Marvel Events I Missed: Inhumans vs. X-Men
Aka "This could have been an email."
Hello, good people!
Full disclosure, this is gonna be a rough one. This event might be the worst thing in the past ten years of Marvel Comics, except maybe the current state of The Amazing Spider-Man (if you know, you know). Here goes: Inhumans vs. X-Men. This 2016 - 2017 event is a product of its time, in all the worst ways. For this reason, I can’t place the blame of Inhumans vs. X-Men on the writers, Jeff Lemire and Charles Soule. They’ve both done some fantastic work and they’re only doing the best with what they’ve been given. Overall, the X-Men were at their lowest point, both narratively and creatively. The previous decade of X-Men stories had been largely defined by mutant struggles and suffering.
This included the decimation of the mutant population down to a paltry 198 mutants, a schism between Cyclops and Wolverine that divided the X-Men, all of Avengers vs. X-Men, and the deaths of some major characters. Professor X was gone, Wolverine died (although they brought in Old Man Logan from an alternate future- don’t worry about it), and, most recently, Cyclops was killed. Which brings us to the Inhumans, who Marvel was really trying to turn into the new minority metaphor.
Seriously, there was a comic called Uncanny Inhumans being released at the time. “Uncanny” being practically synonymous with X-Men. Look it up. To all 5 Inhumans fans on the face of the Earth, I apologize, but they’ll never be the X-Men. There might be some world out there where the Inhumans are the coolest super-group of all time, but this is not that one. Anyway, leading up to Inhumans vs. X-Men, Terrigen Clouds had been floating around Earth for a while. These clouds release Terrigen Mists, which, when inhaled by carriers of the Inhuman gene, activate their Inhuman powers. Cool, right? Let’s say it’s cool.
On the downside, however, the Terrigen Mists are poisonous to mutants, giving them a disease called Mpox. In a prologue mini-series titled Death of X, Cyclops decides to go after the Terrigen Clouds and save his people. Ultimately, they succeed in destroying one of the two clouds, but Cyclops is killed by the Inhumans’ king, Black Bolt, in the process.
To cease any further bloodshed, mutants and Inhumans call a truce. This is where the story takes a turn. In a major twist, it’s revealed that Cyclops did not die in glorious battle. Everyone was made to see that by Emma Frost, a telepath and Cyclops’ ex. Cyclops had actually died back at the beginning of Death of X. How did he die? Mpox. The brave leader of mutantkind went out not with a bang, but with a whimper. I guess Emma thought that martyring Cyclops would be cooler. And she was right. I also wish Cyclops had a cooler death. And so, the story begins.
You can tell this comic is going to be awful as soon as it begins. Why? It centers around Beast. I can do a whole separate post about the tragic downfall of Hank McCoy (and I will), but for now, I’ll just say he sucks. Beast is the worst. Why this time? This time, Beast is hanging around with the Inhumans, tracking the Terrigen Cloud and trying to find a cure for Mpox. If you ask me, he’s just happy to hang with the cool kids for a change (can you tell how much I loathe this man?).
Meanwhile, Emma is using Cyclops’ death to mobilize different X-Men teams against the Inhumans. And boy, the X-Men are a mess at this point. First there’s Storm’s Extraordinary X-Men. This is the most traditional team, consisting of mainstays like Colossus and Nightcrawler, while Storm runs a school for young mutants.
The only catch is that the school has been moved into Limbo, existing outside of Earth so mutants don’t risk being exposed to Terrigen Mists. Next, we have Magneto’s Uncanny X-Men. This is a team of sketchier characters, such as a reformed Sabertooth. Finally, we’ve got the All-New X-Men. This group is primarily made up of the time-displaced original X-Men who were brought from the past into the present day by Beast. Thanks, Beast! Did I mention how much of a low point this was for the X-Men?
Later, our favorite mutant gathers all the major mutant leaders together. Beast tells them that mutants only have a couple of weeks before the Terrigen Mist becomes part of the atmosphere, making the Earth uninhabitable for mutants. Thanks for the heads up, Hank. His solution? Leave Earth or die. What a hero.
In response, everyone else votes to storm the Inhumans’ city of New Attilan and destroy the cloud. Storm hits Beast in the back with a bolt of lightning, they lock him in a cell, and it’s go time. As satisfying as it is to see Beast beaten and locked up, there was an easier way to go about this. The X-Men could have just told the Inhumans that the Terrigen Cloud was about to kill them all. It seems that open communication is not an option in these big “hero vs. hero” events.
The X-Men take the Inhumans by surprise, capture New Attilan, and imprison the Inhuman royal family in Limbo. There’s just one problem: two young Inhumans, Iso and Inferno. These two escape New Attilan, handing an embarrassing defeat to Forge and Old Man Logan in the process. Iso and Inferno then rally together some young Inhumans, including Quake and Ms. Marvel (no, don’t bring my girl into this!)
As a sidenote, I feel that siding with the Inhumans during Inhumans vs. X-Men is a problematic position for anyone in the Marvel Universe. The Human Torch, for example, is shacking up with Medusa, queen of the Inhumans. The Torch helps the Inhumans against the mutants during Inhumans vs. X-Men. That’s a bad look, Johnny. This is what happens when the Fantastic Four don’t exist anymore. But I digress.
One of the younger Inhumans, Mosaic, is tasked with using his power to possess Magneto’s body and search his mind for intel. This results in one of the few intentionally hilarious moments in the event. “Magneto” awkwardly scrambles out of a room of X-Men, saying he has to use the bathroom. Following this bit of comic relief, Mosaic finally learns that the Terrigen Mists are going to kill the mutants very soon.
Mosaic brings this information to the other Inhumans, who begin questioning who the good guys really are here. Finally! Meanwhile, the Inhuman royals escape their prison and find the X-Men’s mansion in Limbo. This leads to one of my favorite moments of the event, when Colossus arrives to defend the mansion from its invaders. While Colossus beats up Gorgon, the other Inhumans find Black Bolt, who is being held prisoner by…Havok?
Yeah, you know, Alex Summers, younger brother to Cyclops, that we all totally remember. Love you, buddy. The guy has seen better days, with half of his face practically melted off. Eventually, Alex releases Black Bolt, saying what we’re all thinking: this isn’t about the Terigen Cloud, it’s about Emma and Cyclops. The X-Men could have just talked to the Inhumans and worked out a way to stop the cloud.
Instead, Emma manipulated everyone so she could strike at the Inhumans and avenge her dead ex-boyfriend. Not the best showing for Emma Frost fans. Later, during another big Inhumans vs. X-Men rumble, Medusa is eventually informed that the mists will enter the atmosphere and kill all mutants. And guess what? She destroys the cloud. Medusa literally says, “why didn’t they just tell us, Iso?”
This line encapsulates the sheer pointlessness of this whole event. Once the cloud is destroyed, everyone stops fighting, until Emma launches a bunch of Inhuman-killing Sentinels. The character assassination has to stop. There is no way Emma Frost would try to commit genocide with the same machines that have tried to murder her people for years.
Emma also takes over Magneto’s mind, so that’s cool. Thanks to the combined teamwork of the Inhumans and the X-Men, the Sentinels are beaten, and Magneto gets his mind back. Havok absconds with Emma, because why not? At the end of the event, Medusa abdicates her throne, and the Inhuman society becomes a democracy. Because I definitely cared about that. Medusa then dumps The Human Torch (sorry buddy), and the final page of this event is Medusa standing on the other side of a bar, facing Black Bolt. What a weird ending.
On the bright side, at least Beast spent most of the event locked up. Other than that, this event did some serious damage to the X-Men, mainly Emma Frost. Emma is depicted as some crazy, obsessive ex-girlfriend, who uses grief to justify attempted genocide. She starts a race war because of Cyclops’ death. This is a huge mischaracterization of Emma, one that’s thankfully been forgotten.
Cyclops dies in an anticlimactic way, falling not in one big heroic moment but quietly from Mpox disease. The mutants also get beaten up a lot, mainly to make the Inhumans look cool, which they will never be. At least Colossus had his 5 minutes of fame. Shoutout to Dazzler for taking down Black Bolt, too. To be fair to the Inhumans, characters like Ms. Marvel, Quake, and Moon Girl all get a spotlight, and I like those characters. It’s also nice when the Inhumans and X-Men finally work together near the end of the event.
I can at least praise the artwork. Kenneth Rocafort, Leinil Francis Yu, and Javier Garron are the artists throughout these 7 issues. Even though all their styles are wildly different from one another, they all make the event look beautiful. Garron can be a bit rough around the edges, but he’s still early in his Marvel career at this point. To be fair, he draws the hilarious sequence of Mosaic in Magneto’s body, as well as the bad-ass Colossus scene, so there’s plenty of good stuff there.
So, what impact does this have on the Marvel Universe?
Mutants aren’t dying anymore, so yay?
I’ve got nothing.
Ultimately, all of Inhumans vs. X-Men boils down to one bad miscommunication and a crazy ex-girlfriend. If the mutants and Inhumans simply talked to each other, the solution would have come in about 5 seconds. Emma has such a poor showing in this event, and poor Cyclops really suffers.
I’m just glad we’re now living in a time where the X-Men are popular again, and Marvel isn’t even pretending that the Inhumans are a big deal anymore. All in all, unless you’re a fan of the Inhumans, seeing the X-Men at their worst, or meaningless fighting, you can skip this one.
Next time: Secret Empire!