Comic Book / Inhumans vs. X-Men

Inhumans Vs. X-Men is a 2016 crisis crossover published by Marvel Comics, written by Charles Soule and Jeff Lemire with art by Leinil Yu. Serving as the culmination of a years-long storyline that began in 2013's Infinity, Inhumans vs. X-Men finally sees the Inhuman-Mutant tension come to a head. With the X-Men no longer able to tolerate the harmful effects of Terrigen Mist on Mutantkind, they find themselves officially at war with the Inhumans.

The Beast has discovered dreadful news: the Terrigen Mists have saturated the Earth so much that, in two weeks time, the entire planet will be uninhabitable to Mutants. Finally pushed to the brink, the X-Men will not go down without a fight. To ensure that Mutantkind lives on, they will take on the Inhumans and their royal family.

Despite being a big event, very few titles were involved with only Extraordinary X-Men, Uncanny X-Men (2016), All-New X-Men, Uncanny Inhumans and, strangely enough, Deadpool and the Mercs for Money.

Inhumans vs. X-Men

Core title

• Inhumans vs. X-Men (#0 — #6)

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Tie-ins

• All-New X-Men (#17-18)
• Deadpool & The Mercs For Money (#7-8)
• Extraordinary X-Men (#18-19)
• Uncanny Inhumans (#18-19)
• Uncanny X-Men (2016) (#17-18)

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IvX was followed by a mini-event called Resurr Xion, which saw the launch of seven new X-Men titles.

ResurrXion

Spin-offs — X-Men side

• Iceman
• Weapon X (2017)
• Jean Grey
• Generation X (2017)
• Cable
• X-Men: Blue
• X-Men: Gold
• Astonishing X-Men

Spin-offs — Inhumans side

• Royals
• Black Bolt
• Secret Warriors

In addition to the new series above, All-New Wolverine continued with a soft relaunch and rebranding, while Old Man Logan got a new creative team for ResurrXion.

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Inhumans Vs. X-Men provides examples of the following tropes:

• Accidental Pun: Young!Beast thinks his older self is making a time travel pun when he says they're out of time when it comes to the cloud.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Gorgon makes a joke that he's a huge fan of metal. Colossus doesn't get it, but he thinks it's funny.
• And This Is for...: As Emma nails Black Bolt in the throat whilst in her diamond form, she says:
  Emma: For Cyclops.
• Apocalypse How: The X-Men are fighting to prevent a Societal Disruption with the eradication of the Homo Superior kind.
• Apocalypse Wow: The eradication of Mutantkind via Terrigen Mists. The X-Men intend to do an inversion by dispersing the Mists, putting the Inhumans at risk.
• Badass Boast: From Magneto to Crystal. Also doubles as a "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  Magneto: Ah, but what if I'm already exactly where I want to be? Past your battleship's defenses, in the very heart of the beast. As for saving my life, Crystal Amaquelin, I am Magneto. You don't save mutants. I do.
• Bittersweet Ending: Somewhat. The threat of the Terrigen Mists are finally over for mutants, and the X-Men apologize to Beast. Emma Frost escapes punishment for her actions and goes into hiding, still hanging on to the idea that everything she's done was what Cyclops would have done. The Mists are gone, thus no more Inhumans awakening their power on Earth and Medusa decides to abdicate the throne, making New Attlian a democracy with Iso in charge of the city until the elections are done. However, this allows Medusa to return to Black Bolt's side.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Presented as a key part of the conflict: If the Terrigen Mists disperse into the atmosphere, it'll be the end for mutant kind and kill every last mutant. But if the Terrigen Cloud is destroyed, it means no new Inhumans can manifest their powers. However, as is noted in the series itself, on the one hand you have mutants at risk of extinction, and on the other hand, you have Inhumans at the risk of... not getting superpowers? Not exactly comparable situations, especially when Magneto underlines the Holocaust comparisons (exact words: "I will not see my people gassed again").
• Call-Back: Dazzler notes that she has fought Black Bolt before after he attempts to use his voice on her (undercover at his bar) and Emma.
• Conflict Ball: The main conflict in the story comes from the fact the X-Men know that the Terrigen will make Earth uninhabitable for mutants but at no point tell the Inhumans of this, so when the fighting starts the Inhumans don't know what's at stake and think the X-Men are just lashing out.
• Continuity Nod: When Mosaic takes over Magneto's body, we see fragments of him memory, referencing such events as Magneto being put on trial, ripping the adamantium out of Wolverine's body, House of M, and Avengers vs. X-Men. We also see images of Joseph (Magneto's clone) and Xorn.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • The entire conflict regarding the Terrigen Clouds leans on the conceit that the Inhumans didn't realize that Terrigen was toxic to mutants before Black Bolt set off the Terrigen Bomb that created them, and thus were caught completely off-guard and were unprepared for the crisis. However it was directly established in the aftermath of M-Day that Terrigen was lethal to mutants when Quicksilver attempted to use it to jumpstart the powers of depowered mutants with fatal results. More to the point, Medusa chastised Pietro over the effort because the Royal Family was well aware of this and knew that exposing mutants would cause their powers to ramp up out of control. The story tries to turn it around by saying that the Inhumans didn't know it would turn the entire planet uninhabitable this fast for mutants, but it is still noticeable, especially with them definitely knowing that the cloud was spreading and moving.
  • When Mosaic jumps into 05!Cyclops's body, he brings with him remnants of memory from his time in Magneto's head. One of those memory fragments is of Magneto attacking New York during the Planet X storyline. However, those events had been subject to a Retcon stating that it was actually Xorn masquerading as Magneto, and the real Magneto was on Genosha at the time.
• Crisis Crossover: Building off prior crisis crossovers Infinity and Civil War II.
• Culture Justifies Anything: The Inhumans rulers believe that preserving their toxic Phlebotinum cloud justifies stopping anyone to whom the cloud is actually toxic, as seen in Death of X, because it would mean part of the coming of age rituals would be gone.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: During his fight with Old Man Logan, Inferno forces his opponent's claws into his shoulder, using them to channel the heat from his powers, roasting Logan from the inside out.
• Depending on the Writer: Just how sacred Terrigen is to the Inhumans varies wildly depending who is writing them. It's notable that in their own books the Inhumans don't want it around any more than the X-Men.
• Designated Hero: Discussed In-Universe when Kamala gets the low down on what the heck's going on and has to ask "You guys? Who are the good guys?"
• Dirty Coward: Present!Beast refuses to go along with the attack and attempts to betray the X-Men for the Inhumans. Not because he has moral objections like Rogue, but because he's too scared of retaliation.
• Do Not Go Gentle: The X-Men (excepting Beast) aren't really concerned about what will happen if they lose the war, because at least they'll have finally done something to survive rather than just hide in Limbo and let the Mists kill people.
• End of an Era: No more Terrigan Mists, means no more Terragenesis. Now no inhuman who hasn't already went through it will ever obtain their 'true form', and will remain as they were born. Although since many don't know of that lineage they’re probably happy about it.
• Face–Heel Turn: Emma finally loses it at the end.
• From Bad to Worse: The Inhumans Inferno and Iso find themselves getting this progressively worse - they attempt to escape New Attilan only to face down Sabretooth. They escape him only to be chased by Angel and Wolverine. They escape them only to be confronted by Old Man Logan.
• Have You Told Anyone Else?: Asked of Beast in regards to the cloud shrinking. Once it's clear he hasn't but he plans to tell the Inhumans, Storm shoots him in the back non-fatally.
• History Repeats: Defied by Magneto who refuses to let what happened to his people in the Holocaust happen again.
  Magneto: My people will not be gassed to death!
• I Choose to Stay: Medusa attempts to get the Human Torch away from the fight, but he refuses to do so, opting to help out and fight. As Sabretooth points out, this wasn't his fight at all and he pays for it.
• Idiot Ball:
  • This entire event is kicked off by Beast's decision to inform the X-Men that they are going to die without telling the Inhumans! Now, this isn't a case where he never intended to tell the Inhumans, he intends to let them know after he tells the X-Men that the only way to survive is to abandon their own home planet. The result is that the desperate X-Men decide that This Means War! and the Inhumans are completely in the dark about just how bad the situation really is. Your mind is truly great, Hank.
  • Black Bolt in issue #1 when confronted by Emma Frost and a disguised Dazzler in the Quiet Room his first reaction is to use his sonic scream, which is a last resort since even a whisper would kill everyone around him, and seeing how he has enhanced durability, speed and strength that allows him to fight hand to hand with the likes of Thor, The Thing and Hulk it makes little sense why he'd use his scream against Emma Frost who's hardly a match for any of those characters, and in diamond form, can No-Sell the scream.
  • The X-Men's plan relies on Forge's machine, but they only send Wolverine along as a guard, even after Forge clearly demonstrates they have hazmat suits that could protect anyone without a healing factor from the mist's effects.
  • Forge gets duped into revealing the weakness in his machine condensing the second terrigen cloud with remarkable ease by Iso in issue #3. Possibly justified on the grounds that Iso has demonstrated the ability to dumb down people by manipulating the brains blood pressure in Uncanny Inhumans.
    • For that matter, Forge, whose mutant power allows him to invent anything he needs, designs a machine that allows him to condense the terrigen cloud back into solid matter, intending to destroy it. Instead of, y'know, giving the condensed terrigen back to Inhumans to use in a controlled manner like they did with the crystals.
  • Despite the wide array of options Jean and the Cuckoos had for keeping Karnak out of the fight with their telepathy — as simple as just keeping him asleep all the way up to outright shutting down his brain — they instead resort to trapping him in illusions, which enables him to make use of his ability to find the flaw in all things. When he inevitably escapes, Jean also forgets she's an incredibly powerful telekinetic and could effortlessly restrain him even without playing mind games, and needs Fantomex on hand as backup.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In issue #4, Mosaic takes over Magneto and, when everyone notices how odd he's acting, he says he's got to go use the bathroom and bolts like the young adult he is. This prompts Iceman to look at Old Man Logan and ask if he just witnessed what he saw.
• Internal Reveal: 05!Cyclops learns that his older self wasn't responsible for the destruction of the first Terrigen Cloud, information that is shared with with both sides by the story's end.
• In the Back: Storm shoots Beast in the back with a lightning bolt to keep him quiet.
• Jerkass Ball: In issue #2 Laura seems to be actively trying to hurt or even kill Inhumans despite her current characterization shows her to be against killing or unnecessary violence.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In-universe, the Inhuman Ren Kimura sees the X-Men this way. Despite being at war with them, she says they're perfectly justified in being angry at the Inhumans, and speculates that the Inhumans would probably do the exact same thing if the shoe were on the other foot.
• Kick the Dog: While the innocence of the Inhumans is debatable, Lockjaw is a dog (sort of; he ''might'' have been human before his transformation). He just gets drugged by Fantomex.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Storm zapping Beast in the back would have been a straight-up dog kicking if it wasn't Beast who - besides having been a complete Jerkass for years now - openly announced his intention to rat out the rest of the X-Men to the Inhumans because he's afraid of retaliation.
• Let's You and Him Fight: The final battle begins this way. The Nuhumans and Cyclops are actually on their way to help rebuild Forge's machine in Iceland when they're attacked by the main forces of the X-Men.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Despite being prominent on the covers, both Ms. Marvel (2014) and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur don't join the event until issue #4. All-New Wolverine is locked out due to her storyline "Enemy of the State II" happening, (although she was still able to appear in the splash page to end issue 1, has a role in issue #2, and appears again in the final battle beginning in issue #5) though no word as to why Mercs for Money is participating and not either Deadpool's self-named comic nor Uncanny Avengers.
  • In story, most of the Inhumans aren't aware the Terrigen will make the earth completely uninhabitable for mutants, so as far as they know the X-Men just want revenge for Cyclops.
• Love Makes You Evil: Emma suffers from this full stop even though she was the classic Token Evil Teammate of the X-Men, watching Cyclops die in her arms from the Terrigen Mists completely pushed her over the edge of insanity. Things got so bad that she fabricated Cyclops' leadership and eventual death by Black Bolt in the Death of X storyline, summoned Inhuman-killing Sentinels to kill off Inhumans trying to contain the Terrigen Mists and racked up the highest body count in the X-Men/Inhuman conflict, brainwashed Magneto, tried to kill herself to be with Cyclops using the Terrigen Mists, and ended up going on the run to become the next new Big Bad while fanatically still believing the deceased Cyclops would condone any of her insanity.
• Male Gaze: Leinil Yu's solicited cover for issue #6◊ puts Wolverine's ass on prominent display.
• Man of Kryptonite: Dazzler is one for Black Bolt; Her powers allow her to turn his sonic scream (his greatest weapon) into photonic energy, neutralizing the sound at the same time. This reduces Black Bolt's offensive capabilities greatly when she and Emma go up against him, allowing Emma to gain the edge.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Xorn bails from the battlefield when an angry Sebastion Shaw damages his mask, unleashing some of his energies and accidentally killing two mutants.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Medusa makes the mistake of trying to warn the Royal Family of a possible attack by the Mutants at any given time. Within earshot of the Beast. Beast decides to withhold information on the Terrigen Cloud from the Inhumans and calls the mutant teams together to let them know what's going on.
  • In the Mercs for Money storyline, it turns out that in a possible future, Negasonic Teenage Warhead used her powers to render the cloud non-toxic to mutants but still functional, unintentionally escalating the war rather than stopping, because the Inhumans consider it too sacred to alter its nature in any way.
• Not Worth Killing: In issue #5, Havok has Black Bolt at his mercy and Medusa essentially telling him that if he does it, she'll hunt him down and kill him. Havok backs down, not because of the threat, but because it was never about the X-Men nor Inhumans but Emma and Scott.
• On the Rebound: Johnny Storm/Human Torch was shown to be this for Medusa throughout a number of issues and it is the reason for his involvement in the Inhuman side of the conflict. Once matters are settled and Medusa abdicates her role as Queen, she immediately dumps Johnny and goes running back to Black Bolt to renew their relationship.
• Opt Out: Rogue votes against the attack though unlike Beast, she doesn't attempt to aid the Inhumans either.
• Out-of-Character Moment: A lot of it.
  • Wolverine actually trying to kill Iso and Inferno in issue #2 when she's been trying to move on from her killer side.
  • Rogue saying that the Inhumans have never harmed them and being the most adament outside of Beast that they don't fight when in her book, she's not only suffered M-Pox, but has angrily called the cloud "Inhuman Poison".
  • Several Inhumans who in the past either sided with mutants on the matter of the cloud, like Synapse, or otherwise wanted nothing to do with the Inhumans after terrigenesis, such as Moon Girl, are now willingly joining the fight on Medusa's side after issue #3. They're called in by Ms. Marvel, who helped form the Champions precisely because she was tired of all the hero vs. hero nonsense in the wake of Civil War.
• Properly Paranoid: Emma has been putting together an intricate anti-Inhuman plan since Scott died. While seemingly extreme, due to the Inhuman/Mutant truce, it turns out the Inhumans have been planning for a possible war, and now that the Terrigen Cloud is about to make Earth uninhabitable for mutankind, the plan is vital to mutantkind's survival.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • The main problem with the fight between the two sides — the X-Men have the full story about what the Terrigen Mists are doing, but the Inhumans do not. This is due to the fact that Beast decided to tell the X-Men what's going on before telling the Inhumans and that's because he caught Medusa telling the rest of the Royal Family to be on guard, and prepare for war, in case of a possible mutant retaliation. In fact, no Inhumans learn what's going on until Mosaic hops into Magneto, learns why they're attacking, and tells Ms. Marvel and her gathered team of Inhumans. Ultimately, when Medusa finally learns what's going on, she's willing to destroy the Mists to save Mutantkind.
    • That said, given the Inhumans' reaction to the destruction of the first Terrigen cloud, it's no wonder the mutants, Beast included, thought telling the Inhumans the scope of the situation to be pointless, even if he later changed his mind after learning of Emma's plans.
  • The final battle kicks off in issue #5 when the Nuhumans and Cyclops arrive in Iceland to help Forge and Moon Girl rebuild his machine. They're immediately attacked by the X-Men on-sight, which is at least understandable considering the last they knew Mosaic body-hopped from Magneto to Scott, and then stole the Blackbird, giving the impression the Nuhumans were firmly siding with the Inhuman Royal Family. However Cyclops's response to Storm's accusations that the Nuhumans don't know what they're doing is simply "They know what they're doing... and so do I!" before he attacks. The entire conflict between the Nuhumans and X-Men could have been prevented if he instead explained they were there to help!
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Beast tries to give the X-Men one but seeing how his plan is "surrender our planet to the people poisoning us" it fails to impress any of them.
  Beast: Shut up, Erik. You think you are saving us but I am telling you-you are killing us. I don't care how prepared you are. If the Inhumans attack, we are all doomed. You are destroying our species as surely as the Terrigen would. And you're right about one thing. I do have access to New Atillan and that is exactly where I'm going now. I will have no part of- *Storm zaps him*
• The Reveal: Magneto knew all along that Cyclops wasn't the one who destroyed the Terrigen Cloud and was killed by Black Bolt, because his helmet kept him from seeing the psychic illusion of Cyclops Emma created.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The story seems to contrast the teams this way with the X-Men being more straight-forward aggressors willing to use force to end the threat while the Inhumans are willing to wait things out and negotiate. However, in a twist on this, this doesn't necessarily make the "Red" side irrational as the X-Men could come across as proactive heroes fighting for their species while the Inhumans could come across as coldly unsympathetic to the fact that their cloud is killing people.
• Retcon: The Mercs for Money tie-in reveals that Negasonic Teenage Warhead, now redesigned after her movie counterpart, isn't a clairvoyant telepath but a Reality Warper that resurrected herself after Genosha.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Solicits state that O5!Cyclops is going to learn the truth of his elder counterpart's crimes and is not going to be happy about it. Especially since Death of X revealed that Cyclops died much earlier and it was all Emma Frost's fault that they were like this.
• Sanity Slippage: Emma, already quite unstable after Death of X, has further gone off the deep end and now genuinely but still delusionally believes Cyclops was killed by Black Bolt.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In All-New X-Men #17, O5!Iceman and Romeo do this, not wanting to be in this fight one way or another.
• Self-Serving Memory: Issue #0 shows Emma having this, she wants to be ready to face Black Bolt in order to avenge Scott's death, when the Stepford Cuckoos point out that Black Bolt didn't actually kill Scott since he was Dead All Along and also point out it was Emma's trick, they question if she remembers what really happened, Emma responds saying of course she remembers and shows them a video of Black Bolt vaporizing her mental projection of Scott.
• Spanner in the Works: The X-Men take Black Bolt and Karnak out of the battle first specifically because both Inhumans serve as walking examples of this trope due to Black Bolt being a Person of Mass Destruction that could take out the X-Men's heaviest hitters and Karnak having the Flaw Exploitation power to derail any plan.
• Spiritual Successor: To 2012's Avengers vs. X-Men, which saw the X-Men squaring off against another prominent faction of the Marvel Universe.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: The All New X-Men title deals with the fact that the O5! Iceman is caught between the fight for survival and being with his Inhuman boyfriend. His name is Romeo, to make it completely on the nose.
• Take That, Audience!: Magneto, while under control of Emma says "Emma was Right", likely as mockery of people who use that Memetic Mutation phrase to criticize both Death of X and this book. Specially after Emma's Face–Heel Turn.
• This Is Unforgivable!: This is 05!Cyclops's reaction when he learns that Emma was the one behind the destruction of the Terrigen Cloud, not his older self, and that she stood by and allowed him to suffer persecution for what appeared to be his older self's actions without ever telling him the truth.
• This Means War!: Finally done with wanting to figure things out, our heroes within the X-Men are taking things to the Inhumans.
• Totally Radical: "Your fierce is on point, Medusa." Even worse is that Mosaic is saying this while in the body of Magneto, an elderly man.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • Interviews for ResurrXion reveal that at least the Extraordinary X-Men (minus Illyana), The Original Five X-Men, Magneto, The Royal Family, Swain and Flint all make it out of the event in one piece. They also spoil that Iceman and Romeo are still in a relationship post IvX. The Champions and her ongoing also suggest that Kamala isn't going to die either.
  • The Unexpected Character was spoiled when Marvel ran Twitter polls asking fans who would win in a fight between an X-Men and an Inhuman. Most of the characters had either appeared on revealed covers or in issue #0 except one. Dazzler.
• Underestimating Badassery: In issue #1, Jean Grey confronts Karnak, who blows off the fact that she's even here, expecting Logan or one of the X-Men's other warriors. It's when he's hit with a sense of Déjà Vu does Jean reveal the truth - they've had this conversation four times already: she's been there for six hours.
• Villain Has a Point: Theoretically, the Inhumans are the good guys, but the Mutants have a lot of good points. As Old Man Logan puts it: If the cloud stays, mutants die. If the cloud goes, people who didn't have powers just don't get powers. This gets to the point where, in issue #4, Mosaic tells the gathered Inhumans Kamala called in why the mutants are attacking, it prompts the teenage heroine to question just who the good guys were.
  • In issue #1, Emma points out that if Cyclops actually her using a projection of Cyclops hadn't destroyed one of the Terrigen Clouds in Death of X, the Terrigen in the atmosphere would have reached the tipping point before Beast would have discovered it, so everyone was alive because of that action.
• Villainous Breakdown: When the Mists are destroyed and things calm down, Emma Frost breaks down and summons an army of Inhuman-hunting Sentinels to attack.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Oh, there's plenty of this in issue #2. Medusa calls out the young Beast for the mutants attacking New Attilan, though he throws it right back while Sabretooth calls out the Human Torch's decision to get involved in the fight. Angel also calls out Wolverine's decision to not play nice with Inferno and Iso.
  • Although he's unable to act on it yet, 05!Cyclops is preparing to do this in All-New X-Men #18 after he finds out the truth of the original Cyclops when Mosaic takes over his body temporarily.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Sabretooth and Old Man Logan get taken down by Inferno, of all people.
  • Karnak knocks out Jean Grey — a phenomenally powerful telekinetic — in issue #5 with a rock. And not a big one, either, but one about the size of his palm.
• Worthy Opponent: Colossus defeats Gorgon, but actually considers him a friend, even giving him his tovarisch nickname.
• Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": What would happen to the X-Men if they lost.

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