The Inhumans leave their exile for the big screen

As devised by the Bullpen of creators working in the 1960’s, the Marvel Universe is a vast landscape of characters; mutants, aliens, gods, demons, inter-dimensional beings etc. As the Marvel Entertainment franchise continues to grow, offering movie-goers still more glimpses into the wildly imaginative world that comic book fans have been familiar with for decades.

Via Badass news:

How cosmic is the Marvel Movieverse getting? The studio is now developing The Inhumansfor the big screen.

One of Marvel’s niche titles, The Inhumans is a blend of science fiction, fantasy and royal drama. The Inhumans are a race of superbeings who live on the dark side of the Moon; they were created by the alien Kree millions of years ago in experiments on primitive humans.

The Inhumans are ruled by a royal family, headed by Black Bolt, who never speaks because the sound of his voice is wildly destructive. There’s a whole motley group of them, and they even have a big mutant spacedog named Lockjaw.

The Inhumans are high level cosmic wackiness in the Marvel Universe. We’re talking Rome meets Star Wars meets The X-Men. The film would be a ‘team’ story, and it sounds like some of the details may be changed for the movie version. According to It’s On The Grid, the film would be about

aliens who were put on Earth as sleeper cell aliens to eventually call back their race to take over the planet. Ultimately, the group of aliens fully assimilates and don’t want to cause war.

The project is out to writers, with no release date set. While I’m not psyched about that logline (although it could be dumbed down), it’s intriguing to see that Marvel is going so big in their post-Avengers movieverse. Everybody who thought we’d be getting nothing but Luke Cage and Moon Knight type street level superheroes – you were wrong.

The Inhumans by Alan Davis

By the way: could we be seeing The Inhumans getting introduced in The Avengers? It makes some sense that Marvel would be laying the groundwork in a movie that will already be dealing with an alien invasion.

The Inhumans by Jack Kirby

The Inhumans were introduced in the pages of the Fantastic Four back in 1965. As a family of explorers and adventurers, much of the early Fantastic Four comics involved research into new lands and alien worlds (something that the recent run by Jonathan Hickman paid homage to). Imagine their surprise when the FF discovered that a secret race of super beings had hidden themselves away amidst a range of treacherous mountains in Europe. The humanity of the FF drew them out of their hiding, making them allies of the Richards clan and the outside world as well.

A strange race, no one member of the Inhumans looks the same due to the random effects of the Terrigen Mists that all members of their people must imbibe during a ritual marking their first steps toward adulthood. The Inhumans are ruled over by a royal family consisting of the gregarious Gorgon, the cool and silent Triton, the brilliant tactician Karnak, the warm and sensuous Medusa and the ever-silent yet strong Black Bolt.

Often viewed as a threat to the Western world, the Inhumans have long struggled with their traditional seclusion from the rest of the planet, a path that took them to the moon and ultimately to the stars as well. Throughout their depictions in the comic book world, the mystery of their origins has been explained. The result of a Kree experiment to create the perfect army, the Inhumans were left on primitive Earth where they developed apart from homo sapiens. The experiment was abandoned, likely due to the never-ending war with the Skrull Empire, and the Inhumans developed their own society.

There are rumors that the Skrulls may be used in the upcoming Avengers feature film, possibly leading to the guest appearance of Captain Marvel and even the Inhuams. None of this has been confirmed as yet, but the announcement of an Inhumans film indicates that plans area foot to further explore the dark reaches of Marvel mythology.

War of Kings (and why you should care) – part one

I’ll admit that there have been waaaay more crossovers going on at both Marvel and DC Comics than usual and that many of them have been rather uneventful (ironic in that these were all ‘event’ comics) in the end. But through them all, there have been two ‘sub event’ series at each company that have out-shined them all. DC had ‘Sinestro Corps War’ and Marvel had ‘Annihilation.’

A cosmic crossover that utilized the many space-faring heroes that had languished over the years. The first Annihilation crossover was so successful that it resulted in the relaunch of Nova, a series that was less than memorable to begin with and is now almost thew Marvel equivalent of Green Lantern (keep it up guys, you can do it!). The second Annihilation spawned Guardians of the Galaxy (another book that was less successful the first time around and is now a cult hit).

For the hat trick third cosmic event, Abnett and Lanning are pulling in characters from the X-Men universe and the long forgotten Inhumans.

For those not in the know, the Inhumans were created by Stan and Jack in the pages of the Fantastic Four back in the 1960′ as a super race wishing nothing more than to be left alone (aside from the evil Inhuman Maximus the Mad who wanted nothing less than total destruction on a grand scale). The royal family, consisting of the beautiful Medusa, the wise Karnak, gregarious Gorgon, silent Triton and angelic Crystal are ruled by the silent Black Bolt, who can never speak, his voice is so great. The family has braved many crises over the years, but in the past decade it has gotten decidedly worse for them.

The Inhumans have been used very well by a number of comic creators yet have remained in a kind of directionless limbo. Until last week, in fact, they remained exactly where they started; a race of super beings who wanted to be left alone.

That has all changed with Secret Invasion which saw the king of the Inhumans Black Bolt was kidnapped and his powerful voice (a mere whisper from his lips could shatter a mountain) turned into a weapon for the Skrull empire.

The Secret Invasion: Inhumans story brought up some key ideas that have been all but forgotten until recently. The Inhumans were originally created as a weapon to fight the Skrulls but had been forgotten, resulting in a race of intellectuals and artists rather than warriors (there are exceptions, of course). With the wraith of an entire race awakened by the damage done to their king, however, the Inhumans are out to earn their title of perfect warriors.

Seeking out the last remnants of the Skrull fleet from the doomed invasion of the Earth, the Inhuman city is now roaring through the stars hell-bent on revenge. No longer satisfied with isolation, they are now looking for domination over the other races in the galaxy from the Skrulls to the Kree to the Shi’ar… which will bring us to part two of my article to come tomorrow.

This is an incredibly exciting time for these characters. Seeing the Inhumans developed beyond a culture of isolation is a very big thing and the most interesting concept to be enacted since their creation.

But what will the consequences of the perfect weapons let loose upon the universe? Read the series (War of Kings- One Shot and X-Men: Kingbreaker- One Shot) on sale now to find out!

Recommended:
The Inhumans (Marvel Comics, Fantastic Four)
Fantastic Four/Inhumans (Marvel Comics, Annihilation)
Secret Invasion: Inhumans