X-men vs. Inhumans Discussion

[MarvelMaster616]

I thought I'd start a new thread to discuss this topic because it seems to be coming up in so many other threads. From discussions about recent issues to conspiracy theories about the ongoing clash between Disney and Fox, it's become a popular issue: X-men vs. Inhumans.

It's not a very balanced issue to say the least. In the comics, there was this huge off-panel war between mutants and Inhumans. The Inhumans clearly won and the mutants clearly lost in the worst possible way. Ignoring for a moment the egregious extent to which this story is contrived and forced, it highlights an important concept. The themes of the Inhumans are wholly inconsistent with the themes of mutants and the X-men. And Marvel's constant push to conflate those themes is not only misguided and petty. It's downright hypocritical.

We're all familiar with the themes of X-men. They are and always have been a metaphor for minorities and outsiders who were born different. They never chose to be mutants. It doesn't matter where they live, what kind of upbringing they have, or what kind of culture they live in. Anybody could potentially be a mutant. It doesn't take an accident or a science experiment to make them mutants either. Just surviving into puberty was enough to activate mutant traits. This is an appropriate metaphor for many minorties. It was relevant for racial minorities in the 60s. It's just as relevant today with gay rights and religious minorities.

Then, there's the Inhumans. For those not familiar with their history, it's difficult to tell them apart from mutants. I think Agents of SHIELD has relied on this a great deal because so many of the plots on that show are ripped off from classic plots involving mutants and the X-men. But there are a few important differences that make them both a poor substitute for mutants and one that utterly undermines their original theme.

Going back to the Lee/Kirby era, the Inhumans were never supposed to relatable to any minority. Being an Inhuman is not akin to being born with a certain trait. The Inhumans are a byproduct of an alien experiment. Just existing alone isn't enough to become an Inhuman. An Inhuman needs a very specific outside trigger, namely the Terrigen Mist. From a minority's perspective, that would be like saying it takes a certain kind of childhood trauma to become a homosexual or Muslim or an atheist. It's not about evolving within a soceity. It's about having soemething that separates someone from society.

This is another major component about the Inhumans. They are, at their core, a secret society built in isolation and defended against outside intrusion at all cost. They live in a society that is the complete opposite of the one the X-men try to create. Theirs is a society built around caste and strata. There are slave classes and a ruling family. There's polygamy and eugenics. There's a strict, rigid order whose sole purpose to defend against change rather than embrace it. There are real-world examples of these societies. Saudi Arabia is one of them and it doesn't exactly have a reputation of championing human rights.

This isn't to say that the Inhumans are tyrants. That's not to say they aren't good characters either. But their themes are more consistent with that of Game of Thrones rather than mutants. They're royalty. They have this sense of inherent superiority and defending that superiority is a big part of their story in the same way defending the Iron Throne is a big part of Game of Thrones. That's a good story in and of itself, but now the Inhumans are trying to become more like mutants in both the comics and in TV. And it's destroying everything that was appealing about them and making them nothing more than faux-mutants.

The problem isn't that Inhumans are now playing a larger part in the Marvel Universe. It's that until very recently, they've never tried to contribute anything of value to it. And the only reason they're contributing now is because forces beyond their control (Thanos) made them. Mutants have been contributing for years, or at least they've been trying to. The X-men have set up shop within human society in many forms, be it a base in San Francisco or a neighborhood like District X. And while they're hated and feared, the Inhumans are basically just shrugged off as another superhero team like the Avengers.

And I think this is a problem. It doesn't just gives X-men fans a good reason to hate the Inhumans in general. It makes the challenges and struggles that mutants face seem arbitrary and petty. They're born different? Outrage! They're the result of alien experiments and triggered by some freaky mist? Apathy! That's a massive flaw in the narrative and one that paints the Inhumans as getting preferrential treatment. Marvel may claim that the state of the movie rights aren't influencing the comics, but I think it's hard to deny when they keep pushing out Inhuman comics that constantly fail to outsell even mid-level X-men comics.

Personally, I think the recent developments in the Inhumans, going all the way back to Infinity, only makes mutants look better. In my personal and overly biased opinion, the Inhumans are an inferior product and a very poor substitute to mutants. I can relate more to mutants. I can identify with their struggles and their values. I can't do that with a bunch of entitled, xenophobic royals who have no problem with slavery and eugenics. And now because of the Inhumans, the entire mutant race has been screwed over in a much worse way than Wanda Maximoff ever did. At least what happened on M-Day happened on-panel.

Now this situation is subject to change. And there may still be details about the mutant/Inhuman war that Marvel plans to reveal over time. But in the long run, I don't think it's possible to square this circle between the Inhumans and the X-men. One is the utter antithesis of the other in terms of theme. Yet Marvel is trying hard to promote one at the expense of the other. And in the process, they're just hurting both.

Being a life-long X-men fan, I'm going to support the X-men and use Inhuman comics only as toilet paper. If there's a way to promote a hashtag like #MutantAndProud to get this point across to Mavel, I'd gladly support it. But enough of my ranting. I'll open this up more discussions. I'm sure vocal X-men and Inhuman fans have plenty to talk about.