YMMV / Inhumans

• Ass Pull: The series never truly explains how or why Maximus was Brought Down to Normal after undergoing Terrigenesis in the flashback. It almost seems like they just did it to motivate Maximus into jealousy and villainy after his family belittle him for being human. It's especially bad that this never happens in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. where it would be blissfully welcomed by Inhumans who were oppressed by horrible Fantastic Racism and just want to be normal.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The show plunged the entire Inhumans property into a slump^note Not that the comics published that time and The New '10s did all that well — see the entry for the Inhumans in the trope's Marvel page and is widely considered the first outright flop of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the Marvel Television productions of the MCU aren't held in as high regard as the films and series produced by Marvel Studios, the shows do have their fanbases (or are considered simply "okay" instead of outright terrible). This is the first MCU property where critics, fandom, and general audiences have been united in their negative opinions.
  • An excerpt from MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios confirms that the television series made the entire property radioactive, to the point where when Eternals was in development, it wasn't allowed to film in Hawaii to avoid being associated with Inhumans.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Almost every review of the series brings up that we are expected to root for a group of elitist slave owners who benefit from and enforce a brutal caste system that they see no issue with, while being asked to root against the character trying to tear it all down for seemingly no reason other than that the writers said to.
• Audience-Coloring Adaptation: The series is likely to be this for The Inhumans for a while due to the Troubled Production, Executive Meddling, and scathing reviews affecting the show. Tellingly, Ms. Marvel (2022) —focusing on Kamala Khan, arguably the most famous Inhuman besides the royals — has zero references to anything Inhuman-related, and show the origin of her powers as being an artifact instead of Terrigenesis... at least until the season finale reveals that, in a delicious case of irony given the notorious Fandom Rivalry, that she's actually a mutant.
• Base-Breaking Character: An odd case which comes entirely down to Anson Mount's performance: some critics and fans find that Mount is great at portraying Black Bolt's power and personality through facial expressions and body language due to his being functionally mute, while others find him silly, awkward and giving the show's worst performance.
• Designated Hero: Black Bolt and the rest of the show's heroes enforce a brutal caste system, where anyone unlucky enough to not get an impressive enough power from Terrigenesis is forced into slave labor for life. Maximus being the king's brother is the only reason he himself is not a slave and the rest of the Royal Family constantly look down on him for his lack of powers, and his willingness to murder in cold blood comes off as the production crew knowing full well it's the only way we could possibly root against him. Also, Medusa's way of getting help is to force one of the few actually sympathetic characters at gunpoint to keep endangering herself for her. It’s possible that the intention is that while on the run the royal family will grow to become more heroic while Maximus starts to hurt people who don’t have it coming (see Designated Villain) and by the end they’ll be the characters we know from the comics and past adaptations; but throughout the series there's no sign of it and the only ones complaining about the system are Maximus and those on his side. It’s written like we’re expected to root for the royal family from the start, as if they were as moral and principled as Captain America. Then there's Black Bolt's way of dealing with Maximus in the finale. Confessing that he arranged things many years ago to make Black Bolt flee, but instead he caused him to kill their parents, he surrenders and asks Black Bolt to vaporize him with his power. He does not, and he leaves him at the bunker. Alone in a lone room in the moon for the rest of his life. It is intended as a Thou Shalt Not Kill reaction, but comes as a very Cruel Mercy instead.
• Designated Villain:
  • Maximus lacks the madness and mind control powers of his comic book counterpart, and his motive for wanting the throne isn't so much gaining power for himself as seeking equality for the enslaved Inhumans. Many are left to wonder why Maximus' coup is a bad thing when it's practically bloodless, with only the already unsympathetic royals being targeted and the only actual fatality being the leader of the Genetic Council, whose job was literally to judge and place people in a caste which is a mild case of Pay Evil unto Evil. Then Maximus has all but one of the rest of the Genetic Council beaten and exiled, which also comes across as a Pay Evil Unto Evil moment for the same reason as for their leader. Then, another intended Moral Event Horizon has Maximus kill a friend of his... and again it falls flat because that friend was also a member of the Genetic Council and was actively plotting to kill him. The Reveal in the finale, that Maximus attempted to trick his brother to run away to Earth when they were young but which resulted in Black Bolt murdering his parents by accident, and had kept that secret for years from him, also doesn't change this, since Black Bolt's parents were autocrats who executed Medusa's parents for their rebellion to institute reforms and were considering having the equivalent of a lobotomy performed on Black Bolt so his voice couldn't hurt anyone, adding more asshole victims to his body count. Maximus bringing the protective dome down around the city and putting his people's lives at risks to ensure his family wouldn't kill him then refusing to stop it is meant to show that at the end of the day Maximus values his own life above his people's well being, but by this point it just feels like the writers realized he wasn't actually very villainous and had to scramble to make him fit his role.
  • There is Mordis, who gets constantly talked up as a monster by both (supposed) heroes and villains alike, but doesn't show any overly sadistic or otherwise villainous personality traits at all, mostly just acting as the resident Deadpan Snarker of Auran's team. It is then revealed that he killed people by accident after his Terrigenesis; but instead of anyone helping him he was locked up for half of his life, despite his powers being easily containable as his mask shows, while the far more dangerous Black Bolt (who accidentally killed his own parents) is not only not imprisoned or even fitted with some kind of Power Nullifier, but actually became king. Probably the most heartbreaking moment is when he gets manipulated by Karnak, who promises him a better future in case he surrenders, only to have him lower his guard and falsely tells him that he stood up for him in the past, when in reality he argued that he should have been put down. It's no wonder that after, some additional needless taunting from Gorgon, he decides to die rather than to be put back in his cell while trying to take his tormentors with him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Lockjaw, the royal family's Big Friendly Dog with teleporting powers. Most online comments have basically been "[Negative remark about the show]... but I loved Lockjaw!" It helps that, as you're probably assuming already if you've read the above tropes, he's the only character we're supposed to like that you actually can root for.
  • Mordis also seemed to gain some love for his snarky attitude and for being one of the most sympathetic characters in the show. Even though the show apparently wants us to see him as a monster despite really showing no signs of this whatsoever.
  • Louise, mainly for being one of the more relatable human characters in the cast, her Les Yay with Medusa, and her certain resemblance to Felicity Smoak before season 3 looks and personality-wise.
  • If there's one "good" Inhuman you want to root for, it's definitely Sammy. His Gentle Giant and Nice Guy persona make him a more interesting character than the Royal Family despite his limited screen time.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Because of its poor reception and poor representation of the property that it's based off of, many fans just pretend that nothing of this series is related with the MCU. Some even hope that it becomes outright Canon Discontinuity in line of a Continuity Reboot that could be tied to the introduction of Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel in the Disney+ series. The disconnect is also helped by the show's only real connection to the greater MCU being that there's an offhand mention about how humans are already aware that Inhumans exist due to the events of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — specifically, the Inhuman Outbreak, which the show was obligated to mention anyway — although that series doesn't specifically mention the Inhuman Royal Family anywhere, and Daisy Johnson, the instigator of said events, is never even implicitly mentioned in Inhumans. Crystal was actually supposed to make an appearance in the concurrent season of Agents, but that show's crew quickly put a kibosh on it once this show's bad reception became clear. Of course, the television side of the MCU in general has always had an ambiguous relationship to the films when it comes to canonicity^note Largely due to the two sides being handled by different studios that haven't cooperated much since Marvel Studios split from Marvel Entertainment., but even serious fans of Marvel TV have said that they're perfectly okay with this show in particular being declared non-canon.
• Fight Scene Failure:
  • Medusa's hair's fight scene is extremely underwhelming. The "hits" her hair makes on the mooks lack any sort of oomph, and the scene amounts to the actress standing there making weird faces while three grown men make terribly telegraphed attacks at her one at a time. Additionally, the guards just walk up to her one at a time. Even as they see her effortlessly beating their fellows.
  • Karnak's big fight scene doesn't exactly demonstrate the martial arts mastery the comic character is known for, and the bad guys don't do much more than mindlessly walk into his fists (despite having long-range weapons).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: It was well known Ike Perlmutter wanted the Inhumans to succeed and replace mutants (who Marvel did not have the rights to) and he finally got his pet project made... the same year early talks began between Disney and Fox for a merger, rendering the entire Inhumans mass-media push pointless.
• Informed Wrongness: The central issue many people had with the series. Maximus is calling for a revolt and the destruction of a brutal caste system that forces the majority of the population into a lifetime of back-breaking slave labor while those at the top enjoy luxury, a system the show's "heroes" oversee and refuse to see any issue with, and yet we're supposed to see him as the bad guy seemingly for no other reason than that the writers said so, with even his villainous actions mostly being directed at the aforementioned leaders. Even if he were as cold-hearted and murderous as the series is trying to portray him, it wouldn't change that he's completely right in his criticisms of Inhuman society and the Royal Family, and if the series was written competently, it would have culminated in a Heel Realization on the Royal Family's part that leads to them dismantling the caste system.
• Iron Woobie: Black Bolt had to continue on as King with the knowledge he accidentally murdered his parents. By the season finale, he severed ties with Maximus who revealed he was the one who orchestrated that event.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • This is a MCU work, after all. A lot of people would check it just because of that; especially when it had been just released and the general consensus about its poor quality had not been formed yet.
  • Even people who didn't like the look of the trailer said they'd consider watching the show just to see Lockjaw.
  • Some Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans watched the show for a possible Daisy Johnson appearance. (She doesn't appear once and none of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team are so much as mentioned, quashing hopes for a crossover.)
  • While most people agree that the show isn't good, they also agree that Iwan Rheon as Maximus was a fantastic choice and many even think that he is the only character worth rooting for.
• Karmic Overkill: Since Maximus was seen as far less evil than intended, most viewers felt that him spending the rest of his life imprisoned alone in a bunker on the Moon was far too harsh a fate for him.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Did anyone actually believe that Triton got killed so easily in the first episode?
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Memes mocking the outfits quickly became a trend, featuring disparaging comparisons to the old films of Bryan Singer's X-Men Film Series (the Trope Codifier for Movie Superheroes Wear Black) and Smallville (a show infamous for either Not Wearing Tights or its Cheap Costumes when they have them) being common.
  • There have also been memes comparing Medusa's wig to the rather fake-looking one Kate Mara had to wear for the reshoots of Fantastic Four (2015).
  • Iwan Rheon being styled "Black Bolton" in reference to his breakout role on Game of Thrones.
  • "Someone touch Lockjaw!", due to it becoming more obvious with each episode that no one ever touches the CGI Lockjaw onscreen, which dog lovers especially find unforgivable.
  • On every promo of the 8th episode, comments like "Season finale? More like series finale!" are common.
  • Zack Snyder released his short film Snow Steam Iron around the time of the premiere, which he famously filmed on an iPhone. This led to many jokes about how he managed to make something more visually impressive on an iPhone over a weekend with friends than Marvel made with Imax cameras.
• Mis-blamed: While Scott Buck does deserve criticism for his handling of the series (he is the showrunner after all), a good portion of the blame should also go to former Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, who rushed the series on a budget out of spite after Kevin Feige took the Inhumans movie off of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie schedule.
• Narm:
  • Medusa's hair is shaved off using a normal electric razor that you can buy at a drug store. The scene is given especially dramatic music and is obviously intended to be Maximus' Moral Event Horizon, but it comes off as pretentious and silly instead.
  • Medusa ordering an ATM in Hawaii to give her money because she is the queen of Attilan, even saying "Please" just in case the machine was offended by her tone of voice. Intended as a Fish out of Water moment, but it instead just makes her look like a complete idiot for forgetting that her city's entire existence is kept secret and thus the machine had no way of knowing about her even if it did work that way.
  • Karnak getting kidnapped and almost killed by pot dealers.
  • Black Bolt killing his parents in a flashback becomes this due to the extremely dull look on his face, not to mention the slow "whooooy" he uses to do it.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • One word: WHY? Without even meaning to, Black Bolt disintegrated his parents with JUST. ONE. WORD.
  • Mordis. A true example of a Tragic Villain. He was born with powers similar to Cyclops, except he has to have his whole face covered. And unlike Scott, instead of anyone trying to help, they just locked him away.
• Older Than They Think: Many fans and critics mocked the premise of the first (and only) season for having the royal family exiled to the human world after fleeing Attilan, which they insisted was an easy way to save money. While that creative choice likely was financially motivated, it was also taken directly from the comics, specifically the Inhumans storyline published in Amazing Adventures during The '70s, which saw the royals hiding out in San Francisco after Maximus took over Attilan.
• Rooting for the Empire: Our supposed villains' goal is putting an end to a Fantastic Caste System, which our supposed heroes support and refuse to acknowledge is a bad thing, nor do they go through any kind of Character Development. Unsurprisingly, lots of people started rooting for the alleged bad guys.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The intro sequence looks shockingly amateur and rushed together. Compare to the similar intro for Legends of Tomorrow.
  • Medusa's hair is a can of worms on its own involving CGI but not even practical effects are exempt from this: Gorgon is supposed to have hoof legs, yet it's clear from several scenes (such as the fight against Maximus' mooks) that he isn't even wearing prosthetics. Comparisons to Torgo are frankly inevitable.
  • The presentation of Karnak's powers, not for the effects themselves, but for how poorly they illustrate his powers. Based on the first two episodes, you'd think that he had foresight or something, as he walks around a future event and analyses it, before "resetting" back to his present state. His power is to actually see the flaw in all things.
  • Attilan itself is blatantly a warehouse, composed mainly of grey concrete walls, glass, and metal. Compared to Jack Kirby's original◊ designs◊ or other fantastical MCU locales such as Asgard, Wakanda, the Dark Dimension, or the cosmic-side of the MCU, it falls completely flat.
  • While Lockjaw himself is well-rendered, well-animated, and adorable, all the hard work that went into him is undermined because no one ever touches him. Even when he's hit by an offroader, camera tricks ensure that we don't see the direct impact. For some reason the producers did not provide an animatronic or even a placeholding puppet for the actors to interact with, and for anyone with an affinity for animals, it's very distracting. Watching Gert and Molly from sister series Runaways (2017) lovingly caress their pet raptor Old Lace becomes Hilarious in Hindsight for this exact reason.
  • Triton fights off several guards with dual swords, but the awesomeness is dampened significantly because it's obvious he's not even cutting them up at all as no visible cuts on his opponents nor blood splattered anywhere during it, making it look more like he's hitting them with sticks.
• Strangled by the Red String: Karnak and Jen get no build up for their relationship whatsoever.
• Tainted by the Preview: Inhumans was dogged with bad publicity from the get-go:
  • Since their introduction in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Inhumans had been widely viewed as replacements for the X-Men and emblems of corporate pettiness.^note 20th Century Fox had film rights to the X-Men, meaning Marvel didn't get any of the box office gross from those movies. In response, Marvel, led by former CEO Ike Perlmutter, allegedly downplayed the X-Men in various media (such as barring mutant characters from appearing in video games like Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite or LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2, removing X-Men characters from merchandise and apparel, and telling the writers of the then-current Marvel cartoons they weren't allowed to use mutants), and pumped up the Inhumans to fill the "humans with unexpected superpowers who are feared and hated by society" character niche. As a result, fandom was already indifferent (if not outright hostile) to the Inhumans.
  • The format change from a film to TV series (coming in the wake of corporate restructuring that moved Marvel Studios from a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment to one of Walt Disney Studios), further fueled the bad buzz, with fans citing the shift as evidence that apart from a few corporate higher-ups, no one in Marvel really cared about the Inhumans. ^note According to behind-the-scenes reports, Marvel Studios Chairman Kevin Feige frequently clashed with Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter over the latter's Executive Meddling. Among other things, Perlmutter pushed heavily for the Inhumans, while Feige allegedly only agreed to an Inhumans movie if he could make the female-led Captain Marvel movie (which the notoriously sexist Perlmutter opposed) as well. After the latest round of feuding during the production of Captain America: Civil War in the spring and summer of 2015 almost drove Feige to leave Marvel, Disney CEO Bob Iger moved Marvel Studios to the purview of Walt Disney Studios (led by Alan Horn). While the move cut Perlmutter off from control of the MCU films, he still retained control over the MCU's TV shows on ABC and Netflix. Thanks to the fandom's preference for Feige over Perlmutter the cancellation of the Inhumans movie (less than a year after the restructuring) and revival as a TV series was thus seen as evidence that Feige himself didn't care much for the Inhumans, while Perlmutter just wanted to push his pet project through in the face of overwhelming disinterest.
  • Following the controversial preview image, the first trailer did little to raise expectations, with complaints that the show still looked cheaply-made. Not only that, but some images in the trailer^note such as Medusa apparently being easily restrained without putting up a fight, a grunt from Black Bolt only being enough to flip over a car, and the Inhumans being a generic-looking race of humanoids suggested a careless approach to adapting crucial elements of the Inhumans mythology. With regards to the production, performances and treatment of the source material, many potential viewers were worried that Marvel would have another Iron Fist on their hands, or worse (especially since Iron Fist showrunner Scott Buck was helming this series as well).
  • Cast and crew tried to fight the bad press with a TCA press panel, but the attempt backfired, with participants describing the event as awkward and combative.
  • The first two episodes were panned upon theatrical release, with critics claiming that the low production values were ill-suited to the IMAX format (along with numerous other flaws) and declaring the project a failure. Some still held out hope that the series would improve with successive episodes, but for many fans this was the last straw.
  • Upon finally coming out on TV, the critical mauling continued, while its ratings tanked.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Both critics and fans felt that with its quasi-fantastic setting, larger-than-life royal characters and dramatic family dynamics, as well as a focus on a society stagnating as a result of a rigid ritualization and caste system, Inhumans could have been Game of Thrones or Gormenghast IN SPACE!, which is a comparison many have made to the comics themselves.
  • The story of the arrogant and bigoted Inhumans losing their powers after being exiled to earth could have made for an interesting plot and provided some Character Development where they become more humble and prove themselves, much like what happened with Thor when the same thing happened to him, as well as dismantle the caste system after they do so. Too bad that doesn't happen, at least not very well.
  • You'd think this is a good chance to make Attilan having more interactions with Earth's Inhumans and given the heavy use of Fantastic Caste System in the show's main story, it would've been perhaps more interesting if there was an Earth Inhuman among the main cast who acts as Audience Surrogate and opposes the caste system rather than having a Designated Villain doing it, especially since they make said Designated Villain go into Sanity Slippage as the show progresses.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: From the beginning, the show's heroes are established as terrible people, and they do not go through any kind of Character Development to overcome their flaws. Instead, the show reveals Maximus as having committed more and more acts of over the top villainy, which just kills off any chance of rooting for him short of just wanting to see the protagonists die.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously:
  • As noted under Just Here for Godzilla, Iwan Rheon is considered one of the best casting choices. And while some consider his character to be a bit one note, some amongst these people still agree that he was at least genuine in his performance.
  • Ken Leung also qualifies. He took the time to carefully research his character before filming. And as multiple reviewers have noted, you can tell that he's trying his damndest to make things work despite the sheer mess of a product he's in.
  • Anson Mount made a whole new form of sign language just to play Black Bolt. It wasn't just the 15-16 signs the show runners planned; it was no less than 50 pages of work. People were upset that such dedication was wasted on this abysmal show. Thankfully, Mount would get the chance to reprise his role as Black Bolt in the film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which would be received much, much better than this entire series.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Crystal spends most of the series by herself, hanging out with a pretty farm boy, with no connection to the main plot.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • While Maximus is clearly supposed to be the Big Bad with an occasional Kick the Dog moment thrown in, his overall goal is actually pretty admirable, as he wants to abolish the Fantastic Caste System the heroes have no problems with. He also argues that Attilan's limited resources caused it to stagnate, worsening the circumstances of the lower-caste, but no-one's willing to consider anything that might involve change. Had this series been written competently, the Royal Family would have realized he was right and decided that abolishing the caste system themselves was their first priority once he was dealt with.
  • The Inhuman task force Maximus sends to Earth have far more distinctive personalities than the Royal Family, namely the Deadpan Snarker Mordis and the spacey Granola Girl with plant powers. It doesn't hurt that working for Maximus means they're also sympathetic to his goal of equality. Mordis in particular comes off as an outright Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, as he was locked in a small cell after his Terrigenesis and it is outright cruel watching Karnak manipulate him into letting his guard down by promising him that things could be different and saying that he supposedly stood up for him when in reality he wanted to put him down.
  • Audrey the vet, Dave's ex-girlfriend, gets forced to treat Lockjaw while Crystal talks down to her and belittles her skills. Note that Audrey does want to help Lockjaw, but Crystal all but refuses to take her advice because 'Crystal knows her dog' despite later aggravating Lockjaw's injuries by teleporting aimlessly around the island. When Audrey tries to take a picture of Crystal to see if she or her family are in the Inhumans registry, Crystal destroys Audrey's phone and threatens her. It's no wonder she gets suspicious and aggravated, yet Audrey's made out to be the antagonist in this dynamic.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The Royal Family as a whole, due to being complicit in the brutal Fantastic Caste System that dictates one's place in Attilan. Crystal's Fantastic Racism doesn't win any sympathy, and Black Bolt and Medusa clearly have no compunctions about resorting to theft, assault, and kidnapping to get what they want; Medusa in particular is especially high-handed and dismissive towards humans, even after Louise voluntarily helps her locate Black Bolt.
  • When Locus, one of Maximus' goons, confronts Medusa about the caste system and how Locus was forced into Indentured Servitude as a human sonar system, Medusa rebuffs her argument with the specious logic of that being Attilan's tradition, then says Attilan isn't perfect but acts For the Greater Good, then equivocates Locus' forced servitude to the ruling class with her voluntary service to Maximus, as if the two are even remotely comparable. Again, in a competently-written series, this would have caused a Heel Realization on not only Medusa's part but the rest of the Royal Family's part and led to them deciding to abolish the caste system once Maximus was deposed.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Lockjaw clearly received the bulk of the special effects budget, and it shows as he looks like a life-like adorable dog. He's well animated and designed, and doesn't stick out awkwardly in the scenes, outside of no one touching him. This article goes into detail on how they brought Lockjaw to life.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • The show has attracted serious criticism for "cheap-looking" costuming. Medusa's look got bashed the most, due to the less-than-convincing wig. When her hair gets shaved off early on, it was obvious that it was to skim on a CGI budget.
  • In general the costuming of Attilan has been mocked for its backsliding to Movie Superheroes Wear Black (ironically codified by Fox's X-Men Film Series, which it was trying to replace), looking nothing like the Mayincatec aesthetic Jack Kirby created for them, with everyone prancing about in biker leather jackets and somehow acting like they're a Hidden Elf Village.

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