Marvel Comic Review: Inhuman #1 – Spoiled

Inhuman #1

Soule, Madureira, Gracia

SPOILER ALERT!

I will most certainly be SPOILING!

I would like to take a minute to discuss a point of intense joy for me. For those of you old enough to remember, there was, once upon a time, a great undertaking by the name of Earth X. This story arch was supposed to be a projected, possible dystopian future for the entire marvel universe. It spawned two enormous sequels and, while the third installment was kind of a let down by the end, the entire series felt so organic that it would remain in the minds of fans for truly generations to come. I bring this up, because every single person in the world had become “super” in some way, and this was due to a fictional mist that you’ll be hearing a lot of in upcoming months: the Terrigen Mists. Are we on track to merge into the Earth X storyline, thanks to the aftermath of Infinity?  Fingers crossed people!

Inhuman opens with a mundane bar fight in Bergen, Norway, where we are introduced to the phenomenon of the mists mixing with weather patterns and spreading across the world. The man who had been losing the bar fight skeptically leaves the bar, unworried about the mists encroaching on his city. When it finds him, he is enclosed in a cocoon.

After the fall of Attillan, Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans, is living in Avengers Tower, and is told that one of her subjects, thought lost, has been found.

Back to the cocoon in Norway, and a man in a haz-mat suit frightens away any bystanders with words like “hatching” and “contagion”. Once they are gone, the helmet comes off revealing the compelling new villain, Lash. This clearly otherwordly man steals away that cocoon and transports it to a secluded place and begins to tell the man in the cocoon a story.

Lash’s backstory is interesting and it paints a picture as to what his mission is. It also suggests that he is no friend to Black Bolt and his subjects.

Medusa meets with her lost subject, Eldrac, and she asks him to send her where she needs to go, which she thinks is to her missing husband’s side.

Finally, we meet a third group of people. A family in Illinois consisting of a pregnant widow, her musician brother, and a mother whose health is failing. Through their conversations, you find out that the brother, Dante, has sacrificed a lot to support and protect his family. A family that is under assault by the transformative Terrigen.

Now we see the first victim of the mists hatch, and, mind bogglingly, killed by Lash. His mission is now made clear. And his previous words hold a far more dire meaning:

“He was thinking only of how many Inhumans there could be.  I think only of how many Inhumans there should be.”

Lash’s gift seem myriad as he has shown increased athleticism by carrying the first cocoon up a mountainside physically. He uses an energy blast of some kind to end the life that comes out of it. Yet another power appears as the Illinois family discovers their mother in a cocoon and Dante ends up inside one as well. In a flash, Lash is in their home taking stock of the cocoons. The way that Lash speaks with the pregnant sister, it is clear he takes no joy in murder, and has no desire to harm the innocent.

His clinical detachment when talking about the failed Terrigenesis, or transformation, of the mother is ended with Dante, ironically with inferno powers, breaks free and attacks Lash. Lash surprises once again, upon seeing Dante’s potential, offers him a place amongst his people.

Medusa shows up just in the nick of time, and protects Dante. Oddly, her prowess does not drive Lash away, but that his work is not done. His fanatical adherence to his duty is largely what makes him as interesting as he is. Medusa smothers Dante’s fire and saves everyone from the house he has set ablaze. The issue ends with Medusa claiming that she is all of a sudden at war, and that Dante must pick a side.

I found this issue to just amazing. Equal parts sci-fi epic and a throw back to the earlier time periods of the beginning of the mutant evolution. With the X gene reactivated since Avengers vs X-men and now the Terrigen Mists introducing new people with super powers, the Marvel Universe is really about to get a whole lot more interesting.

My Rating:  5/5