Inhumans is, easily, Marvel’s biggest misstep. It all began with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Marvel head Ike Perlmutter. The company didn’t own the film rights to the X-Men, so Perlmutter decided that Marvel would push the Inhumans into the mutants’ slot, both in the comics and in the movies. Inhumans was announced as a film, but Kevin Feige would be given complete control of Marvel and the movie never materialized. Perlmutter still controlled the company’s TV studio, and tried to do a series with the characters, but it’s gone down as one of the worst pieces of superhero media ever (despite Anson Mounts being awesome).
Meanwhile, in the comics, mistakes were also made with the Inhumans. Fans didn’t like their comics, especially once the slate of books was put under the control of Charles Soule, and eventually the whole thing fizzled away. Marvel would get the film rights to the X-Men book, and Marvel’s merry mutants got the Krakoa Era, which made them the biggest line in comics in the early 2020s. However, the Inhumans have gotten less than nothing in the years since; the most popular Inhuman, Ms. Marvel, was made into a mutant. It’s a sad time to be an Inhumans fan, but it doesn’t have to be. Marvel could easily fix the characters, by following the mutants’ example again.
The Inhumans Deserve Their Own Krakoa Era
Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
The Inhumans are a group of genetically modified humans. Experimented on by the Kree, they develop superpowers when exposed to the Terrigen Mists. Their genetics made procreation rather difficult, and they formed a eugenics based monarchy, with a slave class known as the Alpha Primitives toiling under their cities. They had to live away from humans because human technological byproducts harmed them; they couldn’t stand up to the pollutions of the human world. They created Attilan, a hidden city full of amazing technology that would be periodically destroyed and rebuilt all over the planet (and on the moon) for millennia.
Let’s be real for a second: the Inhumans were tailor made for something like the X-Men’s Krakoa Era. Krakoa was an ethnostate away from the humans where mutants worked together to create their own culture and technology, keeping the rest of the world out and at bay. There was hubris, as mutants had power and wealth for the first time. This hubris made their eventual fall inevitable. It’s an old story, but many X-Men fans realized that it was an old Inhumans story more than an X-Men one, and that the Inhumans would have fit much better with their own Krakoa.
The Inhumans getting a new nation after the destruction of the Terrigen Mist clouds, one where they can create something analogous to the Krakoan medicine that allowed mutants to negotiate with the human world, would have been amazing. It would have put them back where they should have been, and played up a rivarly between the Inhumans and the human world that we’ve seen before in 1998’s The Inhumans #1-12. This story saw the world being manipulated into battle with the nation of Attilan, and it was perfect.
One of the most interesting things about the Krakoa Era is that it was looked at as a way for Marvel to make up for the Inhumans push. That’s what makes the irony of giving the mutants an Inhumans story so delicious and why we should get a new Krakoa Era-type story with the Inhumans. The characters fit that type of tale so well; a political thriller, a la Game of Thrones (the good seasons) is exactly what the Inhuman royal family was built for, and there were so many new characters that had been introduced that could be explored. The Inhumans have always been a cool part of the Marvel Universe, and giving them their Krakoa Era would not only put them back where they belong, but would present them in the best possible way. Marvel might even be able to get Hickman to do it, since he loves Black Bolt.
The Inhumans Are an Easy Fix
Image COurtesy of Marvel Comics
Marvel made a huge mistake by trying to make the eugenics-obsessed slave-owning monarchy into the new X-Men. The Inhumans just don’t fit there, just like the X-Men didn’t really fit in their own nation surrounded by enemies and political insanity. The Inhumans would have and still could. Imperial ended with them waxing, and it’s only a matter of time before they get power. Giving them their own nation again, injecting them into the Marvel Universe as a major factor, is exactly what they need. It’s what they were built for.
Again, if you want to see why this kind of Inhumans story would work so well, go and hunt down 1998’s The Inhumans #1-12. Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee gives readers a story that feels like the Krakoa Era for the Inhumans. The characters work so well in this type of story. Marvel has bungled the characters by ignoring what they’re good at and it’s about time they got a chance to do what they’re best at.
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