Inhumans, Mutants, Eternals: Differences and Similarities

[Force de Phenix]

A lot of people have a difficult time understanding the differences between these three fictional species, and this ignorance has led to fear and hate (towards one species in particular). Excluding cultural and team affiliations, I've created a list of things they share and things that differentiate them so some people can understand them better as species.

Add whatever you'd like to contribute. If you want to add anything about deviants and Atlanteans (Homo mermanus), please do.

Similarities:
- All come from the same ancestor
- Are all species (homo immortalis, homo superior, inhomo supremis)
- All are from Earth, not extraterrestrial, but are spacefaring (not including universal inhumans and Titanian eternals)
- Ultimate Comics mutants, inhumans, and eternals were all "created"
- Have created isolated communities away from humanity in some way during their history
- Congregate amongst themselves usually
- Some sort of superhuman abilities

Differences:
- Raison d'être
- Eternals are immortal
- A set number of eternals were made
- Inhumans are duplicates of alien species, and therefore have the appearance of an existing or extinct species in the galaxy
- Mutants have developed their superhuman abilities overtime, the other two species were "manufactured"
- (Ultimate comics mutants were made, like inhumans and eternals)
- Inhumans have to activate their inhuman gene with a specific catalyst
- Mutants' mutation catalysts are inside them
- Eternals have a human appearance, mutants and inhumans may or may not

[Oberon]

This could be an interesting thread. I think most of your main ideas or premise are sound/accurate. I'll quibble slightly.

Inhumans do/can activate their genes' expression with the Terrigen mists or alternate, but all Inhumans are born Inhuman and some do have specific alterations already present, even from birth. Black Bolt as a literal newborn, destroyed part of Attilan in his baby screams. And of course there are sub-races of Inhumans, such as the Winged race and to a smaller degree the Centaur like Inhumans (possibly a family thing, but the former is a set genotype of Inhuman)

It has been retconned, or introduced that many Inhuman forms/types are specific examples of the KREE inserting, manipulating the Inhuman DNA to accompany human/type DNA. I'm not sure if I would say these Inhumans are 'duplicates' of Alien races, but definitely share the major characteristics.

Eternals being closely related to Deviants, rather than Inhumans for example, means they do have 'types' with non-human appearances. But yeah, generally Eternals all look human more or less, where Deviants, seldom do. I'm sure there were stories of specific children of these types, but don't remember specifically what appearances etc, they possessed.

It used to be considered that on average Inhumans were longer lived than normal humans, but not immortal. Maybe over 100 years while looking as young as they look more or less. I don't think this is referred to much these days.

*** inserts the Oberonfificant theory *** I strongly believe that Atlanteans and most other water dwelling humanoid races are also a stabilized sub gene type of Inhuman with possible genetic connections to a Deviant type (Deviants are strongly connected to Eternals, also an old '70s and somewhat later villain, Maelstrom, is half Inhuman and half Deviant and the implications are that it happened often or sometimes over the course of history)

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

I will not be surprised to see your Oberonfificant theory applied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe...

[Oberon]

I will not be surprised to see your Oberonfificant theory applied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe...

I forgot I wrote to this post. On other threads my 'theory' is debated but I suppose I should now consider that

it is more likely that an expression from deviant/eternal genes are involved with Atlanteans, rather than Inhuman genes.

Still, in the vastness of Marvel time it has to be considered that Inhuman genes of water types mixed with Atlantean genes and or others; Lemurian, or even back to Deviant races (well, I suppose the wealth of Deviant genes are already in Lemurians)


I anticipate a cool movie, no matter where it ends up. But I think it will be a game changer and a movie that weaves various tapestries together...

[Huntsman Spider]

The major commonality was that they were all created by way of alien interference with early or proto-humanity's natural evolutionary pathways, which also resulted in the potential for superpowers among so-called "baseline" humans that weren't already latent mutants or Inhumans. The Eternals were the godlike Celestials' first or prototypical attempt at tinkering with human evolution and as such all incredibly powerful and long-lived on a scale comparable to living gods, whereas the mutants, a later Celestial creation, were much more randomized by comparison, and the Inhumans were basically the Kree's attempt at weaponizing early or proto-human life. Granted, the Kree were an incredibly advanced alien race even back then, but nowhere near as advanced as the Celestials, who were essentially gods. At least, that was my understanding of the similarities and differences between mutants, Inhumans, and Eternals.

[Force de Phenix]

These might help contribute to the conversation.

[juan678]

Mcu/Fox

Mutant

cyclops 1 manifestation of his power





Vs

Inhuman Daisy Johnson (inhuman transformation 2)

[juan678]

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Chloé Zhao
"Don't just stay for the first one - also stay for the second one, too.
They are equally as important in weight, and both have big surprises for you."
https://movieweb.com/eternals-ends-t...credit-scenes/

These might help contribute to the conversation.

[Micabe]

Which title and issue can this page be found? Thanks...

[BroHomo]

They last appeared in Silent War. They weren't even brought up in War of Kings onwards. They even had a story of the avian inhumans. They might have been if the rug weren't pulled out from under them.

People ignore the fact that there is a lot of inhumans lore and characters and that the five aren't the inhumans, but the whole species is.

It was a manufactured event that didn't start or involve the x-men.

Truth

Yes. This.
Once they got established in FF stories, they did become more known, back then, and always

seemed to present a coherent, stable society and culture of sorts.

They were, what mutants are now trying to be, so in the long run of the whole, crappy Inhumans are replacing Mutants stuff,

it's really the other way around.

Mutants are trying to create a culture/society, but Inhumans had one for THOUSANDS OF YEARS

and even if not represented as well throughout the Marvel's comic history,

Hmmmm not sure how tho since the mutant stories have been in reg publication for decades, All Inhumans stories together? Maybe 8 years(?) idk. Kinda convenient to claim culture/society imitation when the VAST majority of the 'original' culture/society has never been seen or heard of.

They're most worthy of not being forgotten, altered, etc.[/B]

Um, The inhumans whole thing is that they WANT to be left alone/forgotten and being altered literally the highest honor in their society. Not to be a jick but seems like an oversight Have you read a recent or past inhumans story?
[QUOTE=mung;6138790]Not an intentional one but it was still treated as a major threat. Enough for them to leave the planet.
There has to be intent when it comes to Genocide

Woz did pop up in IvX. I wish they would use these pre-existing characters to give Attilan a more live feel. you can't have a city with just the royals.

RIght I feel like the Terrigensis class we met in Jenkens Inhumans had a really strong story arc...Maaaaaybe an ongoing series wouldn't have worked, but I figured the next time major sh!t happen in the 616 involving Inhumans They'd be featured.

[Force de Phenix]

They were, what mutants are now trying to be, so in the long run of the whole, crappy Inhumans are replacing Mutants stuff, it's really the other way around.

Mutants are trying to create a culture/society, but Inhumans had one for THOUSANDS OF YEARS and even if not represented as well throughout the Marvel's comic history,

They're most worthy of not being forgotten, altered, etc.

I think it's obvious that mutants have dropped what they were always intended to be written as and have become a mix of inhuman and eternal in many aspects.

It's hypocrite for people to criticize the inhumans for changing and having a few elements shared with X-Men, and not to criticize the X-Men when they live in an isolated city, hatch from pods, and even move to the moon, to name a few.

If they thought the inhumans weren't allowed to have a new story arc with a new status quo, why are they giving another IP a free pass, especially when it's blatantly copying from another. The Inhumans still had secret societies and kingdoms. You can't even recognize the X-Men after Hickman.

Especially since almost every time the inhumans had a story, it was to change their status quo. Like, they were in the Himalayas for the first 20 odd years of their comic publication before they went to the moon in the 80's, but people swear they're cosmic.

[Oberon]

thanks for this.

If it is not apparent or doesn't matter, but I've read the FF and Marvel comics since the late '60s, so I'm there for nearly all of the INhumans appearances into the '80s. After that, I did trail off with their appearances and story line.
But mostly know things from recaps, other sources.
but it is canon their society has existed for thousands of years, unlike mutants, who as F D P points out, are now seeming to copy, repeat the same story beats.

We are talking fiction, comic book stories, but it should be more plausible that an ancient society has existed in this manner

then a group of however many coming together and saying "lets build a city/land/nation". The amount of infrastructure for coherent societies would take some time to build, no?

the idea of a society or group that wants to be "left alone" in these stories/fiction is

"conflict"/similar. A necessary part of plots.
You're saying they should "self-deport" themselves from comic stories because of their

*premise* or conceit. And that just seems silly to me.

[Force de Phenix]

thanks for this.

If it is not apparent or doesn't matter, but I've read the FF and Marvel comics since the late '60s, so I'm there for nearly all of the INhumans appearances into the '80s. After that, I did trail off with their appearances and story line.
But mostly know things from recaps, other sources.
but it is canon their society has existed for thousands of years, unlike mutants, who as F D P points out, are now seeming to copy, repeat the same story beats.

We are talking fiction, comic book stories, but it should be more plausible that an ancient society has existed in this manner

then a group of however many coming together and saying "lets build a city/land/nation". The amount of infrastructure for coherent societies would take some time to build, no?

the idea of a society or group that wants to be "left alone" in these stories/fiction is

"conflict"/similar. A necessary part of plots.
You're saying they should "self-deport" themselves from comic stories because of their

*premise* or conceit. And that just seems silly to me.

I think Kirby set up the idea of spectacular beings becoming advanced to the point of not wanting to deal with conflict implicitly. Attilan, Wakanda, the Eternal's Olympia, and Atlantis exemplified this. The lines blur sometimes, but mutants were different in that they just appeared and we could see how they would end up growing in number to the point that they would follow in the footsteps of the Inhumans because that's exactly what they're doing. The only difference is that everyone knows they exist because they were striving not to isolate themselves and to live in harmony with humans. Also, humans are going to continue to produce more mutants, so it's not self contained like the other cities because humans couldn't produce them randomly.

The Inhumanity event expanded on this when they said that not everyone living in Attilan agreed with the politics of Attilan and decided to either mix with humans or create other hidden cities. I guess this will happen sooner or later with X-Men stories.

The best thing about the inhumans was that writers took a lot of chances with them and used their stories that made them less monotone. Like they went from isolationists, to realizing their Attilan project wasn't going to work because of dissenting opinions causing some to leave and other to attack.

The whole premise for them was "isolationists living in peace in their society" so all of their stories had to push back against them being isolationists (Paul Jenkins, Silent War, Inhumanity) and the fall of their society due to internal or external conflict (By Right of Birth, their other stories).

Since the X-Men are now "isolationists living in peace in their society" they're having stories like AXE which is pushing back on the concept of them being isolationists. Them terraforming Mars is akin to War of Kings.

[Oberon]

This was brilliantly written and thought out, so thank you.

You bring up the best points, especially about the Isolationism views of this or mutants etc.

In a way, the original INhumans arc, was rather like what happened with Namor upon seeing Sue.

Although some saw Crystal/Johnny and that arc like Romeo/Juliet, it was also about

the meeting between 'us' and 'the other'. The idea that Namor and Sue's differences were what made them exotic to each other

likewise with this whole society of evolved, but hidden people.

Whereas mutants, revealed, are horrifying to their neighbors, family, etc. The Inhumans always knew they had to totally sequester themselves away, for the terror of the one, the occasional oddity

is far less dangerous than a literal world of people, possibly organized for any threats.
For some reason I just thought of how Magneto saved Wanda and Pietro from angry villagers with pitchforks.
But to any sense of the world, or public
how much more terrifying is the revelation of such a secret society? That is their major thing really and they're not only protecting themselves, but they're protecting us too.