Stay Tuned #8: Marvel's Inhumans
Hello, Ticketholders!
I thought it was time for something new, so I'm bringing back Stay Tuned for an eighth issue to discuss, well, something new; that something being Marvel's Inhumans.
I've heard a lot of negative press about Inhumans. I've heard that the IMAX shots are so breathtakingly good that they make the rest of the show look horrendously cheap by comparison. That the male costume designs look like they were re-purposed from the old X-Men trilogy wardrobe, while the female character designs border on a level of cheapness and camp not seen since the Adam West Batman series. That Medusa's hair and Lockjaw are some of the worst CGI effects ever concocted. That the main characters themselves are unlikable and unrelatable.
And I kind of agree. But is it so bad that Marvel and ABC should have said definitively that the eight episode first season would be considered "The Complete Series"? I'm not so sure.
So the plot: So much time has been spent on Inhumans' sister show, Agents of SHIELD, setting up the Inhumans as a concept (even having its focus character break from canon by becoming an Inhuman) that it was originally going to be a feature length film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But dick measuring contests and money had the project shelved and then demoted to a television property. If you haven't watched Agents of SHIELD or read the comics, Inhumans are the descendants of humans who were experimented on by the Kree--Ronan the Accuser's race--with something called Terrigen, a made-up crystalline gas compound that grants humans physical deformities, superpowers, both, or neither, or--in Agents of SHIELD, anyway--turns them to dust. In SHIELD Season Three, the Earth's water supply is contaminated by Terrigen, causing a global "Terrigenisis" event that creates uncounted new Inhumans (but for some reason, doesn't dust anyone).
When the Inhumans show begins, the royal family have decided to send out rescue parties to bring these new Inhumans to their secret moon city called Attilan. Personally, I've always thought the "Attle-an" pronunciation sounded stupid, but that's just me. Plus there's the inherent ridiculousness of it being a secret moon city, but that's just comics. A very by-the-numbers conflict (which I will get to later) has the main characters separated from one another and stranded on Oahu (which, if you've seen Lost or Hawaii Five-O, you've probably already gotten a comprehensive virtual tour of it by now), running from assassins and trying, each in their own way, to deal with a world they have never experienced as they take steps to reunite with each other.
The characters: Black Bolt, king of Attilan, doesn't speak because even something as insignificant as a grunt is powerful enough to launch a police car twenty feet in the air. Anson Mount (best known for his leading role on Hell On Wheels) does great things with this character, considering he is limited to sign language and exaggerated facial expressions. However, the choice to give him a headband, as opposed to Black Bolt's traditional cowl from the comics, was a poor one. It makes his costume look like the ninja outfits from the third season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Also, less coattails, more Storm cape, please.
Maximus, Black Bolt's brother, is one of the humans who went through Terrigenesis and did not become an Inhuman. Such humans are normally used as slave labor in the city's Terrigen mines, or work as palace servants, but because Maximus is a member of the Royal Family, he is exempt from that fate, and so is afforded the freedom to act as a Royal voice among the humans, and vice-versa. However, Maximus resents his humanity and the confined, clandestine nature of Attilan, and so becomes the Scar/Loki/Magneto-like figure in the show. In my opinion, he is horribly miscast. Welsh Game of Thrones actor Iwan Rheon--how do you even pronounce that?--doing an Olivier Martinez accent? And his characterization of Maximus isn't nearly campy enough for him to be interesting yet as a villain.
Medusa, Queen of Attilan, does indeed have awful-looking CGI hair that looks like a poorly applied wig when not being made to move about by said awful CGI, and she is one of the unfortunate recipients of cheap, campy-bland-gross costume design, but Serinda Swan pulls off her regal-yet-vulnerable personality pretty admirably. From the clips I've seen of the IMAX preview, it seems like Medusa's hair effects have been touched up--given more detail and cohesion--between then and the television premiere. It's still not perfect, but what is? As for her costume, it needs a different shade of purple, and more leather, please.
Karnak, Black Bolt's cousin, is able to see the weak points of anyone and (almost) anything. Ken Leung is both a good choice and a bad choice for this role, as his past, cynical character portrayals fit well with Karnak's bitingly honest negativity and self-deprecation, but it seems like Marvel said, "he's basically a kung-fu master. Let's cast an Asian dude!" Also, his costume is one of those bland, brooding, dark leather designs that you have to stare at until you've convinced yourself it's green, like he's wearing a Magic Eye picture. And why is it that he can look at a woman and Sherlock Holmes the self-worth right out of her, replay a fight scene in his head dozens of times in an instant, and yet be completely unaware that a rock--one he's about to put his weight on while climbing down a cliff face--is going to come loose and fall right out from under him?
Gorgon (played by Eme Ikuwakor--which is somehow easier to pronounce than Iwan Rheon) looks like the two-legged version of Motaro from Mortal Kombat, and has the ability to create earthquakes when he stomps his hooves. Another generic costume design, but perhaps the best-looking hoof application I've ever seen, and the second most charismatic performance on the show, behind Mount's Black Bolt. Different from other Gorgon portrayals, but not in a bad way.
Crystal (Isabelle Cornish) can produce and control the four elements, and has a giant, teleporting, computer generated bulldog with a glowing tuning fork mark on his forehead. She's basically the damsel in distress so far in the show, so, mostly useless. And her design is almost as painful to look at as Medusa's--Medusa "wins" out because of her costume's vomit-inducing shade of purple--especially that black unigoggle dyed into the back of her hair. It's authentic to the comics, but it still looks awful.
Louise (Ellen Woglom) is what you get when you take Jane Foster, strip away everything about Jane Foster, and replace it with Stellan Skarsgard's character. She's the science-oriented, interested human in this science-fiction Inhuman-interest story, whom everyone thinks is crazy because she really, really, really likes the moon--in other words, a literal lunatic. Not that important yet, but showing promise.
The conflict: Maximus (because evil brother of the king) unites the human workers and a few sympathizers among the royal guard against the Family, attempting their assassinations, but Crystal manages to have Lockjaw (giant, teleporting dog) teleport Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, and Karnak to Oahu (because local actors are cheaper) before she and the dog get captured. So it's basically the same plot mechanic as the first Thor movie.
Likability and relatability: The show is ridiculously unreal. I had you at "secret moon kingdom," and "giant, teleporting bulldog." The main characters are dickish, self-interested royals who choose their slave labor based on genetic "inferiority." Did I mention they have slave labor? But you know who else was a dickish, self-interested royal who got exiled to Earth after being betrayed by his evil brother with a questionable gene pool? Thor. And we like Thor. So give the Royal Family a chance, okay?
And despite being dickish royalty with slaves and servants and superpowers and a city on the moon, the main characters in Inhumans are not as unrelatable as they seem. Much like modern Americans, the Inhumans are victims of their own circumstance. Like America, the show's city of Attilan is idealized as a safe haven for persecuted outsiders, but must contend with limited resources, an all-too-human gender- and race-based class system, ever-present security threats, and a resulting system of self-governance and self-preservation that is at once detrimental to, and supportive of, its own continued existence. Are the Royals unrelatable because they're royalty with superpowers and prejudices? Yes. But by the same token, they are also the hyperbolic reflection of the real world circumstances we live with every day.
And while formulaic, the plot of the show is constructed with the inherent purpose of demonstrating that fact. Dropping these advanced, but in many ways naive, characters into modern human society lends them an opportunity to appreciate humanity as a quality they share, as opposed to a lesser species they own. Seeing Gorgon have a campfire chat with a bunch of surfer dudes, Medusa having to take the bus, or Black Bolt getting arrested and processed by the Hawaii PD, are all fittingly ironic situations that strip away the unlikable and unrelatable aspects of these characters, effectively rendering them as human as the actual humans around them.
And speaking of stripping away unlikable aspects, it seems that even between the first and second episodes, the faces behind the scenes saw the flaws in their work and took steps to eliminate those flaws. Medusa may spend most of the series with her head shaved. Black Bolt looks at the people around him and decides to steal a suit to replace his generic costume. Crystal is shot head-on for most of her scenes so we don't have to see that ugly dye job on the back of her head.
Inhumans is a flawed show, but by and large, only superficially so. As we humans are generally flawed on a much deeper level, I think we should be the bigger man and give Marvel the benefit of the doubt.
I've started putting labels on my posts now, which will hopefully make them more searchable and get more page views. If you agree or disagree and would like to actively participate in the improvement of global literacy, leave some comments and click my social media things. New Peace Offerings and Ticketverse Throwbacks will return next week, along with the next volume in the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective.
Ticketmaster,
out.
I thought it was time for something new, so I'm bringing back Stay Tuned for an eighth issue to discuss, well, something new; that something being Marvel's Inhumans.
And I kind of agree. But is it so bad that Marvel and ABC should have said definitively that the eight episode first season would be considered "The Complete Series"? I'm not so sure.
So the plot: So much time has been spent on Inhumans' sister show, Agents of SHIELD, setting up the Inhumans as a concept (even having its focus character break from canon by becoming an Inhuman) that it was originally going to be a feature length film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But dick measuring contests and money had the project shelved and then demoted to a television property. If you haven't watched Agents of SHIELD or read the comics, Inhumans are the descendants of humans who were experimented on by the Kree--Ronan the Accuser's race--with something called Terrigen, a made-up crystalline gas compound that grants humans physical deformities, superpowers, both, or neither, or--in Agents of SHIELD, anyway--turns them to dust. In SHIELD Season Three, the Earth's water supply is contaminated by Terrigen, causing a global "Terrigenisis" event that creates uncounted new Inhumans (but for some reason, doesn't dust anyone).
When the Inhumans show begins, the royal family have decided to send out rescue parties to bring these new Inhumans to their secret moon city called Attilan. Personally, I've always thought the "Attle-an" pronunciation sounded stupid, but that's just me. Plus there's the inherent ridiculousness of it being a secret moon city, but that's just comics. A very by-the-numbers conflict (which I will get to later) has the main characters separated from one another and stranded on Oahu (which, if you've seen Lost or Hawaii Five-O, you've probably already gotten a comprehensive virtual tour of it by now), running from assassins and trying, each in their own way, to deal with a world they have never experienced as they take steps to reunite with each other.
The characters: Black Bolt, king of Attilan, doesn't speak because even something as insignificant as a grunt is powerful enough to launch a police car twenty feet in the air. Anson Mount (best known for his leading role on Hell On Wheels) does great things with this character, considering he is limited to sign language and exaggerated facial expressions. However, the choice to give him a headband, as opposed to Black Bolt's traditional cowl from the comics, was a poor one. It makes his costume look like the ninja outfits from the third season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Also, less coattails, more Storm cape, please.
Maximus, Black Bolt's brother, is one of the humans who went through Terrigenesis and did not become an Inhuman. Such humans are normally used as slave labor in the city's Terrigen mines, or work as palace servants, but because Maximus is a member of the Royal Family, he is exempt from that fate, and so is afforded the freedom to act as a Royal voice among the humans, and vice-versa. However, Maximus resents his humanity and the confined, clandestine nature of Attilan, and so becomes the Scar/Loki/Magneto-like figure in the show. In my opinion, he is horribly miscast. Welsh Game of Thrones actor Iwan Rheon--how do you even pronounce that?--doing an Olivier Martinez accent? And his characterization of Maximus isn't nearly campy enough for him to be interesting yet as a villain.
Medusa, Queen of Attilan, does indeed have awful-looking CGI hair that looks like a poorly applied wig when not being made to move about by said awful CGI, and she is one of the unfortunate recipients of cheap, campy-bland-gross costume design, but Serinda Swan pulls off her regal-yet-vulnerable personality pretty admirably. From the clips I've seen of the IMAX preview, it seems like Medusa's hair effects have been touched up--given more detail and cohesion--between then and the television premiere. It's still not perfect, but what is? As for her costume, it needs a different shade of purple, and more leather, please.
Karnak, Black Bolt's cousin, is able to see the weak points of anyone and (almost) anything. Ken Leung is both a good choice and a bad choice for this role, as his past, cynical character portrayals fit well with Karnak's bitingly honest negativity and self-deprecation, but it seems like Marvel said, "he's basically a kung-fu master. Let's cast an Asian dude!" Also, his costume is one of those bland, brooding, dark leather designs that you have to stare at until you've convinced yourself it's green, like he's wearing a Magic Eye picture. And why is it that he can look at a woman and Sherlock Holmes the self-worth right out of her, replay a fight scene in his head dozens of times in an instant, and yet be completely unaware that a rock--one he's about to put his weight on while climbing down a cliff face--is going to come loose and fall right out from under him?
Gorgon (played by Eme Ikuwakor--which is somehow easier to pronounce than Iwan Rheon) looks like the two-legged version of Motaro from Mortal Kombat, and has the ability to create earthquakes when he stomps his hooves. Another generic costume design, but perhaps the best-looking hoof application I've ever seen, and the second most charismatic performance on the show, behind Mount's Black Bolt. Different from other Gorgon portrayals, but not in a bad way.
Crystal (Isabelle Cornish) can produce and control the four elements, and has a giant, teleporting, computer generated bulldog with a glowing tuning fork mark on his forehead. She's basically the damsel in distress so far in the show, so, mostly useless. And her design is almost as painful to look at as Medusa's--Medusa "wins" out because of her costume's vomit-inducing shade of purple--especially that black unigoggle dyed into the back of her hair. It's authentic to the comics, but it still looks awful.
Louise (Ellen Woglom) is what you get when you take Jane Foster, strip away everything about Jane Foster, and replace it with Stellan Skarsgard's character. She's the science-oriented, interested human in this science-fiction Inhuman-interest story, whom everyone thinks is crazy because she really, really, really likes the moon--in other words, a literal lunatic. Not that important yet, but showing promise.
The conflict: Maximus (because evil brother of the king) unites the human workers and a few sympathizers among the royal guard against the Family, attempting their assassinations, but Crystal manages to have Lockjaw (giant, teleporting dog) teleport Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, and Karnak to Oahu (because local actors are cheaper) before she and the dog get captured. So it's basically the same plot mechanic as the first Thor movie.
Likability and relatability: The show is ridiculously unreal. I had you at "secret moon kingdom," and "giant, teleporting bulldog." The main characters are dickish, self-interested royals who choose their slave labor based on genetic "inferiority." Did I mention they have slave labor? But you know who else was a dickish, self-interested royal who got exiled to Earth after being betrayed by his evil brother with a questionable gene pool? Thor. And we like Thor. So give the Royal Family a chance, okay?
And despite being dickish royalty with slaves and servants and superpowers and a city on the moon, the main characters in Inhumans are not as unrelatable as they seem. Much like modern Americans, the Inhumans are victims of their own circumstance. Like America, the show's city of Attilan is idealized as a safe haven for persecuted outsiders, but must contend with limited resources, an all-too-human gender- and race-based class system, ever-present security threats, and a resulting system of self-governance and self-preservation that is at once detrimental to, and supportive of, its own continued existence. Are the Royals unrelatable because they're royalty with superpowers and prejudices? Yes. But by the same token, they are also the hyperbolic reflection of the real world circumstances we live with every day.
And while formulaic, the plot of the show is constructed with the inherent purpose of demonstrating that fact. Dropping these advanced, but in many ways naive, characters into modern human society lends them an opportunity to appreciate humanity as a quality they share, as opposed to a lesser species they own. Seeing Gorgon have a campfire chat with a bunch of surfer dudes, Medusa having to take the bus, or Black Bolt getting arrested and processed by the Hawaii PD, are all fittingly ironic situations that strip away the unlikable and unrelatable aspects of these characters, effectively rendering them as human as the actual humans around them.
And speaking of stripping away unlikable aspects, it seems that even between the first and second episodes, the faces behind the scenes saw the flaws in their work and took steps to eliminate those flaws. Medusa may spend most of the series with her head shaved. Black Bolt looks at the people around him and decides to steal a suit to replace his generic costume. Crystal is shot head-on for most of her scenes so we don't have to see that ugly dye job on the back of her head.
Inhumans is a flawed show, but by and large, only superficially so. As we humans are generally flawed on a much deeper level, I think we should be the bigger man and give Marvel the benefit of the doubt.
I've started putting labels on my posts now, which will hopefully make them more searchable and get more page views. If you agree or disagree and would like to actively participate in the improvement of global literacy, leave some comments and click my social media things. New Peace Offerings and Ticketverse Throwbacks will return next week, along with the next volume in the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective.
Ticketmaster,
out.
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