It’s on like Donkey Kong folks! The Inhumans and the X-Men are going to duke it out once and for all. “Inhumans vs. X-Men” is the second big heroes versus heroes event Marvel has launched this year and like “Civil War II,” we (Jess and Ken) are here to break it all down for you. In each installment of this column, we’re looking at the main book but along the way we’re sure that we’ll mention the tie-ins as well. When this is all said and done, a new column will launch with all the new titles. Jess will be looking at the Mutant side of things. In this edition, we’re looking at “Inhumans vs. X-Men” #4 and not only does it feature the funniest scene in the series so far but it gives the Inhumans a chance to get the upper hand. As usual, there will be spoilers.
Written by Jeff Lemire & Charles Soule
Illustrated by Lenil Francis YuThe war between the Inhumans and the X-Men takes a dark turn leaving Inhumans hopelessly outmatched. Emma Frost, the White Queen, faces off against Medusa, queen of the Inhumans, as both fight for the future of their people. It all ends here!
Ken: Jess…
Jess: Well then…
Ken: We’ve finally reached the end.
Jess: The end of this conflict and the end of Emma Frost as viable character for a very long time. Time for a moment of silence.
Ken: …..
…
…Well that was fun! So final verdi-
Editor: Actually talk about the issue!
Ken: Ugh. Fine! So, we have the big convergence between X-Men, Inhumans and the smart ones that did what we thought the other two groups should’ve done issues ago: sit down and talk.
Jess: With this talk, everyone finally gets on the same page. Medusa is met by the younger Inhumans, including her son, who reveal to her what is really happening with the Terrigen Mist cloud. Like any good queen, she puts the greater good over her own desires and blows away the cloud because she could not sit there and let an entire race die. But wait, there’s more! Turns out all this time, all Emma Frost wanted to do was kill the Inhumans. I won’t get ahead of myself here but I have strong opinions on that.
Ken: Yeah, we’ll get to that. But this, finally seeing the younger characters be the ones to finally stop this nonsense was so satisfying. The only way this could have been better is if the young Inhumans worked together with the New X-Men (That’s actual new x-men. No time travelers). And yes, I can respect Medusa’s decision here. It perhaps should have been done months ago, but putting life in the present above a stable future for your people was the right thing to do.
Jess: Medusa’s choice here is the kind of thing I expected from her as well. As a ruler, she’s never been incredibly selfish and this is a storytelling decision that makes me happy Soule was here writing it.
Ken: Indeed.
So. The floor is yours. Go!
Jess: It is amazing to me that this event became the final nail in the coffin for Emma Frost. Emma Frost was never your typical heroic X-Men character. She played the villain often but she was never only defined by her romantic relationships. She’s incredibly powerful, sarcastic and has the kind of confidence a lot of people would kill for. The entire last year of X-Men books has basically been her playing second fiddle to Scott Summers and here she becomes completely consumed for him and it is the strangest thing this story could have done. All of her motivations come down to her unwavering love for Cyclops and it makes no sense because not only is Cyclops the worst but it goes against everything she’s ever been. This franchise has thrown away some great ideas with her. Bendis gets a lot of criticism for his work these days but he wrote her as someone looking to do something better and be a mentor to the kids they had picked up (who have all now vanished). She wasn’t with Cyclops romantically and was still (rightfully) giving him a hard time for what he had done in the past. The entire “Death of X” – “IvX” drama has crippled her as a character and it bothers me so much! Making one of your female leads want to commit genocide because her boyfriend died is so weak.
Continued belowWe didn’t get a literal death but we got her figurative death.
Ken: Yeah. I can see her wanting Cyclops’ death to mean something, which is why she tweaked the nature of his death in “Death of X”. I get that. But holy hell was the writing around her here bizarre. Put aside whether or not you like Scott Summers, is it anywhere near believable that Emma would go this far? Manipulating Forge into reprogramming Sentinels to attack Inhumans? Straight up mind controlling people, including Magneto? Especially since by this point the situation with the cloud is diffused, as Storm rightfully points out. This was some major twisting of the character to try and draw a parallel between her and Medusa so they could have their final fight.
Speaking of, that was a really short fight. Comparing it to something recent, that was Owens/Goldberg speed.
Jess: It didn’t last much time at all and it was such a stretch to create that parallel that didn’t really need to be there.
Ken: Nope. This is easily the worst part of the story. Hands down. And did you see Emma in the Forseshadow Scene for things to come. She’s wearing a Cyclops-Magneto Hybrid helmet and a cape. It is so bad I burst out laughing at that panel!
Jess: It one of the worst things teased by a Marvel event and that’s saying a lot given that we’re about to get Nazi Cap.
Ken: Yeah. Say what you want about the Inhumans push, it’s not “Let’s make the Sentinel of Liberty an Actual Nazi”.
So, the art. Yu comes back to finish the job he started and… it’s not bad. There were some cases of off-model looks (one big one fore me was Flint in the Inhumans double-page spread all armored up. I was wondering why Rockslide had joined the Inhumans) but for all intents and purposes, it does its job well…. but the Cycloneto Helmet will never not look hilarious.
Jess: I was a little let down by Yu’s work to be completely honest. It felt really messy to me.
Ken: It’s not his best by any stretch of the imagination. The oversized nature of this issue plus just coming off his “Monsters Unleashed” issue were probably big contributing factors in that as well.
Jess: Some of the bigger scale fight scenes looked good but there were just some wonky character designs all around. I really like the setting though. I think he did a great job at making this feel like an actual place instead of just plain backgrounds. I notice things like that and appreciate it.
Ken: Yeah. So, I’ll let you go first on final thoughts because I’ve got a bit to talk about.
Jess: What’s funny is that I kind of had hope that this would be different from all the other events we’ve been bombarded with over the last two years. This had some legs to stand on with a really solid moral conflict. What we ended up with was yet another ridiculous and overblown event with a well known character being destroyed in the process. This entire thing could have been wrapped up in less than 6 issues but we had to get some big, overblown mess because headlines. This was just same old same old and that’s all I got.
Ken: Yeah. I have to say, when comparing, I think this event is better than “Civil War II”… but this one pissed me off more. In my retrospective on Charles Soule’s Inhuman run, a major criticism I had was the constant interference the run got, trying to pull it into more superhero areas. This event is the culmination of that interference and damaging of both properties. So we had the X-Men pull the same old same old “We’re on the Verge of Extinction” plotline and we had the Inhumans growth stunted because it had to tie-in. And for what? For what? A kind of okay-ish event comic? It’s such short term thinking. Now we have Ressurxion, which looks like Massive Nostalgia Trip for the X-Men and the Inhumans Going Back To Cosmic Routes that may potentially burn down some of the things it did gain.
Continued belowWorth that short-term cash, Marvel?
Jess Final Verdict: 5.5
Ken Final Verdict: 5.9
