The All-New, All-Different Inhumans. note
"I am the face of the Inhuman nation. Nuhumans across the globe look to me as an example of how to live in this changed world. But they also look to you, Inferno, and Iso, and the others. You are my hope for the future. You represent the truth. Being Inhuman can be... wonderful."
— Queen Medusa
Among other things, Marvel's 2013 event Infinity (and its spin-off story, Inhumanity) were notable for impacting the Marvel Universe in one major way—namely, introducing Terrigen Mist to the Earthbound Marvel Universe, awakening latent Inhumans worldwide.
In its wake, Inhumanity writer Matt Fraction was tapped to follow-up with Inhuman, a new ongoing title dealing with the ramifications of Attilian —the mobile Inhuman city— relocating to the Hudson River in New York City. Citing creative differences, Fraction left the title after one only one issue, leaving the fate of the burgeoning new Inhumans line in question...
The solution? Enter Charles Soule, the comic industry's infamously prolific pinch-hitter. He wrote the entire line, starting with Inhuman #2, with James Asmus assisting on All-New Inhumans. Effectively similar to how Chris Claremont managed the X-Men line during the The Bronze Age of Comic Books, Soule's run on the Inhumans has stretched over multiple titles:
Storylines in this run that have their own pages:
- Inhuman (2014 — 2015); the original flagship title of Soule's run, picking up where Inhumanity left off. When husband Black Bolt goes missing, Queen Medusa takes it upon herself to lead the Inhumans of Attilan —and the Earthborn "NuHumans"— as their apparent ruler. Ran for fourteen issues and concluded with an annual.
- The Inhumans: Attilan Rising (2015); an limited series set on (and around) the Battleworld region of Attilan, where its incarnation of Black Bolt is the leader of an uprising against Baroness Medusa and her royal Inhuman sovereignty. Ran for five issues.
- Uncanny Inhumans (2015 — 2017); the second flagship title. Initially launched with a zero issue prior to Secret Wars, wherein Black Bolt handed son Ahura over to Kang the Conquerer in the hopes of stopping the impending apocalypse. It didn't work. When the mainstream Marvel Universe somehow came back into being, Black Bolt (with the help of his Inhumans, plus Hank McCoy and Medusa's new consort Johnny Storm) takes it upon himself to retrieve Ahura from Kang ... by any means necessary.
- All-New Inhumans (2015 — 2016); a secondary title focusing on (the previously Out of Focus) Crystal and her own squadron of Inhumans, investigating a strange new phenomenon called "skyspheres" —monuments which apparently strengthen Inhuman abilities— that have been appearing on Earth. It's also been said that this title will address the recent plot development of Terrigen Mist killing —and sterilizing— mutants in the Marvel Universe. Co-written with James Asmus.
- Inhumans vs. X-Men (2016); an event comic (with lots of tie-ins) that featured the Earth finally getting to the point of being uninhabitable for mutants. As a result, the two sides go to war. Co-written with Jeff Lemire.
Charles Soule's run on the Inhumans ended after Inhumans vs. X-Men, and the Inhumans would instead get some new ongoings as part of the Resurr Xion relaunch. Soule would return to the X-Men line, and the various new Inhumans comics woulds stand on their own with different writers.
For general character tropes involving these ones featured here, refer to the Inhumans character page.
Charles Soule's Inhumans have provided examples of:
- Amplifier Artifact: The obelisk-like "skyspheres" that have been popping up during the ANADM era of Soule's run, which apparently strengthen the power of Inhumans when close in proximity to them. The initial premise of All-New is to investigate them.
- Ascended Extra: Lineage — a minor character from Thunderbolts— becomes a major recurring villain during the initial Inhuman run, and ultimately its Big Bad.
- Back from the Dead: Karnak sacrificed himself during Inhumanity, but came back to life towards the end of Inhuman.
- Belief Makes You Stupid: Use of Terrigenesis to evolve their adolescents is the central tradition of the Inhuman culture. Thusly, they view the Terrigen Mists - and by extension the Clouds - as sacred, and refuse to countenance any attempts to solve the problems they are causing the world if those solutions would require altering the Terrigen Clouds or stopping their saturation of the planet. And they are quite willing to let this result in the extinction of an entire race in the process; Deadpool & The Mercs For Money Vol 2 issues 7 and 8 take place on a parallel timeline where Negasonic Teenage Warhead used her Reality Warper powers to rewrite the Terrigen Clouds as being harmless to mutants, but otherwise perfectly functional — this led to the Inhumans declaring a genocidal war on the mutant race, until Negasonic used her powers to prevent her past self from getting involve and erased that timeline.
- There's also the Utolans, an inhuman colony that believes terrigenesis is a divine rite of transcendence. They completely rationalize the fact that it's a chemical agent that only transforms them due to the tampering of alien fascists intending to create living weapons as providence, ignoring the increasing mortality rate from their dwindling bloodlines as an acceptable casualty. It nearly destroys them when social darwinist beliefs resonate in their warrior caste, causing them to conspire against the rest of the colony by exposing them to the t-cloud and make everyone play the genetic lottery.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: On All-New Inhumans, there's some understandable reticence from sovereign countries depicted, as their citizens are being mutated and claimed by a foreign power, along with the occasional citizen themself expressing apprehension to their lives suddenly changing, so Crystal employs a diplomat with secret empathy powers to push their diplomats to a desired agreement, along with false flag mutant terrorist attacks to garner public sympathy. The antagonistic forces for the series on both points are a power-hungry dictator who only wants to keep his citizens to exploit their powers/genetics while killing the rest, and a white/human supremacist and actual domestic terrorist that hates being a "freak".
- Crisis Crossover: Inhuman ties into the 2014 AXIS event for two issues, which involve Spider-Man confronting the inverted Medusa.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The post-Secret Wars status quo of the Inhumans —namely Medusa's new relationship with Johnny Storm— was teased in a backup story for Marvel's All-New, All-Different Avengers Free Comic Book Day 2015 issue.
- Easy Evangelism: For people whose lives dramatically, possibly traumatically changed after exposure to a mutagenic substance by a foreign culture, nuhumans are oddly quick to be indoctrinated into Lash or Attilan's side. Some are shown to go in for a support network but a lot are quick to repeat doctrine of the sanctity of terrigenesis and defend Attilan beliefs.
- Episode Zero: The Beginning: Uncanny launched with a zero issue prior to Secret Wars, setting up the plot for its official launch as part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel initiative in October 2015.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Traditionally depicted with long hair, recent lifestyle changes have prompted Crystal to cut hers down to a short pixie style.
- Medusa was shown with short hair at the end of the Secret Wars Attilan Rising miniseries, to indicate that she was depowered.
- Handicapped Badass: Being wheelchair-bound doesn't keep Gorgon out of the action of All-New,
despite his insecurities about the situation. - Heroic BSoD: Flint suffers this after critically wounding one of the brothers who form Collective Man, unaware that they individually lack Super-Toughness.
- Hypocrite: Collective Man of the People's Defense Force of China. He mocks American heroes for their arrogance, but he himself has an overblown opinion of his own abilities, believing he can destroy the Skyspear that landed in China with his bare hands.
- Misplaced Retribution: The People's Defense Force respond to the Inhuman's presence in their country by making an (unsanctioned) attempt to kick them out, holding a grudge against Inhumans after the Unspoken slaughtered several of ther number during the Mighty Avengers series. Despite Crystal pointing out that the Unspoken was not the Inhuman's king, but a deposed pretender, the People's Defense Force still threaten them to leave.
- My Greatest Failure:
- Black Bolt handing Ahura over to Kang. The initial premise of Uncanny involves Black Bolt's efforts to retrieve him.
- Gorgon feels this way over forcing his underage son to go through Terrigenesis. This resulted in the boy almost dying, and needing to be kept in "medical stasis" to stay alive.
- Out of Focus: Save for a brief cameo appearance in the annual, Crystal was largely ignored throughout the initial run of Inhuman. Naturally, her fans were excited to learn she'd essentially be getting her own ongoing title in the form of All-New.
- Plot-Relevant Age-Up: When Black Bolt ultimately finds Ahura in the past, he's very old.
- Put on a Bus: In-universe. Sometime during the eight-month time skip following Secret Wars, Karnak cuts ties with his family and moves onto his first ongoing series, written by Warren Ellis.
- Ripple Effect Indicator: Kang's scheming with Ahura in the past starts to affect the Inhumans' present in the second issue of Uncanny, with Medusa forgetting who her cousin Gorgon is while New Attilan itself is being wiped from existence.
- Rugged Scar: Old Ahura has one.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The continued aftermath of Infinity playing out over Soule's run have led suspicious readers to suggest that Marvel is only beefing up their Inhumans presence in the comics for the sake of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 20th Century Fox hold the X-Men movie rights,
thusly forbidding Marvel from using them in their own films. - Ultraterrestrials: Played with. While Attilan-based Inhumans created their own society and left Earth centuries ago, some remained on the planet, leaving generations of latent Inhumans to pass without them being aware of their true lineage. When Black Bolt detonated the Terrigen Bomb during Infinity, its fumes wafted over to Earth, inadvertently triggering Terrigenesis for lots of people worldwide — Kamala Khan being one of them. Medusa's efforts to locate and nurture these so-called "NuHumans" is a recurring subplot during Soule's run.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Dangling plot threads include the remaining skyspears on Earth, Jack the racist nuhuman being picked up by a mysterious spaceship from the moon and nuhuman Than Ng apparently puppeteering the Sin Cong leader.
- Wolverine Publicity: Kamala Khan appears on the cover of the Inhuman annual, despite not having much bearing on its plot. She does get caught up in some business on Attilan around the same time, but that story is largely seen in her own title.
- Spider-Man also appears on the covers of two Inhuman issues for their AXIS tie-in.
- Working with the Ex: Black Bolt and Medusa are forced to work together to retrieve their son, despite Medusa having moved on with Johnny Storm.
