Introduced in the pages of Fantastic Four, the Inhumans—a closed community of humans who have super-powers thanks to experimentation by the Kree—have been a part of the Marvel comics universe since the 1960s, though they didn’t really come into their own as anything but supporting characters (mostly in the pages of FF) until their twelve-issue miniseries by Paul Jenkins & Jae Lee debuted in 1998. Since the turn of the century, they’ve become major players in the comics.
Making them part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has proven more problematic.
Originally introduced via single appearances by Medusa and Gorgon, the Inhuman society appeared as a group in Fantastic Four #45. Stan Lee & Jack Kirby took the hidden city of Attilan from an old backup story in Captain America Comics in the 1940s and retconned that as the Inhumans’ home.
Over the decades, Attilan moved from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Andes to the Himalayas to the “blue area” of the moon (a section that has a breathable atmosphere) to the Kree homeworld of Hala and the Hudson River outside New York City.
The Inhumans have mostly been seen in the personages of their royal family: Black Bolt, the silent leader whose voice is incredibly destructive; Medusa, who can animate her powerful long red hair; Gorgon, a strongman with a stomp you wouldn’t believe; Karnak, who can strike with amazing precision; Crystal, who can control the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water; the amphibious Triton; Lockjaw, a dog who can teleport over vast distances; and Maximus, Black Bolt’s mad telepathic brother, who covets the throne.
After being supporting characters in FF, having a series in the 1970s, and also being featured in Amazing Adventures, having a backup feature in Thor, and starring in a graphic novel by Ann Nocenti & Bret Blevins in 1988, the Inhumans hit the big time with the Jenkins/Lee miniseries.
To that end, them becoming part of the MCU seemed inevitable, especially since the process by which Inhumans are created—humans exposed to the Terrigen mists and getting powers—enabled the MCU to do their equivalent of mutants, since the X-Men characters were controlled by Fox. The TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spent a good chunk of its third season dealing with the Inhumans, specifically with people being turned into Inhumans (most notably, Chloe Bennet’s Daisy Johnson). We even see a “hidden city” of Inhumans, though they don’t include any of the royal family.
This was theoretically done to set up an Inhumans movie, which was announced as part of Marvel’s Phase 3 films in 2014, but then never had any movement made on it. Instead, Marvel partnered with IMAX to create an Inhumans TV show that would run eight episodes, and take place during AoS’s hiatus, much as the two seasons of Agent Carter had. As part of the partnership with IMAX, the first two episodes were released theatrically as an IMAX movie, which is why we’re covering it in this rewatch.
Anson Mount—recently seen kicking all the ass as Captain Christopher Pike on the second season of Star Trek: Discovery—was cast as Black Bolt, with Serinda Swan as Medusa, and Iwan Rheon as Maximus. Rounding out the cast are the great Ken Leung as Karnak, Eme Ikwuakor as Gorgon, Isabelle Cornish as Crystal, Mike Moh as Triton, and Sonya Balmores as Auran.
Scott Buck—who will forevermore be known as the guy who totally botched Iron Fist—was hired to develop and run the show and write the first two episodes, with Roel Reiné, one of the show’s other executive producers, directing. Amusingly, almost every episode of the show had a title that was also used as a title of an Inhumans-focused issue of a comic book. The two used to make up this movie included “Behold…The Inhumans,” which is a variation on the title of their first appearance in FF #45, “Among Us Hide…The Inhumans”; and “Those Who Would Destroy Us,” the title of their second appearance in issue #46.
The TV show was a complete flop, both commercially and critically, the first true failure of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Agent Carter had poor ratings, but was a critical success—and also, I gotta say, fucking brilliant. One can possibly put Iron Fist here, too, but we don’t know what kind of viewing numbers it got, since Netflix keeps that to itself.) Whatever chance there might be of an Inhumans film probably died with the wholesale rejection by all and sundry of this miniseries, especially since Disney now has control of the X-books, so the whole underclass-of-powered-humans storyline with the Inhumans (which AoS did a good job with in its third season in particular) can now be done with mutants like in the comics.
“No one will be left to observe this…”
Marvel’s Inhumans
Written by Scott Buck
Directed by Roel Reiné
Produced by Jeph Loeb, Scott Buck, Jim Chory, and Roel Reiné
Original release date: September 1, 2017
A woman with odd eyes is being chased through the jungles of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i by mercenaries. She’s one of the people who was exposed to Terrigen on Earth and gained superpowers (as seen on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Triton, a green-skinned, lizard-like man approaches her, saying he comes from a place called Attilan, where Inhumans live in hiding. But the mercenaries shoot them both down before they can get very far.
On the moon, we see that there is a city within one of the craters, hidden from sight and detection. This is Attilan, of which Triton spoke. A moon rover approaches it and is crushed by Gorgon, one of the royal family of Inhumans who rule Attilan. Black Bolt is the king of the Inhumans, and his voice is so powerful that it would destroy anything nearby—he accidentally killed his parents after he gained his powers when he asked them why—so he remains mute, with Medusa, his wife and queen, interpreting his words for everyone else.
Gorgon adds the rover to the big pile of human surveillance equipment they’ve had to destroy. Maximus, Black Bolt’s brother, believes that they should go to Earth, where they originally came from before they’re finally discovered by the humans. But Black Bolt thinks there will be war if they do, so they stay hidden.
We also see the process by which people become Inhumans. Two young people approach the Terrigen chamber, where the crystals are inserted into a cubby in the chamber and shattered. The mists cover them—the young woman grows butterfly wings, while Bronaja seems to have no powers. But when Maximus puts a hand on his shoulder to console him, he has a seizure and collapses, having seen a vision of Maximus attacked by snakes and thrown against a wall.
Crystal, Medusa’s sister, is late to the ceremony because she was too busy having fun, but when she is reminded that she’s late, she has her pet dog, Lockjaw, teleport her to the Terrigenesis chamber.
People who do not gain powers from Terrigen are sent to the mines to work—except for Maximus, because he is the king’s brother.
Maximus reports to the royal family that Triton has been killed. An Inhuman who can apparently project images with his eyes shows Triton’s final moments as he’s killed. Black Bolt reveals that he sent Triton to Earth to bring people who have become Inhumans on Earth to Attilan. Maximus points out that Attilan cannot handle a population explosion, while Gorgon and Karnak are upset that Black Bolt didn’t tell either of them about this. Black Bolt has Lockjaw send Gorgon to Earth to find out what happened to Triton, and confirm his death or bring back his body.
Black Bolt goes into a large stone chamber where he can meditate in peace. Maximus then confronts Medusa, who uses her prehensile hair to grab him and slam him into the wall. Maximus recalls Bronaja’s words after Terrigenesis about snakes grabbing him and throwing him into a wall…
Accompanied by Auran, part of Attilan’s security forces, Maximus visits Kitang, the head of the Genetic Council. He asks if Bronaja received powers from Terrigen, and Kitang said he wasn’t sure, but he did touch him and Bronaja said he saw Kitang lying down in a pretty river. Since there are no rivers on the moon, this was odd.
Maximus thinks Black Bolt will lead them to ruin, and wants Kitang on his side. Kitang agrees, but Black Bolt is king and to go against him is treason, and he sadly requests that Auran arrest Maximus. Instead, Auran kills Kitang, and he winds up face down in a river of his own blood.
With the security forces on his side, and with Gorgon, the head of security, on Earth, Maximus makes his move. We also discover that the mercenaries we saw going after Triton and the Inhuman in O‘ahu were, in fact, in Maximus’s employ.
Security goes after Karnak, but Karnak takes down his attackers. Karnak warns Gorgon to stay on Earth and he goes to Crystal and Lockjaw to get them to safety. Crystal sends Karnak to Earth—which was not what he wanted—and then comes back to get Medusa and Black Bolt. Meanwhile, Maximus captures Medusa and shaves her hair off, making her in essence powerless—however, Lockjaw takes her away before she can be imprisoned. Maximus then goes after Black Bolt, and Black Bolt almost opens his mouth to speak, which would kill his brother, but Lockjaw spirits him away to Earth, also, before he can. However, Maximus captures and incapacitates Lockjaw before he can take Crystal away, and Lockjaw is imprisoned, with Crystal confined to her apartment.
Lockjaw was not precise in his teleporting, so he sent Medusa to Diamond Head Crater, Karnak to a cliff, and Black Bolt to the center of Honolulu. Meanwhile, Gorgon nearly drowns while trying to find Triton, and is saved by some surfer dudes. Gorgon feels helpless waiting for something to happen, and the surfer dudes convince him to make something happen, so he activates his comlink and taunts Maximus, telling him to come get him.
Maximus tries to convince Crystal to come to his side. Her and Medusa’s parents hated Black Bolt and Maximus’s parents, and they were killed for treason. Medusa and Crystal were spared, and Medusa fell in love with Black Bolt, even though everyone else was afraid of him, and they became king and queen. Crystal is popular with the people, and having her on his side will help Maximus, but Crystal refuses.
Later, Auran brings Crystal food, and Crystal uses her powers to blast the tray, which also knocks Auran’s comlink off her wrist. After Auran leaves, Crystal uses the comlink to contact Medusa, but the queen realizes this was a plant—Auran isn’t that sloppy—and sure enough, Maximus now knows where Medusa is. Using an Inhuman who can teleport people, Auran goes alone to Earth to deal with the royal family, as she feels a single-person strike force would be more efficient and discreet.
This proves a less-than-efficacious strategy, as Auran goes after Medusa expecting to be able to take her down quickly and easily since she doesn’t have her fancy hair, but Medusa stabs her with a switchblade she stole from a tourist and leaves her for dead.
Black Bolt exchanges his Attilan garb for a nice suit, but doesn’t understand about “paying” and so just walks out of the store. The cops—already looking out for him because he appeared in the middle of the street—catch up to him and subdue him. At one point he gasps in pain, and that little utterance sends a squad car careening down the street, and badly damages a few more cars as well.
However, Black Bolt eventually cooperates, despite being able to get out of the handcuffs without a problem, recognizing that the cops are the authority here.
Karnak, meanwhile, is stuck in the jungle with a head wound after falling down a cliff. Gorgon is still hanging out waiting for someone to come after him. Black Bolt is in jail, and Medusa is going to him.
Auran then wakes up and heals her stab wound, then contacts Maximus on her comlink, asking for backup.
“…no one left to care”
One of the reasons why S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, the Punisher, and Peggy Carter all worked on television is because they’re all smaller scale. Most of the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (past and present) are normal folks with cool toys, and the occasional super-powered foe. The folks done on Netflix are all street-level and don’t require much by way of fancy-shmancy F/X.
The Inhumans, though, are a whole ‘nother kettle of beeswax, he says, mixing his metaphors. All the Inhumans have significant powers, and they also include a big dog and an exotic hidden city.
Doing all this on a TV budget is just asking for trouble, and Inhumans doesn’t just ask, but begs for it. Medusa’s hair is a) awful and b) shaved off in the second hour so they don’t have to deal with it. This takes all the fun out of even having Medusa there, as part of what’s appealing about doing the Inhumans is getting to see Medusa’s “mood hair” in action. Instead, we see it used to hide Serinda Swan’s and Anson Mount’s full nudity in their sex scene and to lamely throw Maximus against a wall and to fight off security mediocrely, and that’s about it. Either it’s a big obvious wig, or it’s an obvious CGI construction atop Swan’s head. It’s a massive letdown. Swan plays Medusa’s sadness at losing her hair decently, at least, and her righteous anger when she fights Auran is palpable, but it’s still frustrating.
And that’s just the start. Mike Moh looks like he’s wearing a bad Triton cosplay, and he’s also dispensed with before the credits so we don’t have to see how bad his makeup is for long. Auran is changed from a yellow-skinned, large-eared Inhuman who can hear anything to a normal-looking badass who was apparently told to act as much like Ming-Na Wen’s Melinda May as possible. (Seriously, she’s got the same attitude, same snarl, same way of carrying herself, same deadpan, and the same haircut.) And while Lockjaw is awesome, we only really see him for a few minutes before he’s locked in a cage.
Attilan itself looks nothing like a grand old lost city, instead having the feel of a mid-level university designed by the architect who gave the lowest contract bid.
The whole thing feels like it’s been constructed to save as much money as possible, and the plot choices are dictated by that rather than what makes a good story, particularly shaving Medusa’s hair and the fact that Crystal never actually uses her powers when Maximus is coming after her for no good reason that the script can bother to provide.
None of this would matter if the writing and acting were good, but they really aren’t. While Swan handles the fight against Auran well enough, and her love for Black Bolt definitely comes across, her performance is not nearly as vivid as it should be given the kickass history of the character she’s playing. Isabelle Cornish plays Crystal as a dumb teenager, mostly, which doesn’t do the character any favors, and Iwan Rheon sounds more like a whiny emo dudebro than he does someone who could convincingly take over Attilan.
Most disappointing is Anson Mount. I didn’t think much of his Black Bolt when I first saw Inhumans, and after watching Mount kill it on the second season of Discovery, I wanted to see if my memory was as bad as the reality. In particular, Mount impressed me as Christopher Pike with his capacity for subtle facial expressions that show his every emotion, which should be perfect for Black Bolt.
This particular entry is only half a rewatch, as I saw the first episode (which makes up the first half of the movie) but never watched past that. It also explains my bad impression of Mount’s Black Bolt, because his acting while on the moon as king in the first hour is all in one dimension: basically, he scowls a lot. He’s much stronger when he’s trapped in Honolulu in the second hour, as we get differing emotions, more facial expressions, and his obvious struggle to deal with this new situation without Medusa, or his throne, to help him.
The only parts of the movie that are truly bearable are any time Ken Leung’s Karnak and/or Eme Ikwuakor’s Gorgon are on screen, because they’re delightful. Karnak’s ability to see the weakness of anything is taken to its absurdist extreme to good comic effect, and Ikwuakor is just having so much fun as Gorgon, it’s infectious. Karnak’s taking down of the security forces, with him seeing twelve steps ahead, is particularly impressive.
But it’s not enough to save this slog of a movie, especially since the biggest flaw in it is that Maximus comes across in the script as the heroic character—despite his committing murder—because he’s trying to free his people. The actual setup of Attilan is pretty icky, and Maximus’s arguments all make sense. Black Bolt and Medusa and the rest are the epitome of yucky privilege, and I find myself more on Maximus’s side of the argument than the nominal heroes’.
Next week, Spider-Man wandering over to the MCU didn’t stop Sony from making Spider-adjacent movies, starting with 2018’s Venom.
Keith R.A. DeCandido is an author guest at FanX in Salt Lake City, Utah this weekend. He’ll be spending most of his time at Bard’s Tower, Booth 729, on the exhibit floor, selling and signing books. Accompanying him at the Tower will be fellow scribes Timothy Zahn, Jonathan Maberry, Kevin J. Anderson, Dan Wells, Carlos Ferro, Larry Correia, Jody Lynn Nye, Christopher Ruocchio, John Jackson Miller, Ryk E. Spoor, Mario Acevedo, L.E. Modesitt Jr., Brian Lee Durfee, Sanan Kolva, Michelle Cori, Phil Foglio, and lots and lots more.
1) It’s kind of a give-away that Maximus is a bad guy when you see he’s played by Ramsey Bolton
2) Unless there’s a computer who wants to explore the nature of humor during a socialist lunar revolution let’s reserve the phrase “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”—I was all set for a Heinlein discussion…
Every single change they made for this series seemed designed (perhaps out of budgetary necessity) to change the show into a throwback to the genre TV of the 1970s, especially the FUGITIVE-derived formula that their fellow Marvel-mate The Incredible Hulk’s TV show exemplified.
They took a story of a superhuman Royal Family and their pet gigantic teleporting bulldog, who lived on the moon, and seemed to be turning into something only a short step away from a TV series about a family traveling in an RV around small town America engaging in human interest stories with a mild display of super-powers near an episode’s end, before having to move on to “avoid being found by Maximus” while still looking for a way to return home.
For the full 70s effect, they should have went with suspiciously looped SFX footage of their pet gigantic teleporting bulldog hiding out in a trailer behind the RV.
I… may have given more thought to this show than the producers ever did.
I have not yet see this, looks pretty good![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_dddddd/border_ffffff/flags_0/.jpg" width="1"/>)
Amen, Keith. I’m one of the suckers who paid money to see this in an IMAX theater because, to my mind, ABC/Disney had done no wrong with the MCU yet. Sure there had been let-downs, but those let-downs had still been good movies or had, given enough time, become great to watch (Agents of SHIELD after the first half of the first season).
And then this. Oof. I went to the theater alone, while on a trip with my family – they stayed at the hotel and enjoyed the pool (which isn’t my thing) so it wasn’t a huge waste of time, at least.
I actually ended up watching the entire season once it came to ABC. Not because I wanted to, but I almost felt obligated. Like “I started this, I might as well finish it.” Plus I thought it might end up tying into AoS to some degree.
Nope. Spoilers below.
In the end, Black Bolt ends up doing exactly what Maximus wanted to do (though he’s forced to do it) and entombs Maximus in a building on the moon. It is hinted that Black Bolt was intended to be Earth’s defender against something terrible from the stars – I interpreted that as Thanos (or at least the Obsidian Order). I had hopes that would maybe show up later on AoS or something.
But no, a huge population of powered individuals just suddenly showed up on Earth somewhere, and…nothing happened. OK?
*sigh*
“The biggest flaw in it is that Maximus comes across in the script as the heroic character.”
I watched the entire mini series, and I feel like what the writers were trying to do was start the main characters as arrogant, content with and benefiting from an unfair status quo, and then have them learn from their experiences on Earth and become better people by the end of the series. This is an interesting idea in theory, but in execution it means that they act like complete jerks in their initial introduction, leaving a bad impression on viewers so no one wants to watch a TV show where they’re the heroes.
This sort of redemption arc or character development can work as a prequel (where the audience knows the end result and is already invested in the character, so they’re willing to accept the character’s initial jerkiness), with a side character/one character in an ensemble (where the audience can enjoy watching the other characters), or if the character is a jerk but charismatic and enjoyable to watch despite their jerkiness.
None of these scenarios are the case with The Inhumans.
That’s a lot of words to write about an incorrect premise.
The Inhumans TV Show was not produced by Marvel Studios, therefore it was not an actual part of the MCU. It was made by ABC & Marvel Television, the latter of which is a division of Marvel Entertainment, which itself is at the same level as Marvel Studios within the Disney corporate structure.
The early Marvel TV shows (Agents of Shield & Dardevil S1) either tied into or mentioned events in the MCU because Marvel Studios was still controlled by Marvel Ent. at that point in time. However, by the time Inhumans came out, Studios was split from Marvel Ent. so there were no more crossovers between the TV shows and the film universe. Agent Carter was an exception to that, but it was another ABC/Marvel TV co-production that had no involvement from Marvel Studios.
Here are the production credits for Inhumans: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154858/companycredits?ref_=tt_dt_co
I think it’s interesting to note that all of the Marvel TV shows that have been announced for the new Disney+ streaming service are being made by Marvel Studios, so they tie directly into the films.
I clearly know way too much about this subject.
My only hope from this movie is that Lockjaw can make an easy transition into the Ms. Marvel show.
Good enough that it got a second season and that the character came back for Luke Cage later on. Honestly, I’m getting a little tired of the narrative that Iron Fist was an abject failure. Okay, it wasn’t as good as Daredevil. Okay, it wasn’t as “woke” as some demanded. But it was fine. It was just… fine.
The acting was not bad, but the scripts the actors were given were terrible, and even the best actor can’t do much with a bad script. And the plot tried to show the two sides of the power struggle being somewhat grey in their motivations, which could have been an intriguing premise, but the lack of moral clarity ended up making things feel like a muddled mess.
Having this appear in IMAX had me thinking there would be some great visuals, and with Kirby’s wildly exotic vision of Attilan in my mind, I had high hopes. But alas, the lack of a CGI budget showed, and Attilan ended up being a dull concrete brutalist disappointment both inside and out. And Medusa’s hair was a huge disappointment, even before it was cut off.
Karnak and Gorgon were fun, but the real standout of the cast was Lockjaw. Even though the CGI could have been more convincing, he was a lot of fun. You could see in the end that the action was going to shift to the Earth during the second season, and the Inhumans were going to be treated as unwelcome immigrants in internment camps, which could have been an interesting story line. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the Inhumans appear in new Marvel TV shows here and there, but I have a feeling that they will either be ignored, or perhaps rebooted. It’s too bad, because there were some good characters and elements embedded in what turned out to be a disappointing final product.
danielmclark: My feelings on Iron Fist have been well documented on this site, but suffice it to say, I disagree with your view that it wasn’t an abject failure.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Definitely the most mediocre MCU production I’ve seen. It did have its good parts, though. Especially Lockjaw. He’s a good bizarro doggie.
I agree that Ken Leung and Eme Ikwuakor were the highlights acting-wise. Although I did find it bothersome that the show’s attempt at diverse casting ended up playing into hoary ethnic stereotypes — the big dumb tough guy is black and the super-smart, calculating intellectual is Asian. But both actors do a good job of not playing into those stereotypes. In particular, Ikwuakor makes Gorgon easygoing and levelheaded rather than angry and brutish, and regardless of how the part is written, he gives it an air of thoughtfulness. (Though how the character ended up by the conclusion of the mini-season played very much into racial cliches.)
Those comlinks are neat. They wrap around the wrist or straighten, and they unfold into smartphone-like screens. I think these are my favorite fictional comm devices since the Earth: Final Conflict globals.
The problem is that there isn’t really anybody to root for. Maximus’s cause is superficially just but his methods are cruel. The Royals are occasionally likeable but come off as racist, out-of-touch one-percenters defending their privilege. And the human characters are either ciphers or (in the series) short-term guests whose arcs end after a few episodes.
I realized a few episodes in that the show’s fundamental mistake was making the Royal Family the protagonists. They work better as morally ambiguous foils to more clear-cut heroes. I would’ve had the main characters be Earthborn Inhumans (like Kamala Khan!) who were brought to Attilan by Black Bolt and who objected to the caste system and strict regimentation they found there, surprising the Royals, who thought they were doing something benevolent and hadn’t really thought about it from a non-elitist perspective. And then maybe they get caught up in Maximus’s coup and some of them side with him while others flee with the Royals to Earth, and both groups of NuHumans try to keep their respective Attilan Inhumans’ excesses in check, or something like that.
If anything, both of the Buck-run Marvel shows have a comparable problem: They both center around protagonists who are inheritors of power and privilege seeking to defend or reclaim that privilege for themselves, rather than protagonists who are fighting to help others. Danny Rand did try to do the right thing and stop his corporation from hurting people, but he went about it in a way that felt more like a spoiled brat assuming he was entitled to have his way. And he totally failed to protect K’un Lun because he abandoned his duty to others for the sake of his own personal wishes. Still, at least for him, there was some sense that his heart was in the right place. At least in the initial movie, that didn’t come across for the Royal Family.
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@1: It’s kind of a giveaway that Maximus is a bad guy when he’s named ‘Maximus’.
I think you have your seasons of Agents of Shield off by one season as when you mention season three I think you are describing season two and when you mention four I think you are describing three.
@13 Interested to hear your take on Gladiator LOL.
@13/Patrick: I don’t think we can read much into name alignment when the people we’re supposed to be rooting for have names like Medusa and Gorgon (which are basically the same thing).
I read somewhere that at the heart of the comic book genre is a super hero that is fantasy material for lost boys who feel outcasts in society. We get to imagine ourselves as Superman, what would we do if we had that power? Inhumans does not provide that fantasy. Inhumans comes off as gee whiz for gee whiz sake alone. That’s just not enough to carry a show. Of course it helps to also have Vincent Delfornio play Kingpin as the antagonist. Iron Fist was worth watching because of the antagonists. Who doesn’t like Gao or Bukudo?
We need characters we can relate too, Inhumans doesn’t have it. They are aliens.
@10 – I know, Keith, and that’s okay :) I enjoy civil disagreements. It’s not like I have any stake in the show so I’m not emotional about it, I just think that hating the show (even for somewhat valid reasons) has taken on a life of its own.
@14 is correct. Season 4 of Agents of SHIELD was about Ghost Rider, AIDA and the framework.
It was in season 2 of SHIELD that we first learned of the Inhumans and saw their hidden city Afterlife. Season 3 was about the ancient, evil Inhuman god, Hive.
I corrected the fourth season reference of AoS to third season. Sorry about that….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@20 “TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spent a good chunk of its third season dealing with the Inhumans, specifically with people being turned into Inhumans (most notably, Chloe Bennet’s Daisy Johnson). We even see a “hidden city” of Inhumans, though they don’t include any of the royal family.”
Think that should be second as well.
In retrospect, would it have been a better idea to have incorporated the royal family story into a SHIELD storyline? Or did that show sidestep a potentially bad season?
@Alan: “Attilan ended up being a dull concrete brutalist disappointment both inside and out.”
Yes. The art direction was bad or non-existent. The city looked plain ugly.
Did Lockjaw speak on the show at all? He did in the comics at one point, suggesting he wasn’t just a dog but an Inhuman transformed into the appearance of one, besides getting teleportation powers. That was abandoned or ignored in later comics as they went back to a mute character who was their pet.
Oh, and Scott Buck also ruined Dexter, a show I liked in its early seasons. Here’s a reddit thread discussing why he keeps getting hired:
“Because he finishes things on time and under-budget. Execs like that. Nothing more to it. Regarding the Marvel stuff, Ike Perlmutter, who’s Jeph Loeb’s boss, is notoriously cheap. Enter Scott Buck.”
why_does_scott_buck_get_hired_anymore
I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, judging an entire series based on the first 2 episodes seems a bit… harsh.
On the other hand, those first two episodes need to be at least strong enough to hook you into the story, and these, admittedly, weren’t.
I watched it anyway, and was mostly not disappointed. Especially when Henry Ian Cusick’s character came in. And Ken Leung is never not awesome.
However, what they did to Medusa’s hair was a travesty. I’m willing to forgive bad effects if it looks like they’re trying, and from what I remember, the actual hair effects weren’t that bad. But to shave off the hair so you don’t HAVE to try, that’s unforgivable.
On the whole, I’d give the series a solid Meh. It’s not a waste of time, but if you never watch it, you’re not missing anything.
Good review, krad. Did you watch the rest of the TV series or just the first two episodes?
I thought you were going to go more about the backstage shenanigans that surrounded the Inhumans production. Basically the difference between Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios, Marvel Television and the Marvel Executive Committee. They all have Marvel in its name, they all answer to Disney, but they aren’t (or weren’t) the same thing. Many of its people had conflicts with each other, especially Ike Perlmutter (head of both Marvel Television and Marvel Entertainment for a time) and Kevin Feige (head of Marvel Studios). The Inhumans, the movie / TV series you just reviewed, is the result of this fight.
Basically the Inhumans, the movie/TV series, is the brainchild of Ike Perlmutter. The guy is originally a toy company executive who bought part of Marvel when Marvel was in dire straits in the 90s. After Disney bought Marvel, Perlmutter got to head Marvel Entertainment and had a say on all things Marvel for a time.
Marvel Studios is Kevin Feige’s thing. The MCU idea as interconnected movies is also his idea. So he enters the picture a little later, by 2007/2008 with the first Iron Man movie.
Any decision in the MCU originally had to go under the analysis of the Marvel Executive Committee, comprised of the heads of several executive branches with Marvel in its name. So there was Ike Perlmutter, as head of Marvel Entertainment, Kevin Feige, as head of Marvel Studios, and other people, like Joe Quesada, who I think headed Marvel Comics at the time.
This being a committee, it had some flaws that some directors later told on. The Russo Brothers and Joss Whedon were especially vocal about it and how difficult it was working with them. Basically red tape, but also some decisions the directors didn’t like. One director even quit due to that (Patty Jenkins in Thor: the Dark World).
This being a committee, they also got to decide on things affecting movies. Like the schedule of each phase. Or what happened in each movie. So Perlmutter used his influence inside the committee to put the Inhumans movie in phase 3.
Perlmutter liked the Inhumans so much basically because they could be used to replace the X-Men. Since Marvel didn’t have the rights to use some characters in the movies, Perlmutter liked to downplay these characters in all other Marvel media. This resulted in the Fantastic Four comics being cancelled, for example. Or the X-Men being downplayed for quite some time. Perlmutter didn’t like to give free advertising or story ideas to companies he considered to be competition, like Fox. It makes sense in business terms.
Of course the logic of using the Inhumans to tell basically X-Men stories meant that you’d have to change some things about the Inhumans. Like, the terrigenesis thing. In the comics it’s usually something one goes voluntarily, and the Inhumans have their whole culture built around it. In the TV adaptations and newer comics, they’ve changed that some bit, with Terrigenesis clouds or Jiaying accidentally poisoning the fish supplies of the world. So we have people going under terrigenesis involuntarily, making them basically mutants, and having basically mutant stories built around them (I’m looking at how the politics side evolved in Agents of SHIELD here).
So why wasn’t Inhumans launched as part of phase 3 of the MCU as originally planned?
This is where the backstage shenanigans enter.
There was lot of conflict inside the Marvel Executive Committee. Some people say it led to the underwhelming phase 2 of the MCU, with many problems in movies like Thor: The Dark World. But the biggest conflict happened with Captain America: Civil War.
Perlmutter, as a business executive, didn’t want to overspend on the movie. So he didn’t like the price of Robert Downey Junior’s salary for working in that movie. He thought costs could be reduced and basically the same story told with Bruce Banner (the Hulk) playing the leader of the legalist side in Civil War instead of Iron Man. Mark Ruffallo would be cheaper than Downey Junior. Feige didn’t agree at all with this, and went to the head of Disney itself, Robert Iger. Iger, seeing how the MCU was performing well and believing in Feige’s potential to deliver more, sided with Feige on this. And changed the whole Marvel corporate architecture. Kevin Feige would answer directly to him, the Marvel Executive Committee would be disbanded and Feige would have complete autonomy over Marvel Studios and the MCU.
This meant that Iron Man (and Downey Junior) would be part of Civil War. And also that the Inhumans movie would be a casualty of this battle, since Feige was never that enthusiastic about it (and some people say he hated Perlmutter as well, so maybe it was done out of spite, in part). The Inhumans was quietly removed from Phase 3 schedule, with new movies about Spiderman and subjects Feige liked more included to replace it (like Captain Marvel and Black Panther).
This is one of the reasons why the collaboration between TV and movie side of the MCU, which was never that great, became even less after 2016.
Perlmutter was still head of Marvel Television at that time, though, so he decided to use the resources under his division of Marvel to go ahead with the Inhumans story. So it became a television series, but with the right deal with IMAX it also became a movie. Except that Marvel TV (or ABC) never had the same financial clout as Marvel Studios, which regularly puts US$ 100 million to US$ 300 million in their movies. The budget was much less, so that’s why we have this Inhuman story in which Medusa barely uses her hair. Also I think Perlmutter wanted the series to be released while phase 3 still allowed it to make sense, so the whole thing is kind of rushed. And that’s why we also have Scott Buck being the showrunner, since he’s kind of known to be able to do that. The whole thing has a rushed feel to it, with scripts that don’t seem that polished and fight scenes that seem lame because they’re not that rehearsed (this elevated to the tenth degree in Iron Fist).
Still, I liked Lockjaw. He’s clearly the MVP in this movie.
So this is just me, emphasizing, like others, that Marvel Studios and Marvel Television aren’t the same thing. Sometimes they hire the same actors to play the same roles (Coulson, Sif), but Studios especially doesn’t like to reference anything that Television does, and the only time it used a Television actor was in Endgame, with Jarvis (probably because the writers also wrote for Agent Carter).
@24: Thank you for that. That was very enlightening.
@24 If I’m not mistaken, Perlmutter, while he still has a title in the Marvel companies, has essentially been pushed aside. I have read other reports that he is very opinionated, believing for example that action figures of female characters don’t sell, which explains the lack of Black Widow action figures during the early years of the Marvel movies. Your narrative is another example of his heavy handed actions resulting in problems.
@26. Alan: Not pushed aside enough, apparently. There’s Spiegelman’s essay, with its reference to the Orange Skull, being removed from the collection Marvel: The Golden Age 1939-1949 because Marvel wants to stay “apolitical.” This in a volume that deals explicitly with the rise of fascism and punching Hitler in the face.
Golden Age
There’s also the altering of Mark Waid’s Captain America essay being altered for Marvel Comics #1000 to be less critical than the original:
Waid original text
Both these cases are assumed to have happened because Perlmutter is a supporter of the current President.
@23/LazerWulf: Having seen the entire season, I think the impression given by the first two episodes is fairly accurate. Some bits get better, but overall it’s quite weak. As I said, it has the fundamental problem that it’s centered on the wrong protagonists. And they’re all off on their own separate side quests for half the season, and the human characters they get involved with either vanish after a few episodes, get killed after a few episodes, or are just boring. And visually it doesn’t get any less drab and cheap-looking.
I watched 6 or 7 of these episodes . My biggest problem is they started with the civil war or fight for the throne . I was not going to root for Ramsey Bolton but Black Bolt was a blank. The Royals weren’t good people either. It needed more world building first. It’s a problem when your favorite character is a giant teleporting dog.
@11, @22. I would’ve gone with both; have Earth-born Inhumans as the viewpoint characters, but have one of those be Daisy or one of her Secret Warriors (and by extension, put Kamala on AoS, where she and Coulson could’ve geeked out together).
There was a lot of fandom speculation at the time about what Daisy’s reaction would be to having this “Royal Family” turn up after she’s the one who did all the hard work. I know it’s too late now, but I still wanna see how much shade she and Yoyo can throw when they find out about these clowns.
Ryamano: thank you for that. I did this while traveling from one convention (Dragon Con) to another (FanX), so I didn’t have the wherewithal to go into that level of detail. Thanks for picking up the slack…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@1. And that discussion should probably center on the fact that The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is the furthest thing from “socialist” you can get . . .
@8 While I’m sure you enjoyed getting to put woke in quotes, the lack of wokeness in Iron Fist was maybe 5% of its problems. The rest would be the terrible casting, the terrible acting, the unlikable take on Danny Rand, the shelving of their best characters (Colleen Wing ftw, Gao, ftw,) a tremendously unbelievable romance, pacing that made every episode a slog, a main character who loved to talk about being the Immortal Iron Fist but only used his power to do anything cool twice, a dull take on New York given how well Daredevil and Luke Cage realized their parts of the city, subplots (like Rand Inc malfeasance) that went nowhere, Ward’s bizarre addiction subplot, and its greatest sin, being a show about martial arts and having some the sloppiest fight choreography imaginable. Of course, there’s not a whole lot you can do when your star refuses to do any practicing of the fight choreography other than having someone tell him what to do in the five minutes leading up to shooting.
It was bad. The story was bad. Finn Jones was bad. Most of the acting was bad. It was bad.
But if you want to talk about how woke this show ain’t? Danny Rand is the very height of privilege. A rich white dude who gets whatever he wants and never faces consequences for the things he does. Colleen Wing tells him to go away MANY TIMES, but eventually he wears her down. Cool romance! Danny beats up guards, steals a car and threatens a board member with a gun and gets his company back. Attacks police officers, is exonerated. (Compare to Luke Cage for funsies.) It’s so frequent and so consistent it’s not hard to imagine someone in the writing room throwing out the worst nonsense imaginable, constantly waiting for them to start writing the actual script.
Keith– for whatever reason this review isn’t showing up on the main index page for your superhero re-watch articles.
@24– if Ike Perlmutter thought they could have told Civil War with Banner then he obviously hasn’t been watching his own movies. There’s no way Bruce Banner would side with Thaddeus Ross on any subject. More likely, in the scene when Ross was raking the Avengers over the coals over their past battles, Banner would have brought up Harlem and Blonsky and ask just who or what was responsible for that fiasco.
I never made it through the 1st hour on TV. I had more sense than to pay for it in IMAX. Precisely because of the TV budget issue, this had “catastrophe” written all over it from the get go.
Feigie gotta reboot inhumans or acknowledge AOS for ms marvel.
This is the show where Anson Mount doesn’t get to talk, right? Yeah I never bothered with it. One reason you get him in your show, as Discovery proved, is to hear that charming Tennessee accent of his.
Marvel Studios is Kevin Feige’s thing. The MCU idea as interconnected movies is also his idea. So he enters the picture a little later, by 2007/2008 with the first Iron Man movie.
@24: Technically, Feige had a foothold on Marvel well before that. Marvel Studios was founded in 2005 (the first Iron Man was already under development during that period under Feige’s supervision, before Downey and Favreau both came along in 2006).
And Feige had previously worked in the two Bryan Singer X-Men films as an associate producer.
Adding to the previous comment, Feige came along in the late 1990’s, during production of the first X-Men feature.
At this point I’d guess that Inhumans is going to be unceremoniously swept under the rug. Especially with Eternals coming as part of the next phase of movies — I don’t think there’s room for multiple hidden races of powered beings in the MCU, so Eternals will be taking that slot. (Even when I was reading the comics back in the 80s & 90s I probably would’ve had trouble telling you which was which.)
And if they want to bring in Ms. Marvel but have her unconnected to either Inhumans or Agents of Shield, well, life, as they say, finds a way.
@41/hoopmanjh: There’s no reason to link Agents of SHIELD with the Inhumans miniseries. The latter alluded indirectly to the former (in that the emergence of new Inhumans on Earth was implicitly because of AoS’s events), but the former has never referenced the latter. So the MCU could keep the Inhumans mythology established on AoS but just ignore the miniseries about the Royal Family.
Yeah, that’s also certainly an option.
It certainly had no business being released on a massive IMAX screen either. My tv isn’t huge or 4k, but it’s large enough and everything looked like a cheap tv show. Oh, right… I suffered through the whole thing so my friends didn’t have to, and I sort of regret that decision.
It was revealed today that the show will be included on Disney+.
Just another piece of news regardingthe Feige x Perlmutter conflict: now Kevin Feige has been made chief creative officer of Marvel Television and Marvel Family Entertainment (which deals mostly with animated movies). So maybe something as bad as this movie will never be made again. And maybe finally the TV series made by Marvel Television will have more than a nominal attachment to the MCU.
@Ryamano: wonder what that means for Jeph Loeb.
@47 I think Loeb reports to Feige now, instead of Perlmutter. From what I hear about behind the scenes issues, that could be a big step in the right direction for him.
@Alan: seems like Loeb is on the way out. Kinda makes sense now that Feige is also head of Marvel TV and they are focusing on the Disney+ shows, with Ghost Rider cancelled, the Netflix shows gone, SHIELD ending.
jeph-loebs-time-at-marvel-tv-may-be-nearing-its-end
It would seem that Kevin feige might be planning to recast the Inhumans for Ms Marvel.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thedisinsider.com/2019/10/16/inhumans-reportedly-being-recast-for-marvel-studios-ms-marvel-disney-series/amp/
I have no problem with Marvel calling a mulligan on Inhumans. It didn’t cross over with or affect any of the other show’s narratives, so I have a zero problem with them just pretending it never happened.