RessurXion

Ressurexion: Hopes, Wants and Looking to the future

January 15, 2017 By Adam Filed Under: Black Bolt, RessurXion, Reviews, Royal Family, Royals, Secret Warriors

As we’ve discussed on the Podcast previously “Resurrexion” is Marvel’s new initiative starting in March for both the Inhumans and X-Men, post IvX. It’s something that I’m really looking forward to, and I’m sure Seren and Doc would share my view.

But, I’m going to be honest with you – X-Men were always my first love, so IvX is a little bittersweet for me because it’s my favourite characters going head to head. It’s funny, I see my comicbook taste similarly to my music taste, what I listened to in 2007 is different to what I listen to now in 2017, this is similar to how my favourites have changed since I picked up my first comic in 2012 (largely X-Men and Avengers, now it’s X-Men and Inhumans).

But rather than drift to the past where your eyes fill with nostalgic weeping and rose tinted spectacles, I want to focus on March 2017. Namely the following books:

Let us start with Hopes.

I hope these books are going to be good. In fact, I have no doubt these books will be good. Black Bolt has a really interesting premise, stuck in an Intergalactic Prison makes me reminisce of the Prison in Guardians of the Galaxy Movie which was hilarious. But on a serious note, what will he be in there for? Will we see him arrested by someone at the end of IvX? Is it something to do with the Kree? Will it even be set “now”? There are a lot more questions than answers so far coming from Saladin Ahmed’s fairly vague premise.

But answer me this, the odd pairing of Black Bolt and Absorbing Man Aka Carl “Crusher” Creel, who doesn’t want to see that?! But also, Saladin Ahmed has said that he intends it on being a story great for new readers, and quite honestly that’s what I want from a story. I want Inhumans to gain in popularity, and I want great stories and I want Inhumans to become mainstream. Sorry, I think I drifted into “Wants” a little there.

I think my biggest hope is just good stories. That’s all, yes I suppose the capitalist in me wants them to make lots of money so Marvel can see that they’re viable characters and continue to deserve the spotlight they’re getting currently, because since Infinity in 2013, I have been hooked. Not only that, if there weren’t any Inhumans books, what would we have to talk about?

Wants are a bit different though. Because wants are a bit more of a selfish, they can be completely individual to everyone.

So, I’m going to follow that enigmatic sentence with a list of my wants. Firstly, lots of Black Bolt – if you’re a listener of the show you’ll have heard me saying that Black Bolt is my favourite Inhuman. So really, I want to see lots of Black Bolt, is that selfish? Probably, especially when there are lots of other incredibly cool and popular NuHumans out there like Reader and Patchwork-Auran alongside Frank McGee (that would be an awesome ongoing, right?). But this is probably the easiest of my “wants” because it looks like it’s coming to fruition, with Black Bolt featuring in promos for both Black Bolt ongoing and the Royals team book, it’s hard to not see this one being fulfilled.

The second want… I guess it’s the Inhumans to be seen as a legitimate Marvel property. I’m not talking about Marvel themselves, because quite frankly they’re doing an excellent job with all things Inhumans at the moment, please keep going with it! It’s with certain fans. Again it’s something that has been mentioned in the Podcasts, there are a some fans out there that are under the impression that Inhumans are a stand in whilst Fox have X-Men rights. I disagree and have my own theory, but I’ll likely talk about this at some point in the future, but I just want these certain fans that you can have X-Men and Inhumans active within the same Comic-verse. You can have both NuHumans and new Mutants popping up (even if it is eventually and post IvX). Why can’t they live happily together?

My second want is a bit harder to fulfill completely, because there is always going to be someone of the opinion that Inhumans are taking some sort of X-Men glory. But I for one, love good stories and will continue to support both franchises. But I’m absolutely sure that Inhumans will continue long into the future at Marvel!

My third and final want is for the solo books of Ms Marvel, Moon Girl and Mosaic to continue. They’ve all been fantastic in their own right, Kamala Khan is a really great character. Moon Girl again, superb character, amazing writing and just great fun. Mosaic is a book I’ve also been enjoying, it’s been a great set up, and quite honestly Mosaic is the kind of character that you can ultimately empathise with – even if he is a millionaire basketball player.

To the future then…

The future isn’t clear to anyone, I don’t want to sound like some sort of clairvoyant or whatever but I do think that good things lie ahead for Inhumans. I hope to see more characters appear down the line, both old and new. Quite honestly, I’m enjoying the current Marvel Status Quo, long may it continue. I think I’ve more than covered the points I want to see, but I would also like to see more books, is that greedy and selfish of me? Maybe. But I think ultimately, having a wide and varied amount of books to appeal to different people, like Marvel have so well done with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Ms Marvel and Mosaic (making them appeal to kids, teens and adults; males and females) – that has been exciting.

So, if I sign this off with one thing. It’s this; It’s a great time to be an Inhumans fan, lots of stuff to look forward to and ultimately, enjoy reading.

Thanks for reading this post!

Inhumans One Shot “Inhumans Prime” Announced

December 16, 2016 By Seren Filed Under: News and Articles, RessurXion, Royal Family, Royals, Secret Warriors, Uncanny Inhumans

Today Marvel announced via Screenrant that a new Inhuman one shot – Inhumans Prime – is to be released this Spring. Written by Al Ewing and with art by Ryan Sook, the issue will take place after the events of IvX and will be a launch pad for the three new Inhumans titles announced last month – Royals, Black Bolt, and Secret Warriors.

In an interview with Marvel editors Wil Moss and Charles Beechum, we got quite a bit more insight as to what’s in store for the Inhumans during RessurXion. Charles Beechum states “It’s really what sets the landscape for the Inhumans Universe going forward. So this Inhumans Prime one shot is setting up that story and showing where the Royals are and what’s happening for them as they decide to go off on this adventure: where these other Inhumans are; why they have this need to form this team together. Kind of sets up Black Bolt‘s new status quo and teases where we’re going to find him when his book starts. Just setting the landscape, laying the groundwork for what things are going to look like in April and May and going forward.”

Aside from some insight as to what is in store for the Royal Family and Nuhumans alike, the article also contains some pretty great character concept art by Royals artist Jonboy Meyers (such as this one of Crystal):

You’ll want to visit ScreenRant for the entire interview, but it’s pretty clear that this issue is probably going to be a Must Read for any Inhumans fan. Make sure you pre-order a copy at your LCS!

Inhumans Recap: 2014 to Now

December 7, 2016 By Adam Filed Under: Infinity, RessurXion, Reviews, Royal Family

With Marvel’s RessurXtion initiative right around the corner, it appears that The Inhumans are in for a whole new chapter in their ongoing mythos. With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to go on a whistle-stop tour of reminiscence celebrating what has come before, and look forward to what 2017 and the future may have in store for the Inhumans books. This could also potentially act as a reading list for you too!

As I see it, the current chapter of the Inhumans’ saga began with The Infinity cross-over event, written by Jonathan Hickman. I had first gotten into comics around the time that The Avengers movie hit theatres (highly recommended!). Hickman was writing the Avengers at the time and the narrative was heading into The infinity Event.

Grumpy Cat Variant

Infinity direct leads us into 2014, which was in itself a big year for me – various things happened but ultimately I defeated University and became unemployed (being a student is a full time job – right?). But also in 2014, Inhuman was released! Originally, intended to be written by Matt Fraction the wonderful Charles Soule (who is very vocal about his love for Inhumans) took over.

Are you Inhuman?

I have to admit, I got Inhuman #1 on a whim. I hadn’t been aware of the Inhumans at all until this point, maybe except Black Bolt – but was never privy to any Inhumans books.

Goodness me, Inhuman soon became my most anticipated book, even though it was delayed heavily. Originally set to be released in the January of 2014, the first issue was released in April 2014 and the following issues began being released in August of the same year. Introducing characters old and new, it began my own love for the franchise.

Inhuman introduced the likes of Reader, Frank McGee, Inferno, Flint, Naja whilst re-introducing old favourites such as the Royal Family. But, Inhuman wasn’t to last, whilst that seems to be a thing at Marvel now, get up to around twenty issues then cancel them, arguably the cancellation of Inhuman was due to the next great Crossover Event – Secret Wars.

Secret Wars #1

I’m not going to really talk much about Secret Wars in and of itself, although I would like to touch on the Inhuman tie-in, Attilan Rising (the inspiration for the name of this Podcast – whether that makes us imaginative or not, I won’t comment).

I hugely enjoyed Attilan Rising, and loved that it introduced a new part of the MU before the end of Secret Wars, The Quiet Room. This was Black Bolt’s nightclub and the unofficial headquarters of the rebel group “The Voice Unheard.” This rebel faction opposed the tyranny of Dr. Doom and Magistrix Medusa and was made up of a wild collection of alternate reality heroes, such as “The Bard” (Matthew Murdock), Karnak, Mega Rad and others. I feel like Attilan Rising, while not particularly necessary in reading for the current books, it’s a really good stand-alone one – I highly recommend it.

The conclusion of Secret Wars ushered in the All New All Different era of The Marvel Universe. The entire publishing lineup was relaunched with a series of new first issues. This included the introduction of my favourite Inhuman titles to date.

All-New Inhumans #1

Uncanny Inhumans #1

Inhuman ended and was separated into two complimenting flagship titles, Uncanny Inhumans and All New Inhumans. All-New Inhumans written by James Asmus, who graciously came on the show for a special episode, absolutely got it right. It’s a proper team book, and I absolutely urge anyone to go read it – he said it himself, he was trying to emulate what Claremont did with the X-Men back in the 80’s and and I feel he very much succeeded in his effort.

Unfortunately many team books these days seem to suffer a bit because there is often a focus on particular characters each issue, which defeats the point of a team book. But All-New gave many different characters development, panel-time and generally just absolute love. It’s the same with Uncanny Inhumans, whilst I personally think Uncanny had a couple of “filler” issues, generally it’s been an absolutely brilliant book. Asmus and Soule have confidently given us an absolutely outstanding base for going ahead.

I reckon you’re all screaming at me now to mention all of the other books that featured Inhumans, because of course, there were a ton of them. Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Ms Marvel, Karnak and Mosaic. Plus there were also Inhumans featured in many other titles, such as Uncanny Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, All-New All-Different Avengers just to name but a few. I completely agree with those out there who think there has been an Inhuman push – there has. It’s noticeable. Yet what has always been important to me is good stories, and every single one since 2013’s Infinity has been good. Great even. I absolutely urge every last one of you reading this post to go and read those books if you can – you won’t be disappointed.

Royals #1

Black Bolt #1

Secret Warriors #1

Turning to the future, in Episode 6 Seren, Doc and myself review the new Inhuman titles that are scheduled to be released in the Spring of 2017 following the conclusion of the Inhumans versus X-Men cross-over event. This includes The Royals, a Black Bolt solo series and a new version of The Secret Warriors. Although no official announcement has been made, it’s a safe bet that Ms. Marvel, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, and Mosaic will all continue on. There is even a possibility that more Inhumans books will be announced some time down the line (I sure hope so). In any case, the three that have been announced so look pretty great and I’m very much looking forward to checking them out.

It would appear that 2017 is going to be a pretty big year for fans of The Inhumans, with the upcoming television series and a host of exciting new titles. The only thing that has me feeling disappointed is the likely conclusion of Uncanny Inhumans and the fact that Charles Soule will be stepping down from his role as the head steward of The Inhumans. Mr. Soule has done such a wonderful job steering The Inhumans and I know that his involvement will be greatly missed. I’m also hoping that there will be more announcements in the future, of which I’m sure there will be. No matter what though, it’s a great time to be an Inhumans fan.

Thank you for reading!

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Marvel Announces New Secret Warriors Title – Inferno Fans, Rejoice!

November 23, 2016 By Seren Filed Under: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Ms. Marvel, News and Articles, RessurXion, Secret Warriors

This morning Marvel announced via CBR another title to come out RessurXion. Secret Warriors, by Matthew Rosenberg (Kingping) and artist Javier Garron (Star Lord). The initial team will be made up of Inhumans Quake (Daisy Johnson), Ms. Marvel, Moon Girl (and Devil Dinosaur of course), Inferno, and Karnak. More non-Inhuman members will be added to the team later.

Rosenberg has stated that “Ms. Marvel and Quake are really fighting for the soul of the team in a lot of ways, while Moon Girl will continue to really do her own thing. ” Meanwhile, Inferno looks to be trying to live up to the standard that Ms. Marvel has set, while we’re still not quite sure what Karnak is up to at this time. With such an eclectic cast of characters (and a giant dinosaur) you have to wonder exactly how this team will work together. Rosenberg states “The Secret Warriors are a team that is being pulled in two directions at once. On one side is the clandestine spy element, represented by Quake. On the other is the superhero side, represented by Ms. Marvel. This book is sort of a tug of war between these two approaches — what is acceptable, what is necessary.”

You can read more from Rosenberg in the link above – but if you ask us, this sounds like it’s going to be a book to watch.