For the past two weeks, Juston Gordon-Montgomery’s new show, Invincible Fight Girl, has been airing on Adult Swim. Juston Gordon-Montgomery previously wrote for shows such as ‘DC Super Hero Girls,’ ‘Hair Love,’ and ‘My Dad the Bounty Hunter.’ He’s taken everything he has learned from those shows and brought it with him to his first-ever animated show, and The Hollywood Handle got the opportunity to talk with him about the inspirations behind Invincible Fight Girl, parents pressuring their children with their dreams, and even made up some fight cards consisting of characters that he’s written in the past.
Invincible Fight Girl follows Andy (Sydney Mikayla) in her journey to wrestling stardom. Andy is joined by cynical retired champ Aunt P (Rolonda Watts), the endearingly innocent wrestling analyst-in-the-making Mikey (TK Weaver), and the unscrupulous Craig (Paul Castro Jr.), who is always scheming ways to find a profit from wrestling. United in the goal of helping Andy achieve her dreams of wrestling dominance, this found family embarks on a journey filled with adversity and self-discovery as they chase their dreams, push past their limits, and deliver smackdowns on the toughest wrestlers they can find.
Christopher Mills (THH): I had just watched the first four episodes of Invincible Fight Girl and remember receiving the email talking about the show. I took one look at the image, didn’t bother reading the synopsis, like this show is 100% going to be for me and I was right. I enjoyed every episode.
Invincible Fight Girl takes place on Wrestling World, how much extensive research did you and your team do on wrestling?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: A lot. I mean, for me, a lot of my background comes from being just a lifelong fan of pro wrestling. That was sort of just coming into the show. I was like, okay, I know a lot about it and then we got lucky enough in that a lot of our leadership also had been big fans of pro wrestling. So that helped us out a lot. Then in kind of the biggest surprise and no one planned on this, one of our crew members actually ended up being a former pro wrestler. That was like a, you know, it was like a gift from the gods. Like we rolled sevens. So we ended up having a lot of knowledge on hand about not just wrestling, but like love for wrestling and different ideas of how we could really push the depiction of this world.
Christopher Mills (THH): I think you really do, it’s easy when watching the show to tell that wrestling fans are gonna be able to enjoy it. There’s love put into it when it comes to the wrestling side of the show.
My next question for you is that the show spreads a message of people wanting to follow their dreams. Andy wants to be a wrestler and Mikey wants to be a wrestling journalist, but their family get in the way of them trying to pursue their dreams. Is this something you experienced while you were younger or is this something that you just see very present in other people?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: I think it’s more the latter. I was lucky enough that my experience ended up kind of being like Andy’s where I told my parents, you know, they knew that I was drawing and I was doing that and so they had different hopes for me because they’ve sacrificed a lot themselves and it was very hard for them to get into a position where they could create certain opportunities for me.
So when I said I wanted to draw, it was challenging for them to hear, but at the same time, they were like, a big part of what we’ve done is to give you the freedom that you can sort of chart your own destiny. Tough for them to come to that, but they were able to. And at the same time, I know lots of people who I’m friends with where that was not their journey.
They said, hey, I wanna draw for a living and their parents said, no, that’s not real, that’s not like a thing. I’ve sacrificed my whole life working hard, working five jobs so that you can go to school and become a lawyer. That’s what you do. So it’s one of those things that, part of Andy’s experiences kind of comes from mine. And at the same time, we’re trying to talk about lots of people’s different experiences.
To your point, because it is sort of about this broader idea of what it means to follow a dream. That meant that it was important to show what it looks like when that road is a little bit maybe easier for Andy, where her parents are accepting, and what it looks like when someone likes Mikey’s case, where that road is way, way harder.
Christopher Mills (THH): Honestly, it is something that I see, because even with myself, I feel like my parents wanted one path, but then they understood like, oh, I’m interested in writing, whether it’s writing stories or writing reviews, that’s something I’m interested in. So they were able to support that, and I think that’s something that’s important for just young children in general, to be able to follow the dreams they want to do and make sure that they’re happy with what they’re doing in life as well since it’s going to follow them for their entire life.
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: Well, and I think too, the time that we’re in, there’s so many paths that we used to think of as like sort of secure, like if you take that path, you’re set, that we’re learning aren’t all that set and are actually pretty unstable, and people are having to think about non-traditional career paths as more viable ways of being able to make a living for themselves.
I think it kind of speaks to that as well as like the generation above us only has a certain ability, like a certain lens through which they can look at the world. So a lot of times it’s very difficult to see what the next generation is doing and to either embrace that or even accept that or even get your mental into a place where you can say, okay, that’s maybe not something I understand, but it’s valid too.
Christopher Mills (THH): Another question I did have for you is that it seems like the show takes inspiration from some Eastern animation. I was wondering if there’s any specific shows that you were inspired by when creating this. I feel like I saw hints of Dragon Ball while watching it.
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: that’s [Dragon Ball] always the North Star, right? Yeah. That’s the big one. You know, there’s like sound effects in there that we really tried to imitate but then there’s some other stuff that I think is maybe a little bit less noticeable, but it kind of goes into the gumbo as well.
Narrative for me is really big in my formative years and I think the sort of complex storytelling that it does was like one of the first times that I had seen that. I had seen a character who was sort of this balance of like goofy, but at the same time dealing with some of these really heavy things internally and had a dream that he was just sort of pursuing relentlessly. The world was just sort of putting onto him all of these obstacles and the story is like him trying to have these sort of internal conversations about can he push through whatever this next wall is that’s been put in front of him?
One piece was something that I looked to in terms of world building, because it just does that so beautifully and it’s so expansive in the way that it thinks about culture, class, and all of these different things and using pirates as an entry point into that. Hajime no Iripo is another one for multiple reasons. It Sort of handles its fights and brings you as an audience member, whether you’re familiar with boxing or not, into it and sort of is able to explain to you why things are significant, why things are meaningful, but at the same time, keep the entertainment and like investment level from an audience high. I think the final thing I would say is Hunter x Hunter.
Hunter x Hunter was sort of a more recent discovery for me in like the past four years. Similar to One Piece, the world building is exceptional but also the way that that author is able to sort of effortlessly play with genre and really completely subvert audiences expectations. You know, he sort of goes, and you’re thinking, okay, these are the characters we’re gonna follow the entire time and then sometimes he’ll have those characters completely drop out and now you’re following a whole different part of the world. You as an audience are kind of like skeptical. You’re like, wait, am I gonna like, and like, nope, you’re in, he’s so good that you’re caught up. He’s gonna tie it back around to the main characters and you’re gonna be like, oh, that’s the way he thinks about what worlds are. So all of those things, we were kind of looking at the different things those shows do great and trying to channel them into Fight Girl.
Christopher Mills (THH): I’ve created some match-ups for you with characters that you’ve written in the past. The first matchup I’ve got for you is Wonder Woman from DC Superhero Girls versus Zatanna from DC Superhero Girls. Who would win in that fight?
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: I think people would say Zatanna, but I think Wonder Woman would find a way to win. I think she’s relentless.
Christopher Mills (THH): She’s used to magic. She’s used to fighting against magic.
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: That’s the thing. She’s used to dealing with gods and demi-gods, and when she’s in battle, she’s like relentless. I think she finds a way to win.
Christopher Mills (THH): Next up, we have Lisa from My Dad is a Bounty Hunter versus Andy from Invincible Fight Girl.
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: Lisa has a tough time. I think Lisa has a real rough time. Andy is even worse. Currently up to what you’ve seen and even where we leave her at the end of the series. She’s a hard person to deal with. Yeah, Andy. Andy comes out on top.
Christopher Mills (THH): Then the final one, we have Stephen Love versus Herb Smith.
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: Oh, that’s interesting. I think it’s gotta be Steven. I think it’s, yeah, I think it’s gotta be.
Christopher Mills (THH): To be fair, Herb is just an accountant
Juston Gordon-Montgomery: I think if you say Andy’s life is in danger, he throws himself at Steven and he’s like really like, you know, he’s gonna do everything he can, but- Yeah. I don’t know that he has much that he can actually do against Steven.
Invincible Fight Girl airs every Saturday on Adult Swim and streams on Max shortly after.
