INHUMANS: 10 Things You Need To Know About The Characters Before They (Hopefully) Return To The MCU

INHUMANS: 10 Things You Need To Know About The Characters Before They (Hopefully) Return To The MCU

There have been rumblings for a while now that the Inhumans are returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (after being rebooted), and we have a refresher on the unique team of heroes for you right here!

Feature Opinion
By JoshWilding - Aug 31, 2020 04:08 AM EST
Filed Under: Inhumans

Marvel Studios was originally going to release an Inhumans movie, but when it became clear the project was being pushed on them by Marvel Entertainment boss Ike Perlmutter (who wanted to replace the X-Men with Inhumans), Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige pushed back and ended up reporting directly to Disney bosses instead. 

However, with Ms. Marvel on the way to Disney+, the signs are pointing to the characters finally making their Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. Sure, they appeared in their own failed TV show and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but that's unlikely to matter much to Feige moving forward. 

While nothing has been confirmed at this point, we thought you guys might appreciate a refresher course on all things Inhuman to prepare you for their return. From the alien race's origin story to where they live and what Marvel Studios might have planned for them, there's a lot here to sink your teeth into...just like loveable, teleporting pooch, Lockjaw!

So, to take a look through this feature, all you need to do is click on the "Next" button below. 
 

10. It's Like Game Of Thrones With Superpowers

Bolt-Medusa

It goes without saying that there are some key differences between the Inhumans and Game of Thrones' eclectic cast of characters (Black Bolt and Medusa most definitely aren’t brother and sister), but the similarities are undeniable. In fact, when Marvel Studios was developing an Inhumans movie, the project was basically described as Game of Thrones with superpowers!

That's no great surprise considering the fact that there’s a royal family, and with a brother who is madly in love with the Queen, any movie is bound to include betrayals and plenty of twists and turns.

Medusa, can manipulate her own hair into powerful tendrils, Gorgon has super-strength, Triton is fishlike in appearance, Karnak is strong and agile, the brother we mentioned – Maximus – has telepathic powers, while fan-favourite Crystal has elemental powers. Then, there's their leader...
 

9. Black Bolt, King Of The Inhumans

Bolt

As you likely already know, Black Bolt is the King of the Inhumans and married to Medusa, the woman he relies on to speak for him. Why? Because his powers are literally off the scale! 

You see, if he utters even a whisper, his voice could destroy an entire city block. A scream? Possibly an entire city! He’s a complex character who is obviously both gifted and cursed, but a good man who does what is best for his people. It will be a challenge for Marvel to find the right actor, but Vin Diesel has hinted in the past that he may be in the running to play Black Bolt.

With little dialogue but an imposing presence required, that might actually work quite well!
 

8. A Storied History

Inhuman

So, who are the Inhumans? Well, they were created by the Kree (an alien race we've now seen a fair bit of in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel) millions of years ago when they visited Earth and tampered with the DNA of humans.

After the Kree abandoned their experiments, the Inhumans would go on to form their own very complicated society, but their seclusion from humanity led to them becoming vastly different. 

This is something that could very easily tie into the upcoming Eternals movie, and it would be surprising if that didn't hint at their existence and somehow tie the two races together in the process. 
 

7. Attilan

Atillan

Attilan is the home of the Inhumans and is around seven thousand years old.

Originally located on a small island in the northern Atlantic Ocean, they started to realise that they were at risk when technology advanced to the point where planes and boats frequently came close to discovering them. It was then that they moved the city to a hidden valley in the Himalayan Mountain range, but the Inhumans were inevitably discovered and exposed to the world.

Since then, they’ve relocated to the "Blue Area of the Moon" in a bid to escape the effects of Earthly pollution and disease. That's a unique locale, and one it would be fun to explore on screen.
 

6. Lockjaw Provides Some Much-Needed Comic Relief

Lockjaw

In some respects, the Inhumans are a pretty serious and humourless group of characters. That’s an inevitability after the hardships they’ve been through (not to mention some of the challenges they've faced) but Lockjaw should help to lighten the tone and deliver some laughs.

Lockjaw is a giant alien bulldog with the ability to teleport and is a vital tool in helping this group travel. He doesn’t talk, but he’s a loveable pooch who has every chance of being the next Groot or Rocket.

The ill-fated TV show completely wasted Lockjaw - likely because creating him was too expensive - but Marvel Studios can definitely do the character justice. His relationship with Crystal is particularly noteworthy, and it's not at all hard to imagine him being a breakout character. 
 

5. The Terrigan Mist

Terrigen

The Terrigen Mists are the source of the Inhumans’ powers, and a vapour derived from the Terrigen Crystals. That has the ability to alter Inhuman biology and give them their unique powers.

When an Inhuman undergoes this procedure, they have no idea how it will physically mutate them, explaining their unique and very varied appearances. It’s possible too that Marvel is going to follow the comic books by having these mists exposed to the Earth’s atmosphere, causing anyone who was a descendant of an Inhuman to develop superpowers (which creates Ms. Marvel).

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. obviously gave this a go, but sadly, that series doesn't really matter. 
 

4. They Live Among Us

Primitives1

Unless they've been mutated by undergoing Terrigenesis, the Inhumans are mostly, well, human in appearance. That means they can blend in for the most part, and while they do tend to avoid leaving Attilan for the most, there are plenty of them who do live among us here on Earth. 

As a result, there are a lot of Inhumans or Inhuman descendants who are completely unaware of their history, and it's only when they're exposed to the mists that they undergo these changes. 

A certain Kamala Khan is a good example of that, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe would inevitably be changed forever by the emergence of these newly superpowered individuals (especially if the mists are inadvertently released on Earth in the wake of the emergence of Inhumans).  
 

3. The Alpha Primitives

Primitives

We've established that the Inhumans have quite the storied history, but not all of it is good. 

Just like the Kree created them, the Inhumans have taken a crack at coming up with their own new species on a number of occasions. However, they wanted to create salves due to having such a low population, and that race ended up becoming known as the "Alpha Primitives."

They were strong, but unintelligent, and mostly served their masters well. However, Black Bolt decided what his people were doing was wrong when he became King, and freed them. Things didn't really develop beyond that, but there's definitely some strong storytelling potential here. 
 

2. What We Saw In Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Is Unlikely To Matter

Daisy-J

As we mentioned, with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. barely canon and not a series Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is likely to reference moving forward, the premise of being an Inhuman is bound to be reinvented. In fact, everything from their involvement in launching HYDRA to how Daisy Johnson got her abilities probably won't matter in the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

As for the short-lived TV show they appeared in, there's no way that's going to be anything other than rebooted, so don't expect a single cast member from that to make their return in a reboot. 

Rumour has it that Marvel Studios will acknowledge the series in Ms. Marvel, using it as an Easter Egg of sorts to poke fun at how bad the ABC/IMAX collaboration ended up being back in 2017.
 

1. They Could Return To The MCU In Ms. Marvel

Mas-Marvel

Rumour has it that two characters who could appear in the Ms. Marvel TV show on Disney+ are Inhuman Royal Family members Black Bolt and Maximus. Guardians of the Galaxy star Vin Diesel - who, as we said, is desperate to be Black Both - is being considered for the King of the Inhumans. He only voices Groot, so that's not something that would really confuse viewers. 

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who starred as Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron, was said to be Marvel's top choice to play Maximus, Black Bolt's brother. By the time Ms. Marvel hits screens, seven or eight years will have passed since he starred as the speedster, so they could probably get away with him playing another character (look at Gemma Chan, for example). 

This should definitely be taken with a pinch of salt, but it's undeniably intriguing, don't you think?
 

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kitheka
kitheka - 8/31/2020, 4:19 AM
Knock-off X-Men/Mutants and hopefully they will be the absolute last item in the extensive Marvel catalogue to be adapted to the MCU.
TheUnworthyThor
TheUnworthyThor - 8/31/2020, 4:57 AM
@kitheka - Traditionally they are far from X-men knockoffs. They would be a welcomed addition to the MCU if they were done right and give us something different than the X-men and the Eternals.
Twenty23Three
Twenty23Three - 8/31/2020, 4:36 AM
Well... here comes another comment section arguing about SHEILD being canon to the films or not
Origame
Origame - 8/31/2020, 4:46 AM
Outside of the last 2 (which is pure speculation and nothing more) these are almost all things we knew in the first series. I mean, unless the joke is that no one saw the first show, in which case good one
bkmeijer2
bkmeijer2 - 8/31/2020, 4:51 AM
Eternals is probably taking their place on the big screen, but I can see them getting reintroduced in Ms. Marvel. I just don't expect them see them used to the extent as for example AoS did
TheUnworthyThor
TheUnworthyThor - 8/31/2020, 5:07 AM
Inhumans was by far the biggest disappointment of live action Marvel the produced since Disney purchased the company. The Inhumans are such great characters and would delight audiences worldwide in a big screen movie. The show just didn’t have anything near the budget to adapt the franchise. Black Bolt is a character the can go toe to toe with the Hulk without uttering a sound. Their adventures are huge. It’s a whole society. Obviously the X-men and the Fantastic Four are bigger priorities especially with the Eternals getting introduced (yay!) but hopefully in the not too distant future we get to see the Inhumans done justice.
Spock0Clock
Spock0Clock - 8/31/2020, 5:40 AM
@TheUnworthyThor - What was frustrating to me about it was how literally and uncritically it approached the material.

The Royal Family was presented as the rightful rulers of a nation organized by genetic caste. The only problem came when Maximus started rousing the rabble. That's an utterly reprehensible premise. Even if the main thrust of the series was to depict the Family displaced and at a disadvantage while Maximus was a callous tyrant, it still suggests that this caste system was justifiable to the main characters before. And it's also straight out of Fantastic Four #47.

Yes, if you had an exceptionally sharp script maybe you could square that circle of character growth to make these people likable, (I get the intention), but their growth was minimal and we never got a clear view of them before being exiled (and the show wasn't interested in rebuking them at that stage anyway). At least to my memory.

Class politics can be interesting, and you can have an unsympathetic monarch who is compelling or redeemed. But the show sort of landed on Black Bolt being the princeling of a fascist ethnostate and that's okay.

And this is what makes me really nervous about Eternals, because the Deviants include a fair smattering of the same kind of class/caste geno-politics, too. (The Kirby comics themselves actually reflect some interesting nuance with the Deviants that he didn't seem to have for the Alpha Primitives.) It's just so often such a slippery normative slope with his material.
99OPTIMISTPRIME
99OPTIMISTPRIME - 8/31/2020, 5:17 AM
Feige & Marvel may be a little busy...
Spock0Clock
Spock0Clock - 8/31/2020, 5:54 AM
@99OPTIMISTPRIME - All you need is X.
FlixMentallo21
FlixMentallo21 - 8/31/2020, 8:13 PM
@99OPTIMISTPRIME - Semi-OT, but sad news today: Norm Spencer, the voice of Cyclops in that series, passed away.
https://www.cbr.com/x-men-animated-series-cyclops-norm-spencer-dead/
marvel72
marvel72 - 8/31/2020, 5:20 AM
Everything was good until you had to go and spoil it by mentioning Ms.Marvel.

This is the one and only Ms.Marvel that is any good.



MasterMix
MasterMix - 8/31/2020, 7:07 AM
@marvel72 - Just imagine
Doomsday8888
Doomsday8888 - 8/31/2020, 5:22 AM
Discount X-Men, f*ck em.

Just my lil attempt to NOT talk about whether AoS is canon or not.


Or maybe i'm just spittin! :3

TheDamRightShow
TheDamRightShow - 8/31/2020, 6:33 AM
I actually just made a video revisiting Inhumans called: Marvel-Disney's First Face-Plant: The Inhumans

My 2 youtube suscribers love it XD
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