Ottley are returning to the original comics to tell more of Battle Beast's story in a new ongoing series: "Invincible Universe: Battle Beast."

I recently spoke with Kirkman and Ottley about their work on "Battle Beast." When the conversation turned to the character's portrayal in the show, Kirkman admitted that Michael Dorn is who he always saw as Battle Beast... for good reason.

Dorn's most famous is as Worf on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the first Klingon in Starfleet. Klingons were the go-to bad guys in the original "Star Trek," but from "Next Generation" onward, they became more complex and heroic. Dorn himself helped build out the Klingon culture through Worf. The Klingons went from simple villains to honor-obsessed feudal warriors — half Samurai, half Vikings. Klingons live, breathe, and bleed for victory and — if not that — honorable death.

Even in the original comic, without Dorn's voice, Battle Beast has always struck me as a Klingon-esque character — and Kirkman agrees.

"I will fully admit that from the very beginning writing Battle Beast, I was basically writing Worf fan-fiction dialogue-wise. "I love 'Star Trek,' I love Worf, I love Michael Dorn. And yeah, he was who I wanted [to voice Battle Beast] for the show and couldn't be more thrilled to be able to get him."

Is it true that you should never meet your heroes? Maybe if your hero is Omni-Man, but fortunately Kirkman found that old adage certainly isn't true when it comes to Michael Dorn.

"Michael has been absolutely awesome to work with [on the 'Invincible' show]. They say don't meet your heroes. Most of the time, that's nonsense. People are generally fairly nice and Michael is one of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure to work with."

To further connect Worf and Battle Beast, Kirkman and Ottley decided to put an Easter Egg about Michael Dorn in BB's backstory. The original "Invincible" run didn't shed much light on Battle Beast's origin, whereas this new spin-off finally reveals the name of his homeworld. "One of the coolest full circle moments is that we had never really named the planet that Battle Beast was from," explained Kirkman. "And so after the casting had happened, for the 'Battle Beast' series, we actually named the planet and Battle Beast is now from the Planet Dornn, which I think is super cool, but the planet has two N's. No relation to Michael Dorn."

"Battle Beast" is set between the character's first appearance in "Invincible" #19 issue and his return in issue #55. The series has to be an interquel like this because...

SPOILERS

...as "Invincible" comic fans know, Battle Beast didn't make it out of the series alive. He engaged in a days-long battle with Viltrumite leader Grand Regent Thragg, but ultimately fell to him in "Invincible" #120 when Thragg ripped out and crushed his heart. From there, Thragg began wearing Battle Beast's skinned hide as a cape.

Kirkman and Ottley love Battle Beast, so why such a brutal death? For Kirkman, it goes back to that Klingon principle of finding a good day to die.

"His story was that he wanted to have a worthy death in a glorious battle or a glorious death in a worthy battle, and what worthier a battle would there be than against Thragg? And so as those two characters were kind of colliding, it became pretty clear that was going to be the end of the line for Battle Beast."

As we know now, though, it wasn't quite the end for Battle Beast after all.

"Invincible Universe: Battle Beast" #1 is scheduled for print and digital release on Wednesday, May 14, 2025.