Draxis TV Review: Marvel’s Inhumans

Before we jump into the thick of things with this blog I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I also want to mention our friends at Bearded Browncoats and Vibranium Comics and Games. Both of these shops have been great to us as customers and as friends. They have also both been instrumental in my being able to bring to you all of these wonderful Comic Review Blogs! So please if you enjoy our blogs, comics, games or anything geeky please check out the Black Friday sales and events at these stores! I will link the facebook events below so you can check them out. Remember more than just the huge stores have great deals and more than just the big chains want to see you shopping with them, so help out the small guys and buy some comics or figures for the geek in your life!

Bearded Browncoats Comics and Games Black Friday Event and Sales!

Vibranium Comics and Games Black Friday Event and Sales!

This season of TV has been bringing us some wonderful new gems to watch. From streaming services pushing their own shows to the networks bringing out new seasons and new properties it seems that everywhere I look I’m finding something new to watch, I just wish I could watch some of these with a 5 year old so that I didn’t have to wait till nap time or bed time to do such. Anyway, this season one of my go to shows- Agents of SHIELD- is not on the air as it is letting Marvel’s Inhumans have a turn at things.

So Inhumans is an interesting case study in what not to do I think both in comic books and on television. While I am not aware of the sales stats of the Inhumans vs the X-Men comics I do know that personally the Alien Genetics of the Inhumans always seemed like just a cheap knock off of the X-Men. The big problem is that because Fox owns the rights to the X-Men universe for TV and Movie projects and have been steadily producing such so that Marvel can’t regain the rights the TV verse for Marvel had to do something as Mutants were always great sellers for books and now in Fox’s hands the X-Men have kind of spearheaded all of the comic movies that have come out. So of course for Marvel the solution was simple, bring in the secondaries and let them have the ball…..this could have worked but in my opinion they made one HUGE mistake.

I know what you’re all thinking “Just one mistake?” well NO, but there is one HUGE glaring mistake that really put this show in the hole for me and it was never able to climb it’s way back up. So first let me ask a simple question. What would you expect from a show that featured the main cast of the X-Men? Flashy super powers and fighting bad guys right? So when you call in the B Team that’s the Royal Family of the Inhumans that until now on SHIELD have been shown to have super powers you would expect? Flashy Super Powers! WRONG….well partially there are some super powers but let me explain. I’ll go through a list of the main characters and why this little power conundrum exists.

Black Bolt- For those of you that don’t know the comic, Black Bolt’s power is that his voice can destroy anything. He whispers and a small shockwave issues, he screams and he could conceivably destroy a world. Due to this, he obviously doesn’t speak unless he has to so in the shows 8 episodes so far, the most powerful Inhumans is basically hobbled for the show. That’s like putting Psionic Dampeners on Xavier and then expecting him to be interesting.

Medusa- Medusa is the wife of Black Bolt and Queen of the Inhumans due to this. Her power is what gives her her Inhuman name as she can control her ankle length locks of hair like living snakes. This I think is an awesome power and since she is a lovely redhead, she has a special place in my heart. So how did they mess her up? They shaved her head, thus taking away Medusa’s powers! After all you can’t control your hair very well if it’s been buzzed just about bald.

Maximus- In the comics, Maximus is a madman who can mentally push people to do things though it is hard on him. In the show, he has no powers and is just pissed because he wants power…he thinks he should have been king but the fact he didn’t get powers made him a second class citizen, so he rebelled. He is actually the best character in the whole show, even though they stole his powers.

Karnak- This character is interesting because he can find the flaw in any plan, person, or thing. Think of him as the ultimate fighting monk where he can hit one pressure point with a finger and drop a raging dragon. However, in the show, while they did this cool little seen geometry graphic and him being able to play things out in his head before hand, they handled him wrong too. In the beginning as everyone is fleeing Maximus and his coup, Lockjaw dropped Karnak in such a way that he hit his head and for the rest of the show his powers were glitching, so he was not nearly as good as he should have been.

Gorgon- This character has an ok power. He has hooves instead of feet and with a stomp can create tremors in the ground up to large ground waves. Not the coolest of powers, but can come in handy at times. Gorgon actually uses his powers the most in this show I think, topping out at a whole like 5 times. However, before the season is done, they have killed him, resurrected him, and driven him mad so they kinda nerf his character with that too. There’s only so much you can do with a savage berserk character.

Triton- The Namor of the Inhumans, or the Aquaman if you’re so inclined to mix the companies. Triton is seen to “die” in episode 1 and then comes back in something like #7 of 8. Triton is an awesome assassin type of character,  so seeing him work in the last few episodes was great. He doesn’t show much of his powers but then again, as Maximus said at one point  “You’re meant to be in the water and they keep you here…on the moon…where there isn’t any water”.

Crystal- Crystal uses her powers a whole like 3 or 4 times and in the most benign ways possible. Gusts of air to disarm and then a lightning storm to signal her family. She had little screen time, and what she did have didn’t lend itself to the story except for being a plot device of getting everyone back together. She is probably also the one who most resembles her comic book character when it comes to the casting.

Lockjaw- Last but certainly not least, we get to the family’s dog. The most interesting and loveable character in the whole show. He’s basically a 5 foot tall at the shoulder Bulldog. He’s like the size of a hippo! Whats even better is this ultimately snuggleable dog is that he can teleport anywhere! So after seeing everything else I have said here can you guess what happened to Lockjaw? Thats right he helps the family escape and is then sedated through half of the show. The second half of the show sees him get Crystal to earth where she does next to nothing because she arrived in a dirt road with him in the middle of the night and he got hit by an ATV. This leaves him incapacitated until the end of the show, where he takes the family to the moon once more so they can have their showdown with Maximus.

Now, I understand that many of these people could seem a bit overpowered, but then again this is the story about the main royal family so it would make sense to see them in the full glory. Instead, we got a washed out look of a royal family that was utterly useless in what they could do. If it wasn’t for the help of humans and then Triton coming back, they all would have been killed by the power wielding Inhumans that were chasing them half the time. So Marvel, if you’re listening, reading, whatever here’s a tip. Give us what we expect and we won’t hate it as much! Big booms, super powers, god-like characters, and all that is fine when we are expecting to see a movie about the cream of the crop super heros!

So have you seen the show yet? If so what did you think of it? Did you enjoy it and if so why and if not was it because of what I said or some other reason? Sound off in the comments, as we love to hear from you!