Remake & Reboot: The INHUMANS Comic Series

It’s always been hard for the Inhumans to blend in with everyone else. Maybe that’s why they exiled themselves from humanity in their remote city of Attilan. In a way they’re Marvel’s prototype of what would become their ever-popular mutants from the pages of Uncanny X-Men, but they never quite lived up to that promise. Recently in the pages of Fantastic Four and FF they’ve been given quite a role in the larger scheme of things, and I think it’s time to revisit the idea of the Inhumans as starring players in their own right.

The Concept:

One thing the Inhumans have had in all their appearances in comics is their sense of royalty, with Black Bolt leading this offshoot of the human race. I’d focus that a bit, while at the same time removing them from their far-off  home and putting them in the mix of things on Terra Firma. The Inhuman royal family is a large cast of characters, which makes it unwieldy at times for readers to grasp — what if Black Bolt brought his son, Ahura, to Earth in an attempt to have this future king learn a new path ahead for the Inhumans. Black Bolt, who is largely incommunicado because of his sonic powers, communicating with his son, a boy that’s had more than his fair share  of youthful rebelliousness.

One of the things that’s prevent the Inhumans catching on in a bigger way has been their aloofness from normal human life — or even a close approximation of it. The same way Marvel humanized Thor by placing in to live amongst human people for awhile, so could this. And by slowly introducing other Inhumans from their moon homeland of Attilan, they could really build the Inhumans into something. But all the while you can play with the alien-ness of them to the human world — if humanity thought mutants were scary, imagine someone like Black Bolt coming out and trying to make nice with the locals.

And remember, you always have Lockjaw to spice things up.

The Creators:

The Writer – Jeff Lemire: Although he may seem out of sorts for Marvel’s current team of writers, he’s exactly the kind of writer Marvel would have hired back in the early 2000s when they picked up Brian Bendis. Lemire has a real outsider’s look, and this seems like an ideal combination with a story of the Inhumans trying to become of the human people instead of above them.

The Artist – Phil Noto: To stand out on shelves and set it apart from the standard superhero comic fare, I’d tap Phil Noto to give this book a real style upgrade. Bring him in and let Noto be Noto, and I think he could do a lot to make this book sing.

Comments

  1. That would be an awesome team-up of Lemire & Noto!

  2. if noto was your main artist you would definitely need a consistent fill-in guy

  3. i’d buy this book to death!

  4. I would be so in board for this.

  5. I would SO love to see a new Inhumans book, & if it was done by Lemire & Noto (are you listening, Marvel?) I think my mind would implode! Thanks for putting this out there Chris.

  6. Lemire and Noto are perfect for The Inhumans, I also would like to see Mike Carey and Noto if Lemire is too busy, they both have they’re hands full, but from what diversity I’ve seen from Carey writing X-Men to The Unwritten, he and Noto could possibly write the best Inhumans run to date.