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Uncanny Inhumans #11 Review

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Guest artist, Carlos Pacheco, joins writer, Charles Soule, inker, Andy Owen and colorist, David Curiel, for this tie-in issue to the over-arching Civil War II event.

For those unfamiliar with what’s been going down in Civil War II, a very quick recap… The tale centers on a new Inhuman named Ulysses for whom Terrigensis has granted uncanny prognosticatory powers. His ability is not so much the capacity to predict the future, but rather a hyper-advanced understanding of mathematic probability that the young man calculates unconsciously and then experiences in the form of visceral flashes of highly potential future events. Captain Marvel and her Ultimates team were introduced to Ulysses and they utilized his gift to preemptively stop threats to the earth before they could happen. The first large-scale employment of Ulysses’ powers resulted in a successful repelling of a Celestial being who was attempting to invade earth. A subsequent endeavor, however, ended tragically. The Ultimates and Inhumans intervened on Thanos’ latest effort to come to earth and obtain the Cosmic Cube. The heroes prevailed and Thanos was defeated, but James Rhodes, the hero known as War Machine, perished in the battle. Rhodes had been Tony Stark’s longtime friend and this turn of events led Stark to become highly skeptical of Ulysses and how the young Inhuman’s powers were being utilized by Captain Marvel. Desperate, psychological unhinged, and in mourning over the death of his friend, Stark donned his Iron Man suit and invaded New Attilan, attacked The Inhumans, and abducted Ulysses. Captain Marvel, The Ultimates and The Inhumans were eventually able to track Iron Man down and rescue Ulysses. Yet the stress caused the young man to have a new vision of the future, a vision that saw The Incredible Hulk going on a rampage and killing many of The Avengers. What that all means will be addressed in the subsequent issues of the main Civil War II book, whereas this issue focuses specifically on The Inhumans and their efforts to bring vindictive judgement onto Tony Stark for his incursion into New Attilan and crimes against the Inhuman people.

Medusa is surgical and methodical in her approach. She doesn’t want an all-out battle with collateral damage and civilian casualties, nor does she want to hurt the wellbeing of the thousands of people whom Stark employs. Her decisions are based on thoughtful consideration toward her human cousins, but is also very much about the optics… about maintaining The Inhumans’ good standing and regard within the human world. Were the general public to view the Inhumans as violent and spiteful, as the savages the world may be predisposed to see them as, then it could set them back considerably and, more importantly, put at risk the various new Inhumans that are being created by way of The Terrigen Cloud.

Instead they bring the hurt down on Stark through good old fashioned dirty tricks. They clean out his bank account, expose his secrets, air his dirty laundry, alienate him from his friends, associates, and lovers; they even destroy his collection of expensive cars.

Herein we get a wonderful scene with Lockjaw and are also introduced to Mosaic, the new Inhuman set to star in his own series by creators Geoffrey Thorne and Khary Randolph. Mosaic has the ability to transport himself into the bodies of others, taking over their will and absorbing their skills and knowledge.

Mosaic uses this ability to take over the body of Stark’s chief accountant and utilizes him to transfer Stark’s personal net worth into a series of secret bank accounts, leaving Tony broke.

It’s a nasty tale, but a satisfying one. A part of me wouldn’t mind the entirety of this second Superhero Civil war to just be a series of similarly dirty tricks, leaked nudes, sinister pranks, and hitting below the belt.

Still, there’s an important poignancy to Medusa’s decision to take a more covert, low-road approach in taking Stark down a peg. She knows full well just how high the stakes are. The Inhumans simply cannot be viewed as destructive savages whom the human world could never trust. She and Karnak look across The Hudson to Stark Tower in Manhattan, how it is still standing, thus proving that The Inhumans are no wonton, bloodthirsty extremists. And yet, no sooner than she says this then the tower explodes and begins to crumble down!

What has happened here??? Well, as it turns out Triton has gone rogue. He has not agreed with Medusa’s more tempered response to Stark’s heresy. Triton tracks down the mad prince, Maximus, and strikes a bargain.

Triton seems to feel that Maximus will take the steps Medusa apparently hasn’t the stomach for: righteous retribution and a try ‘sign’ of the The Inhuman’s might.

Oh Triton… say it isn’t so.

Here the issues switches gears in such a sudden twist that it kind of freaked me out. The story went from a fun tale of getting even to a very profound (and likely to be controversial) twist.

I’m giving writer, Charles Soule, some big props on this one. This takes guts, because he has drawn a very clear, impossible-to-miss parallel between The Inhumans, Muslims, and heretical Islamic extremists. And when Stark Tower came crumbing down, it was hard not to feel a shudder up my spine as images of the word trade center falling in a similar fashion.

In the metaphorical analogy, Medusa’s Inhumans are posed as the true, pious Muslims, honorable, steadfast in their beliefs, and adhering to customs that many in The West have a very hard time understanding. Maximus, meanwhile, represents the radical jihadist, the any-means-necessary extremists hellbent on destruction and mayhem. The acts of the extremists hurts the entirety of The Inhumans because, when the dust settles, the Inhumans as a whole will be held responsible.

And this is not all that different to how things have played out int he real world. The radicalized factions of Islamic followers make up less than one percent of the Muslim people. And yet many see the terrible actions of these extremists and end up blaming the entire group, seeing all of the Islamic faith as violent, militarized, and dangerous. It doesn’t matter that the lion’s share of the victims of radical extremists are actually Muslims themselves, demagogues in the West use this as a means of condemning the entire population.

And this is very much what Medusa wishes to avoid. She knows how powerful fear and ignorance is in the world, that the destruction of The Stark Tower is likely to bring forth a new and intensified era of anti-Inhuman sentiment, …that if Donald Trump existed in the Marvel Universe, he would surely hold one of his ridiculous press conferences, calling for a full ban on all Inhumans within the United States.

Holy cats! Kudus to Soule for crafting such a potentially controversial tale and kudus to Nick Lowe and his editor staff for having the guts to green light this tale. This is intense stuff and I love it. Five and of five Lockjaws . Not to be missed.

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myjampot-deactivated20171214 asked:

So the Civil War with the Inhumans is not actually going to be on the issue of Civil War II, but a rift on the methods to dealing with humans and 'heretics' such as Tony Stark? If so, this could be a real winner!

inhumansforever answered:

I agree. And I was rather surprised (happily so). Many of the other tie-ins to the Civil War II event among the rest of the Marvel titles have been a lot of filler and fluff, but both Ms. Marvel and now Uncanny Inhumans have utilized the matter to tell rather important tales with some intense real-world thematics.

although I am disappointed in my buddy Triton. :(

Not to be petty, by my fellow X-Men fans should take note. Rather than kvetching over how The Inhumans ‘stole’ the X-Men’s metaphorical valance, they should pay heed to the fact that The Inhumans are actually following through on the matter (as opposed to the X-Men, who are still spinning their wheels telling the same story over and over again :/).

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One of the best moments in an outstanding issue!

Uncanny Inhumans #11

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Inhuman Powers & Attributes Generator

What would happen if you were an Inhuman and exposed to the Terrigen Mists?

Terigenesis is a random crap-shoot and there’s really no way of know what effect it is going to bring about. What would happen to you, how might your physical form change, and what powers and abilities might you be endowed with? Well, wonder no further. This crack-pot mathematic formula has all the answers.

All you have to do is take your birthdate in four digits (month, day, and last two digits of the year) and add it together to get a sum value.
If you were born on an odd numbered day, then divide this sum value by two; if you were born on an even numbered day then divide the sum by three (round to the nearest whole number if you get a value with a decimal).
If you were born in the Winter add 1 to the new value;
if you were born in the Spring add 10 to the vale;
If you were born in the Summer add 20 to the value
And if you were born in Fall add 30 to the value.
Then look for this final value on the below list of Inhuman powers and attributes.

For example, Jack Kirby, the co-creator of The Inhumans, was born on August 28th, 1917. For him the equation would be 8 + 28 + 17 = 53 divided by three (since he was born on an even numbered day) which equals 17.6 (round up to 18); plus 20 (because he was born in the summer) which equals a final value of 38. Corresponding to the below list, Kirby’s Inhuman attributes are that he possesses an anthropomorphic rabbit-like form, with the head and torso of a human and the legs and ears of a rabbit. He can run extraordinarily fast, leap vast distances, and possesses extraordinary eyesight. And that’s who Kirby would have been were he an Inhuman and had been exposed to Terrigenesis.

Again, it’s the summation of your birthdate, divided by two if you were born on an odd numbered day, by three if you were born on an even numbered day, plus 1, 10, 20, or 30 depending on whether you were born in the winter, spring, summer, or fall. Then take the final number and see which attributes and power-set it corresponds to on the list following jump…

Keep reading

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Mine was:

73. You have purple skin and large green eyes. You can reduce your size at will, shrinking down to one-twentieth regular size. You maintain regular-sized strength and can leap vast distances while in this shrunken form.!