The Good

The idea of new Inhumans being transformed as a result of the Terrigen Mists being released upon the world is a fascinating idea. There is the opportunity for several newly powered characters to surface without much thought being given into how they got their powers. We are introduced to some new candidates but the question remains, will this be enough to hold our interest?

Despite the threads of this story coming out of a previous Marvel event, it’s set up that you don’t have to really worry about what happened before. Attilan has fallen, the Mists have been unleashed, and Black Bolt is missing. That’s really all you need to know. Having Medusa pop in and out of the story is a great chance for the character to get some time in the spotlight and show how cool of a character she can be. While she is on a mission to find her husband, Black Bolt, there is another story brewing as well. The birth or transformation of new Inhumans won’t be as pleasant or easy as you might think.

There is a new threat to the Inhumans. It’s not a simple attack against them as it involves some twists and opens the door to investigating the history of the Inhumans and Black Bolt’s reign. How this will affect or run in the rest of the Marvel Universe will be interesting.

Joe Madureira’s art shines with Marte Gracia’s art added. With the variety in the character designs for different Inhumans, Madureira’s designs are really fitting and he has the opportunity to cut loose a little.

The Bad

There’s a few different layers to the story. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but, for a first issue, it’s not really clear who we should care about or who the series will follow. One character introduced is immediately taken out of the story. This adds a surprise but also made you wonder why time was spent on this character, aside from possible shock value.

Joe Mad’s art is always a welcomed sight but there were a lot of shadows on characters throughout the issue. Gracia’s colors made it work, for the most part, but a few times it didn’t look quite right.

I do like Medusa and I’m curious about the fate of Black Bolt and some of the other Inhumans. I haven’t become invested in the new characters just yet and that could be a deciding factor in this series for me.

The Verdict

The Inhumans have remained delegated to the shadows of the Marvel Universe for too long. It’s interesting to see them stepping forward in such a big way. With the Terrigen Mists released upon the world, we should be seeing many many new characters pop up. For a first issue, you can see the potential in what this series will be. There is a mix of new characters and threats along with the familiar face of Medusa, searching for Black Bolt. It’s the new characters that will need to grab your attention to keep you invested in the series. Joe Madureira’s art and Marte Gracia’s colors are nice to see but it’s a little difficult to really put your finger on where this series will go. Perhaps with some of the delay or restructuring of the series before it launched, we’ll have to wait for the next issue to really get a feel for what’s coming up.

Why is Marvel pushing this?

@redwingx: to bring into the collective conciousness a new(to new fans anyway_ way superheroes can be created in their universe. They test the idea out here and then move it into the cinematic universe can't use Mutants, no problem these guys all got their powers because they're inhumans.

@redwingx: to cancel it and then relaunch it with a new number 1 issue and boost their sales for another month.

I really wish that that guy on the cover turned out to be The Hood since he used to be huge in the marvel universe and is no powerless and in jail and his infinity gauntlet story gave him some times to the inhumans.

@nahuel: And it will be the exact same story, with the exact same writers and artists.

Didn't Marvel already do this with the mutants after AvsX?

Suprising to see this verdict, I'd normally expect Charles Soule to do well, especially in Comic Vine reviews. It's a shame.

@redwingx: because the marvel fan boy / girls will eat this up and the company can still say that their the house of ideas when in truth they havent had a original or a good idea in years

Despite the extreeeeemely slow start, I'm still excited for this series. I trust Soule as a writer and I've always liked Joe Mad's art. Hopeful the series will pick up after a few issues.

Anything Joe draws, I'm willing to read for the art.

You people are never happy. Marvel are FINALLY developing new characters, whereas the usual complaint is Wolverine in every book, and you complain? If you don't want to read it, fine! Then don't. But don't complain that they're branching out!

@millennium: why don't they just blow it up and change it all for no reason. I'm sure that won't turn off readers...oh wait there are already 52 new reasons that prove that's a bad idea......

I was looking forward for this book since it was announced last year, and sad when Marvel decided to pospone it a few months, now that it finally here I’ll have to say…. I like it… I wouldn’t go as far as saying it was worth the wait but I like it none the less

@maddpanda531: I agree. I did like the idea. I'm intrigued. We'll see where this goes.

Am I the only one thinking this series was only published to experiment with the idea of how to mutants in Cinematic Universe? Think about it, this sounds like something they'd base an Inhumans movie around.

@millennium: you know its hard to keep creating new original ideas on a weekly basis when you've been around for decades. Just wanted to point that out.

And the same could be said for DC fanboys/girls

@lazz33:

the new 52 is working.... because you don't like doesn't mean shit you are just one person...

Hm, thats lower than I thought given the team, but I'm looking forward to it and I'll give it an arc minimum either way.

This series came out a little too late for me. All the excitement I had for it went away after moths of waiting for it. Marvel should have road that wave of momentum they had after Infinity. Don't know why they pushed this back so far.

@lazz33: the sad thing is that with all the problems marvel has they needs to hit that big red reboot button (just like dc does ever 30 to 40 years) and start over because band-aids in the form of all these "new" number ones (of which will get caned befor they even make it to the year and a half mark) or new volumes for all ready running franchises arent helping and if history repeats its self with marvel like what happened less than 20 years ago when they went bankrupt then they will close their doors for good and thats not good for anyone

@micah: thats true if you been around for years like what dc and marvel has you do run out of story ideas and your characters do become outdated but ultimately thats what reboots are for and for me i think marvel needs to do a company wide reboot to fix the issues that they have to help them stay fresh

i know its unpopular and fan boys / girls will bitch, moan and groan about it but its true especially when you have a parent company that is likely too shut you down if you where to hit the red for not making profit or not making enough profit

Hope it's nothing like Inhumanity #1 Which I hated.

Wow, what a bunch of whining. Oh well, to give my thoughts: I liked this issue a lot. I personally felt that the character that died was used as a tool to develop the other character. It was necessary to see his rationale and his actions to cast more meaning to what the other character is doing. Having said that, I also like Dante and his powers, although Medusa's justifications felt a bit flat. Personally would have given it a four. Oh and the art was excellent.

I agreed with most of this. The art is great, and really drew me into the world. The characters are interesting, although the twist was kind of ruined for me by an interview, so it wasn't that big of a thing for me. I think Dante is interesting, despite an annoyingly stereotypical name for someone with those abilities. But I think the villain is what really drew me in the most, reminding me of Akuma, despite almost never playing Street Fighter. His motivations and personality was the most fleshed out.

My general problems here were to obnoxiously awkward exposition that was shoved into the story and the under utilization of Medusa. Also, was I the only one that was a little confused as to why she appeared at the end of the book when it was clearly stated she was headed elsewhere at the middle of the book? Maybe we just weren't told something, but it bothered me a bit.

I think I'm going to at least give this another month to see where it goes. Definitely some strong potential here, a four out of five for me.

@twofacedjoker: She asked her inhuman friend to send her elsewhere, but the inhuman friend sent her to were she was instead. I'm assuming he works like a teleporter.

Well, yes, I understand that, and I get that the portal sends people where they are "needed", but the way that it was presented suggested that he was respecting her wishes and helped her. I get why it happened and why it was done, I think the presentation through me a little in terms of telling the audience one thing and doing another, especially for those who are unfamiliar with that character.

@conniption_fit: I think you hit the nail on the head here. Theres been rumors of Marvel's Cinematic Universe possibly going the inhuman route to introduce some characters that would otherwise be classified as mutants, or unexplained powers. Once they have an inhuman virus in the MCU (like an air born terrigen mist) its easy enough to introduce new characters into the films without having to explain back story and power origin. Obviously this would only really work on c-level characters since it would behoove marvel to introduce new fans to a characters back story to get them invested, but for the sake of saving time and filling in the world a little this could work.

Major Spoiler for Captain America The Winter Soldier (seriously, don't read if you haven't seen the movie or care at all about being surprised:

All right first issue. I'll give the next couple a chance and see how it goes.

And nice trick with the map to show how the mist, from the bomb that exploded in New York, reached Norway and Illinois at the same time :P

I've got a question though re: all this terrigenesis business, though I don't think there's a real definite answer yet - so the story is there was this lost tribe of Inhumans that merged with humanity, interbred, and because of all that, kind of went underground / there were all of these people who didn't know they were Inhumans, but still had Inhuman genes. Now, with the terrigen bomb / terrigen mist, those underground Inhumans are being transformed, going into cocoons and waking up with powers, etc. My question is, how are there certain members of families who transform because of the mist and others don't? I first thought of it in Ms. Marvel - she transformed because of the mist, but the rest of her family didn't. If she's Inhuman because she had Inhuman DNA, then shouldn't her parents also have enough to be affected by the mist? Or are we to assume her parents both had 'recessive' Inhuman genes, not enough for them to be affected by the mist, but managed to pass on enough Inhuman DNA to her that the mist did affect her? And if that is the case, would her parents still be partially Inhuman, or just normal humans? Especially considering that not all Inhumans undergo terrigenesis. And in this issue, Dante's mom had enough Inhuman DNA to be affected by the mist, but not enough successfully undergo terrigenesis, Dante had enough to be properly transformed, and Gabriela, Dante's sister (I'm assuming biological sister), didn't even have enough to be affected at all? Yes, I'm just overthinking Marvel's new way to give people powers, but I'm having some issue getting behind the concept because of this.

Alright, I'm not a science major or anything, but here's how I have come to understand this train of thought:

Specific parts of DNA will remain within a family line, but will be dormant or inactive within certain members of the family over time. For instance, hair/eye color; when there are two parents who have a child and differing hair color or eye color, there is one specific part of their DNA that takes precedence over the other, causing the child to have one hair/eye color or the other. Additionally, certain genes skip generations, remaining within the genetic code, but only activating within certain members of the family. This is why some people look a lot like their grandparents when they were young. For instance, despite having brown hair, I have a ginger beard thanks to my grandfather on my mother's side of the family. And, on top of that, there's all the rigmarole of figuring out which family carries said gene and how that would affect certain children. Clearly, in this scenario, Dante's mother carried the gene on her side of the family, but figuring out who within that family carried the gene before her and, thus, who received the gene would be overly difficult.

So, in a nutshell, there's a lot of variables and factors that can make it difficult to track or follow DNA and the genes associated with them through a family or group of people, as this can sometimes skip certain generations altogether or even die out over time if that attribute isn't strong enough to be passed on. I hope this helps!!

The art in this was really, really, really so great. It actually made me go look up what else the artist had done.

I was planning to drop this one from my pulls but, after reading it, I added it back!

Well... if you have read the latest internet rumors, Marvel is apparently upset with Fox re: the Fantastic Four and X-men films and Fox's refusal to give back the rights. The Inhumans are probably about to be given more prominence as a result.