A while back I saw Marvel planned to make a movie about “The Inhumans,” and then that idea got scratched. I’ve recently seen rumors that it is still on the drawing board from some very dubious sources (it’s a message board that rhymes with “more bran.”) Anyway, I was happy when I heard the Inhumans movie got cancelled and I hope it never gets revived.
Because those guys are dicks. Seriously. That is the one and only character trait I have every associated with the Inhumans. They are dicks. Black Bolt is a dick, Medusa is a dick, and that guy with the big green hat is a dick. The only one that comes of even a little bit tolerable is (sometimes) Crystal and (maybe) Lockjaw. Every time the Inhumans show up in a story, it goes exactly the same way:
Avengers: Hey guys, we could use some help with this thing…
**Inhumans: ** Silence! Puny humans, how dare you come before the throne of the great and glorious king of all Inhumans! Kneel before our throne and avert thy eyes from the Sovreign!
**Avengers: **Um… Yeah… Can you guys stop being dicks while we save the universe, here? Inhumans: Silence! You are but peasants compared to- Avengers: Nevermind, we got this. Thanks anyway.
I have literally never read a comic that did not consist of the Inhumans being a giant bag of dicks. And the worst part is that for all their power and arrogance all they do is sit in their moon palace and do… What? Exactly?
What was supposed to be the point of these guys? Is there something I’m missing?
I wondered how the MCU was going to manage to turn the royal family into an entertaining movie without making big changes to canon. Then Agents of Shield went ahead and introduced us to Inhumans who seem pretty normal.
I’m not surprised they nixed the movie, and not that disappointed, either. A Starjammers movie that crossed with Guardians of the Galaxy would be more fun.
Well… I’ve read a lot of stories where they do stuff.
They are just consistently written as having their own agenda.
I particularly liked what they did with them on the cosmic-side a few years back when they ended up ruling the Kree. Black Bolt had to take on some sister-wives. Crystal married Ronan the Accuser. There was a lot of good stuff… that then got tossed out in order to bring them in as the “movie friendly” stand-ins for Mutants.
The parallels were always there… but Marvel firmly believes movie fans have to be able to pick up a comic book and see exactly what they saw on the screen.
They pushed them really hard… but comic fans didn’t bite.
The point was that they were supposed to be Marvel’s X-Men, what you are missing is that whatever they were like in the comic books doesn’t really matter one bit.
There are only two Inhumans I’ve ever liked, and one of them was killed the issue after she was introduced by Black Bolt. And no, Kamala Khan is not one of them. The new Ms Marvel I don’t like because she feels like a shout-out to a group of people who really annoy me, but the pre-Nuhuman Inhumans are just a bunch of Nazis.
The X-Men are Fox’s X-Men. Marvel Studios can’t play with them. So the prevailing idea is that Marvel will use/is using Inhumans in place of mutants in their universe.
This. Marvel sold off the film rights to the X-Men and the general concept of mutants in the Marvel universe. So they’re using the Inhumans as a stand-in for mutants. The Marvel movie Inhumans have a similar origin story to the comic book Inhumans but the current characters are different. I think the only character who has been an Inhuman in both the movie/television version and the comic book version is Lash.
The issue where Crystal was on an embassy to a fictional South-East Asian principality, including their mutants, was reasonably balanced. Crystal had to eat diplomatic poo to keep on the good side of the nation’s tyrant.
Black Bolt’s inclusion in the (really bad idea) “Illuminati” – Reed Richards, Professor X, Namor, I don’t remember who else – was reasonably nicely handled. Black Bolt was not a dick in most of those stories.
You’re actually right, for the most part. Karnak and Gorgon are dicks through-and-through, and Medusa loses out to her inner dick nature too damn often. She tries to be regal, but fails and just gets dickish. You have identified a central flaw in the general run of the storytelling.
Just wanted to say there’ve been some (minor) exceptions.
Fangirls of a certain sort. Writing fanfiction about celebrities and then telling them about the fanfiction you’re writing about them isn’t endearing, it’s weird.
I remember this happening in the Ultimate Spider-Man many years ago. It was an alternate universe, but I thought it was pretty clear that they wanted Samuel L. Jackson to play Fury. Well, they got their wish. Seemed to me like it all went pretty smoothly, even if the payoff was a long time coming.
This week’s Squadron Supreme has a fairly nice moment with Black Bolt and Medusa, giving mild comfort to a grieving Doctor Spectrum. Black Bolt shows compassion.
The Illuminati’s original lineup was the first three you mentioned, and then Tony Stark, Dr. Strange, and Black Panther. Professor X eventually left and was replaced by Beast. Due to their being a flarkin’ Bendis creation, I’m somewhat ashamed of not only knowing the Illuminati lineup, but also actually thinking the Illuminati is, or better yet, COULD BE a great idea in capable hands. A lot, if not all of that being how my favorites have always been the brains over brawn/uber-intellectual types (my favorite Marvel Universe rivalry is and has always been Reed vs. Doom), and a properly done superteam of them pure and simply would rock my socks. Jonathan Hickman had the potential to have the Illuminati doing that very thing in his New Avengers run…but it got a little tiny bit too dark/serious for my liking, being the precursor to the Secret Wars event and all.
Anyways, as for the Inhumans…I am a Fantastic Four fan through and through, but what makes me a ‘bad fan’ compared to most other classic FF fans is that I have honestly never, ever cared for the Inhumans. They have always been bloody boring to me, despite their being considered one of the pinnacles of all of Jack Kirby’s creations. The only two Inhumans I have ever remotely liked are Crystal (IMO, she is undoubtedly the most classic of Johnny Storm’s on/off love interests, although I’ve always liked Frankie Raye/She-Torch/eventual Galactus herald Nova a little more myself) and Black Bolt (always thought and still think he was/is the coolest looking of the Inhumans). But all of the others? yawns
No, I liked the idea of having a black Nick Fury in the Ultimates universe. I figure when you do a reboot, you can change the characters however you wish - they’re essentially new characters.
The problem was that people who saw the Marvel movies expected Fury to be black. The comic book people saw this as a problem because Fury is white in the mainstream Marvel universe. And they were worried that people coming to the comic books after seeing the movie would be confused.
So they came up with this convoluted plan. Convoluted even by comic book standards. Follow along:
A new black character was introduced and he joined Shield.
The new character found out he was Nick Fury’s son, which neither of them had ever known about.
The new character changed his name to Nick Fury Junior.
The new character lost an eye and started wearing an eye patch.
Nick Fury Senior disappeared.
Nick Fury Junior stepped in as the head of Shield, despite the fact that he had only recently joined the organization.
Nick Fury Junior dropped the Junior and everyone called him Nick Fury.
Everyone treated the new Nick Fury as if he had always been around and nobody ever mentioned the old Nick Fury ever again.
And there was no reason for all this nonsense. Marvel had already done crossovers between the mainstream universe and the Ultimates universe. All they had to do was stage some big crossover event with the two Nick Furys, kill off the original one, and have the Ultimates replace him in the mainstream universe.