Comics / Comic Reviews / Marvel Comics

Inhumanity #1 Review

By Andy Frisk
December 5, 2013 - 21:09

Following the events of Infinity comes the age of Inhumanity. Apparently destroying the Inhuman city of Attilan in an effort to raise the numbers of the ranks of Inhumans across the globe, Inhuman King Black Bolt has unleashed a whole new race of super powered beings upon the world. With no one to lead them, no one to call their king, and no home base or city, how will these new Inhumans cope? One of the old Inhumans, unable to handle his failure at the loss of Black Bolt, and overcome by fear of the Inhuman future opts to avoid the whole problem with a permanent solution to what has to be a temporary problem. I mean, Medusa is still alive, The Avengers are on the case, and all of the new members of Inhumanity are sure to have help from from a group of super powered beings who have been dealing with uncertain futures for a long time now...the Marvel U's mutants...so what's to worry about? Plenty apparently...

So begins the push to introduce a new strain of super powered and genetically altered super beings into a prominent role in the Marvel Universe...so that they can serve as stand ins for the contractually off limits cinematic Marvel U's mutants? With Marvel Studios not owning the rights to make or use The X-Men in their movies, but obviously desiring to delve into the type of storytelling that involves mutants, someone somewhere in the Marvel brain trust had a stroke of genius. The Inhumans, who really aren't that popular in the comic book Marvel U, and haven't been used much recently, are just ripe for introduction into the Disney powered cinematic Marvel Studios universe. Just imagine it, super powered beings popping up all over the globe with strange new powers, some of which they obviously can't control, who aren't mutants? The possibilities are endless...

Not a mutant mind you!

Anyway, now that that rant against a bit of storytelling for the sake of studio production options is out of the way, just how good is the first issue of the new series that will give birth to all this cinematic goodness (hopefully)? Written by Matt Fraction, whose stuff can be really great or really bad (depending upon how much freedom Marvel allows him to indulge in during his creative process), Inhumanity #1 is really more of a back story filler issue than one that moves the plot forward. Most of the new Inhumans haven't even emerged from their cocoons yet, and Karnac's short walk off a tall building pretty much takes place after a rather long (but necessary) exposition on the history of the Inhumans, and the secret part that no one has known about until now: Inhuman genetic code (like mutant x-factor genes) lies dormant in a large section of the world's human population. Unlike the mutant x-factor gene though, the Inhuman gene needed a little coaxing into dominance by the Terrigen Mist (which Black Bolt released upon the world-acutally it's a variant of the Terrigen Mist, but it has the same non-lethal affects).

Super star sequential artist Olivier Coipel handles the majority of the artistic duties this issue (production deadlines pretty much guarantee that we will see multiple artists on major headlining books most of the time these days from the Big Two), so no complaints there. His involvement in the look of Inhumanity is great, but the worthy art of Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Israel Silva, and Dustin Weaver keep the book's look flowing smoothly.

I'm intrigued by this new take on the Inhumans franchise, and especially what it means for the cinematic Marvel U, but hopefully it will take a different direction than Marvel's mutant books take. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing...

Rating: 6 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12