Inhumanity Omnibus HC Inhumans Hulk Iron Man Avengers 1st print Matt Fraction

Description

INHUMANITY HC (MARVEL COMICS) After the fall of Attilan and the Terrigen Bomb explosion, thousands of people across the globe have transformed into Inhumans! Their new powers are dangerous and terrifying, making them targets. With Black Bolt believed dead, who can these new Inhumans turn to? As the Avengers face Karnak, who has discovered the Inhumans’ secret, Medusa struggles to rule her vastly increased population. And Marvel’s heroes — including the Hulk, Spider-Girl, the X-Men, the new Illuminati, Iron Man, the Jean Grey School, the AvengersAcademy, Luke Cage and the Superior Spider-Man — must cope with the fallout! Collecting Inhumanity #1, Avengers Assemble (2012) #21-23, Inhumanity: Medusa #1, Uncanny X-Men (2013) #15, Indestructible Hulk #17-19, New Avengers (2013) #13, Iron Man (2012) #20.INH, Inhumanity: The Awakening#1-2, Avengers AI #7, Mighty Avengers (2013) #4-5, Inhuman #1 & Inhumanity: Superior Spider-Man #1. [(W/A) Various (CA) Olivier Coipel] With talk of an Inhumans movie in the pipeline Marvel seems to finally be giving the Inhumans their moment to shine! 448 pages!

What Marvel has done is amazing in and of itself…but seeing how forward thinking they are is really something to admire. I myself read Inhumanity thinking what in the world is Marvel doing? Creating new Inhumans kind of lessens the impact of Marvels mutants, doesn’t it? Well it seems it was all part of the plan…since the Marvel Movie Universe can’t use the X-Men, why not turn the Inhumans into the next best thing? And now suddenly the movie fans are scrambing to catch up on decade of great Inhumans stories Marvel has told…it’s brilliant when you think about it!

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for the Inhumans. So I was pretty eager to give this book a try and overall I was fairly happy with it.

On the plus side, this is one of those events where Marvel promises real change to the Marvel Universe and actually delivers it. The wave of new superhumans caused by this event is already stirring things up in exciting ways and they’re actually the focus of what the stories here are about. Both heroes and villains are scrambling to deal with the change and a lot of innocent lives are on the line.

Apart from the main story (which is actually fairly short) most of the book deals with various heroes dealing with the fallout of Black Bolt’s actions. As is to be expected when deal with many writers and characters dealing with the same event, the quality of the stories is a bit of a mixed bag. The ones that focus on the Hulk and Spider-Girl are very good while the Iron Man and Superior Spider-Man tales are just okay. The Mighty Avengers story seems only roughly tied to what’s going on and the one involving various teen heroes is interesting since it features the members of Avengers Academy not swept up in Arcade’s little secret adventure.

If you’re interested in how this event impacts the greater Marvel Universe this book, while not without flaws, is a pretty solid read.

Now that we’re starting to get a good idea where Marvel is heading with this storyline interest is going to only increase in the future!

During the Infinity event, Black Bolt released the Terrigen Mists worldwide in order to protect Thanos’ part-Inhuman son from being identified and killed. As a result, people all over are emerging from cocoons as newly-powered Inhumans. I was eager to get to this event after reading Infinity to see how such a global “crisis” unfolds and impacts the Marvel Universe.

After finishing Inhumanity, it’s apparent that this isn’t really an event at all (in the usual Marvel sense). This is more like one of those aftermath or companion collections – there is no “core” story. This is a collection of stories, across various Marvel titles, about people emerging from the cocoons, factions fighting over what to do with the cocoons, or Avengers responding to emergencies arising from the Terrigenesis. Some of the issues are also included in the Infinity Companion.

The individual stories were interesting, with a lot of action and some really cool new powers, but I was a little disappointed that there isn’t much done with Medusa and the “original” Inhumans. Queen Medusa is now ruling the Inhumans (Black Bolt is MIA) and she shows up here and there among the stories to collect her new “subjects”. But, readers don’t get much more than that. Did the Inhumans just accept Medusa’s rule without question? Where are they headquartered now that Attilan has crashed into the Hudson? These and a lot of other questions are never addressed.

Overall, this collection is definitely worth buying for some fun stories (I loved Spider-Girl’s section) and, of course, the artwork. The hardcover is a great value, and it was very satisfying to see the consequences of the Infinity event. I just wish it had delved into Medusa and her crew more. Highly recommended.