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.

[donpricetag]

You hit it right on the head. I picked up All New Inhumans yesterday and found myself having to constantly refocus my attention. Despite how well it was written and illustrated, felt like a blatant parody of the X-Men. What made it worse was the lack of information of what the heck was happening and why. It's very frustrating to say the least. Then having to see one of my favorite underutilized characters in Frenzy turn into an Inhuman collaborator just took me even more aback.

At least the last time they pulled this with X-Men it was for the purpose of controlling the amount of unnecessary powered characters running around just because. This time it's a business move to lessen the impact of X-Men based characters, thus controlling how much attention they need or don't need in the greater universe while at the same time limiting Fox's ability to use any of their future storylines for movie fodder. But that's just me putting some pieces together and making sense of it in my head

[Phoenix Raptor]

I can't remember who said it - either Alonso or Brevoort, I think - but there's a quote that sums everything up (in my opinion), and it's the one that ran along the lines of "if you have two properties and you get 100% revenue from one and 10% revenue from the other, you're obviously going to promote the 100% revenue one!"

I think that this is the whole basis for everything that X-fans are up in arms about: Marvel obviously "downgrading" the X-properties in the comics (and games and publicity, etc) in favour of ones that they have all the rights to.

I know it, you know it... anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows it! If Marvel had the movie rights to the X-Men, the Inhumans would be in the same space they always used to occupy: the background.

It's an insult to our collective intelligence when Marvel says "We love the X-Men! You're all being paranoid!" when practically every single action they take pushes the X-franchise further and further into the background.

The insults keep on coming with things like Gorgon being in a wheelchair and Crystal outright stating that, if Xavier could lead a team from that position, then Gorgon should have no problem doing so!

Or a NuHuman with robotic hands? Look like anyone we know...? How about Swain, the Inhumans' latest campaigner - a lady clearly of Asian descent, short dark hair, red glasses... sound familiar at all?

Marvel is clearly desperate to get X-fans behind the Inhumans franchise, using any means they possibly can; be it imitating well-known mutant appearances or traits, or simply moving key (and not so key) mutants into Inhuman-centric titles. Yet they still claim paranoia on our part...??

The latest revelation is, of course, that Cyclops went to war with the Inhumans and lost both that war and his life - surprisingly though, the remaining mutants don't seem all that unhappy about his "death." It's mentioned, but more as a contributing factor into mutants' current precarious position rather than as being a crushing blow. Ironically, the person who seems to be most affected by news of Scott's death is Old Man Logan!

The whole situation is really sad for me. I grew up with these characters and I can't abide seeing them so trampled. I also can't abide being blatantly lied to by the X-Men's parent company...!

[Knives]

I wonder what would have happened if the marvel had not invented this story of inhuman mist kill mutants?Will fans of the X-mens accepted the Inhumans or there would be this rivalry among the fans independent from this?

My biggest problem with them is that mutants are dying or being sterilized. I've had enough of that for years with virus,genocide, tolerance zero, M-Day and many others how many mutants have died because of these events? Marvel does not usually show very well the consequences of these events outside X-mens and sometimes not even that but the fact is that many are suffering and dying and no world organization does anything by mutants on the contrary some countries are celebrating as it was in New Inhumans 01.

After years of fighting for a dream, sacrifices and deaths X-mens achieved absolutely nothing. They do not have nothing to celebrate even win AvX has lost sense because again are back to extinction. And now even lost his place on the planet forced to live in a hell dimension or die poisoned by inhuman mist.

This me anger so many ways do not even know how to describe the lives of heroes is never easy on the contrary does not expect the life of X-mens are easy but they are fighting for a goal that goes beyond survival is long past time this plot be left behind and start something really new.

[autbey]

It's an insult to our collective intelligence when Marvel says "We love the X-Men! You're all being paranoid!" when practically every single action they take pushes the X-franchise further and further into the background.

It's hilarious that they have the nerve to tell us that the X-Men are at their best when facing genocide. The X-Men are at their best when they are together, as a family, having adventures, fighting bad guys and saving the world. Not locked away in some hell dimension because their home was poisoned.

[Jackraow21]

The X-men are on borrowed time. That's obvious. Their characters, along with those of the now-defunct FF and Spider-man franchies, are being farmed out to prop up Marvel Studios owned properties in the comics.

- Rogue, Human Torch, Deadpool and Cable to the Uncanny Avengers
- Kitty Pryde, the Thing and Venom to the Guardians of the Galaxy
- Beast, Human Torch (doing double duty), Frenzy and now apparently Spider-man (Peter Parker) to the Inhumans

Meanwhile, over in the X-books, we have three team titles featuring multiple versions of existing characters who are here via confusing time travel shennanigans plus a team of villains. It's obvious that they are trying to bleed off fan support from the X-franchise and shift if over to other properties that they own the film rights to. Extremely obvious. I understand why they are doing it from a business perspective, and in some cases it's actually working. I'm buying Uncanny Avengers now and it's probably my most anticipated book of the ANAD Marvel lineup now. Congrats, Marvel. You won on that one by putting Cable and Deadpool in the book together. But I still think that ultimately it backfires with the Inhumans. It's just too damn obvious to people, even non comic book readers that I talk to, what they are doing here in trying to make them their new version of mutants. People tend to not like corporate greed driven, editorially mandated stuff like that. So I'm really, really, really hoping that the backlash either kills the Inhumans film or causes it to bomb.

It would serve Marvel right for being so petty and alienating their longtime fans of the X-books. Karma, baby...she's not just a mutant.

[MarvelMaster616]

You hit it right on the head. I picked up All New Inhumans yesterday and found myself having to constantly refocus my attention. Despite how well it was written and illustrated, felt like a blatant parody of the X-Men. What made it worse was the lack of information of what the heck was happening and why. It's very frustrating to say the least. Then having to see one of my favorite underutilized characters in Frenzy turn into an Inhuman collaborator just took me even more aback.

At least the last time they pulled this with X-Men it was for the purpose of controlling the amount of unnecessary powered characters running around just because. This time it's a business move to lessen the impact of X-Men based characters, thus controlling how much attention they need or don't need in the greater universe while at the same time limiting Fox's ability to use any of their future storylines for movie fodder. But that's just me putting some pieces together and making sense of it in my head

I think it's pretty telling that Marvel is having to incorporate some of its more popular characters into the Inhumans in order to increase interest. I remember how they did that with the Avengers in the early 2000s by having Wolverine and Spider-Man join up. However, the big difference in that instance was that these moves did not come at the cost of either the X-men or Spider-Man. It just gave them another title to show up in.

Here, the growth of the Inhumans is coming at a direct cost to the X-men. While the Inhuman population is growing, the mutant population is declining and being sterilized...again. I get that the X-men face a new extinction crisis every few years or so. It's part of their history. But to revisit one this specific so soon after it was just resolved, and doing it in a way that utterly reverses any progress made for certain characters (namely Cyclops), is just showing a lack of creativity and an abundance of pettiness.

I get why Marvel struggled with the size of the mutant population under Morrison. They didn't know what to do with it and creatively speaking, it caused a lot of difficult issues that couldn't be circumvented. But they still made a solid event out of it. Now, with the movie rights being an issue, Marvel has an excuse to be petty and they seem to be using it.

[cranger]

I wonder what would have happened if the marvel had not invented this story of inhuman mist kill mutants?Will fans of the X-mens accepted the Inhumans or there would be this rivalry among the fans independent from this?

The Inhuman relaunch was seen as redundant the moment it was announced, especially with the marketing that was a direct rip off of the mutant paranoia ads from the 80s, long before it was even hinted that the mists might be harmful to mutants or there would even be any overlapping in the stories between Inhumans and X-Men.

[MarvelMaster616]

I can't remember who said it - either Alonso or Brevoort, I think - but there's a quote that sums everything up (in my opinion), and it's the one that ran along the lines of "if you have two properties and you get 100% revenue from one and 10% revenue from the other, you're obviously going to promote the 100% revenue one!"

I think that this is the whole basis for everything that X-fans are up in arms about: Marvel obviously "downgrading" the X-properties in the comics (and games and publicity, etc) in favour of ones that they have all the rights to.

I know it, you know it... anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows it! If Marvel had the movie rights to the X-Men, the Inhumans would be in the same space they always used to occupy: the background.

It's an insult to our collective intelligence when Marvel says "We love the X-Men! You're all being paranoid!" when practically every single action they take pushes the X-franchise further and further into the background.

The insults keep on coming with things like Gorgon being in a wheelchair and Crystal outright stating that, if Xavier could lead a team from that position, then Gorgon should have no problem doing so!

Or a NuHuman with robotic hands? Look like anyone we know...? How about Swain, the Inhumans' latest campaigner - a lady clearly of Asian descent, short dark hair, red glasses... sound familiar at all?

Marvel is clearly desperate to get X-fans behind the Inhumans franchise, using any means they possibly can; be it imitating well-known mutant appearances or traits, or simply moving key (and not so key) mutants into Inhuman-centric titles. Yet they still claim paranoia on our part...??

The latest revelation is, of course, that Cyclops went to war with the Inhumans and lost both that war and his life - surprisingly though, the remaining mutants don't seem all that unhappy about his "death." It's mentioned, but more as a contributing factor into mutants' current precarious position rather than as being a crushing blow. Ironically, the person who seems to be most affected by news of Scott's death is Old Man Logan!

The whole situation is really sad for me. I grew up with these characters and I can't abide seeing them so trampled. I also can't abide being blatantly lied to by the X-Men's parent company...!

I know exactly the quote you're talking about. I believe Brevoort made it in response to a Tumblr question. I remember all the discussion it generated. And sadly for the X-men, it's entirely valid.

Marvel is a business last I checked. And they're owned by Disney, a company that has a long history of being good at business. They'll do whatever they can to improve their business and generate more profits. And sadly, that means divesting in properties they don't own completely. This is one of Disney's biggest points of emphasis. They're like Apple in that they love control. They've very strict about controlling their assets. When the copyright terms were about to expire for Mickey Mouse and many of Walt Disney's other creations, they lobbied congress to extend those terms. That's the length they'll go to in order to maintain control.

As it stands, they don't control the X-men fully. They still make money when the movies make money, but not to the extent of their MCU movies. How else can we explain the lack of X-men toys and the complete absence of the X-men in animation? And how else can we explain Agents of SHIELD ripping off X-men themes when exploring the Inhumans? You can tell the actors are being very careful with their words, trying not to utter the M-word under any circumstance. The fact remains that the Inhumans of that show are not the same as the Inhumans in the comics, nor do they carry the same weight as mutants. They can't because they just don't fit into the same theme of being a minority.

I don't doubt that Marvel will keep publicly saying that there's no internal conflict between the Fox and Marvel properties. I imagine Brevoort got some heat for his comment when he first made it because privately, I don't think it's quite that clear cut. In business, it rarely is. A lot of things happen behind closed doors that the public rarely knows about. I want to believe guys like Alonso and Brevoort when they say they're not going to let the movie rights affect the way the X-men and other Fox properties are portrayed in the comics. But based on the way the X-men and Inhumans have been developing, I find that difficult to accept.

[Emma's Midriff]

Basically the X-men are now a vehicle to push other franchises. The strategy is 'take popular characters from the X-men and put them on other teams, making X-fans buy those books instead of X-books.'

Like Kitty Pryde? She's not in X-men, but you should check out Guardians of the Galaxy!
Like Ben Grimm? He's not in FF, but you should check out Guardians of the Galaxy!

[autbey]

Yes, it's all a conspiracy, because DisMal said so.

[xhx23x]

You hit it right on the head. I picked up All New Inhumans yesterday and found myself having to constantly refocus my attention. Despite how well it was written and illustrated, felt like a blatant parody of the X-Men. What made it worse was the lack of information of what the heck was happening and why. It's very frustrating to say the least. Then having to see one of my favorite underutilized characters in Frenzy turn into an Inhuman collaborator just took me even more aback.

This was basically how I felt reading it. I think and other circumstances I would even like the book, but the whole thing just put me off and it's hard to even put into an objective view when your favorites are the ones that appear to be stomp on here (And yes, maybe that's not the intent, but it doesn't change the reaction). It the intent is to get X-Fans interested, it's not working for me. All it's making me feel is not want to read any of this Inhuman stuff.

[kevinism]

Marvel is clearly desperate to get X-fans behind the Inhumans franchise, using any means they possibly can...

I agree with all the things posted here, except this piece. Marvel KNOWS that X-fans love the X-men no matter what. They know we will rally behind our mutants and scream and fight for them. They KNOW we aren't going to covert.

They don't care. We aren't the target audience for this. The audience is someone who may see Rogue in a movie and go find her in an Avengers book or someone that may see Quake on a show and go read Inhumans.

They do not care about "converting" us at all because they also KNOW, using data, that we are all getting old and we will die out and in ten years, all the mutant-lovers will be gone and they will have ten years of history pushing the Inhumans. (imho)

[Knives]

Okay, time to update my ignores and stop bothering with the X-Men again. To think for one month this forum actually had levelheaded conversation. Maybe the next time the writers switch.

What did you expect would happen? Fans of X-mens happy for Inhumans while mutants die?
I'm sure that have mutants fans who like the inhumans but at the moment they should be minority.It was the same in Civil War and AvX would be no different this time.

Besides the fans did not choose this story line is marvel that decided what comes after is only consequence of those decisions and fans will have to deal with it one way or another.

[sifighter]

I'd have to say that I agree with you marvelmaster if it wasn't that both franchises have great writers and stories connected to them. Are the inhumans taking concepts and ideas and even characters straight from the X-men? Yes they are, but I feel as though Soule has been using the Inhumans and their secretive past and the effect they have on global politics by their introduction as shown in the recent Uncanny Inhumans and All-new Inhumans series. I feel that Marvel is just trying where the Inhumans fit within the marvel universe and building them up.

As for the X-men I would more describe them as an unmoveable pillar of the Marvel Universe who aren't going anywhere, but Marvel is just stuck beyond going past them being feared and hated while dealing with the extinction of their species. However the writers they have now aren't slouches, Jeff Lemire has been telling an interesting story as builds the new world the x-men live and survive in now that ties into how they are effected by changes thanks to the inhumans but series like All-new Wolverine and All-new X-men have just been about mutants being heroes and having fun in this world, although we have to wait for Cullen Bunn's Uncanny X-men which may be similar to X-force.

I honestly think we have nothing to worry about when it comes to Inhumans vs X-men, and that you can enjoy both franchises. We just have to wait and see where their interconnected story will lead us, which will probably be some sort of big crossover event. If anything I think other series should be more afraid of just how big Spiderman has gotten and the multitude of Spider-men related titles that are out.