Review: INHUMANITY #1

Writer:  Matt Fraction
Penciler:  Olivier Coipel
Inker:  Mark Morales
Colorist:  Laura Martin
Ancient Flashback Art:  Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan & Israel Silva
Infinity Flashback Art:  Dustin Weaver & Israel Silva
Letterer:  VC’s Clayton Cowles

Inhumanity leads the fallout from the latest Marvel event, Infinity.  Black Bolt, with help from his brother Maximus, activated a Terrigen bomb that blew up the Inhumans’ home Attilan.  Which also spread Terrigen Mist across the entire globe.  This mist activated latent-Inhuman abilities in individuals, revealing their secret lineage.

How will the Inhuman Royal Family deal with these latest shake-ups?  After Infinity, Black Bolt and Maximus are believed to be dead after the explosion of Attilan.  What is their master plan?  The Inhumanity #1 one-shot looks to answer these questions, while introducing more.

What I Liked

As far as artists go, Olivier Coipel is one of my favorites.  Being exclusive to Marvel, their events don’t feel as epic if he is not illustrating them.  Action scenes are at a minimum here.  Coipel instead gets to display his creative muscle in more subtle ways.

Matt Fraction has been tasked with spearheading the Inhuman resurgence.  This one-shot Fraction delves into the psyche of Karnak.  Karnak didn’t play a part in Infinity, so shining a light on his and Medusa’s thought processes makes sense.

What I Didn’t Like

This is more of a dislike with “Inhumanity” overall – how Marvel is positioning the Inhumans to occupy the same comic book space as the X-Men/mutants.  Look at the similarities….mutants manifest their powers because of X-gene.  Inhumans manifest their abilities after coming in contact with Terrigen Mist and activating their Inhuman-gene.

Plus it is obvious that these moves are partially intended to add the Inhuman franchise to the Marvel cinematic universe.  Marvel and Disney can’t use mutants or X-Men, so they position the Inhumans to replace them.

Summary

Inhumanity #1 does more to remove an existing Inhuman from the playing field than introduce readers to any new Inhumans exposed to the Terrigen Mist.  For anyone intrigued with Inhumans and wanting to learn more about them, this is the issue to pick up and get a short history lesson.

This review is written in partnership with Pop Culture Network.  They can be found at their website http://www.popculturenetwork.com/

Timdogg

#ComicBookChronicles @CBChron founder. Editor-in-Chief of @thekliqnation. Comic book reviewer, podcaster #RABBLERABBLE