WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Captain Marvel, in theaters now.
One of Marvel's biggest failures to date is its Inhumans TV series. First premiering in IMAX and then airing on ABC, the series' ratings and critical reception proved it to be a huge misstep on Marvel Television's behalf. The production, costumes, set design and action sequences all looked so undercooked and, budget issues aside, it just didn't match up with the quality and overall aesthetic of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
But with Captain Marvel now in theaters, from a narrative standpoint, the MCU now has the perfect opening to give us an Inhumans reboot, one that can provide a cosmic spectacle on the big screen.
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Inhumans was initially announced as a movie, but then shifted to TV. Obviously, a series wouldn't have the massive budgets of the MCU proper, and this eventually harmed the galactic scope of what Inhumans could have been. It was a joke, even by network TV standards, compared to the sprawling adventures in space we witnessed in two Guardians of the Galaxy films, as well as Avengers: Infinity War. What's all the more shocking is that, in the comics, the Royal Family of Black Bolt, Medusa, Maximus, Triton, Karnak, Gorgon, Crystal and Lockjaw are such heavy hitters in a world filled with depth and awe.
But just as lives were snapped away by Thanos, let's be real, Marvel Studios can now erase that series quite easily because, apart from a few forgettable, fleeting comments, it didn't really tie into the MCU. Captain Marvel offers the ideal platform to bring Inhumans into Phase Four as a new movie because of how it treats Kree science cells and the projects they've been secretly tasked with across all corners of the galaxy.
That's why Mar-Vell (Annette Bening) was hidden away on Earth, disguised as Dr. Wendy Lawson, trying to use the Tesseract in energy experiments. Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) makes it clear she's but one of many, and so this is the opportunity to have Mar-Vell or another Kree lab in Earth's sector focusing on creating Inhumans, just as Marvel's stories in the '60s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby depicted them.
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Whatever minor link Inhumans had with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is also pretty insignificant, and the studio could even retcon things to have Mar-Vell herself running a side mission to create Inhumans to fight back against the Kree Empire and protect Earth. Given how she loved Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. and the planet itself, it'd be a natural fit.
What's most interesting is that now, as we've seen the positives and negatives for all films in the MCU cosmic, we know what works and what doesn't. With these pros and cons in mind, Marvel Studios can finally give us Attilan on a scale like Asgard and build a regal, alien world with the Royal Family and their subjects thrust into the limelight as outsiders who must now make their presence known.
Thanos' Decimation could bring them into play, investigating why half their kingdom died, or the Inhumans could even be intrinsically linked to Brie Larson's Carol Danvers as people ready to stand up to the injustice of the Kree Empire and how it has been trying to build weapons of mass destruction. After all, they both share a common theme of liberation from their "parents" and freedom for all, as seen with Carol's refugee Skrull arc and the fact that she was transfused with Yon-Rogg's Kree blood.
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With a proper budget, the MCU can finally do the Inhumans justice and give us a special effects extravaganza, the politics for the throne and the unique species itself in all their comics glory, trying to fit into a universe they don't think they belong in. As it stands, anything would be better than that TV series and it'd be a shame to waste this potential created by Mar-Vell's big revelation that soldiers are being bred in the cosmos as instruments of war, some of them against their will.
Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Captain Marvel stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Jude Law as the commander of Starforce, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser, Djimon Hounsou as Korath the Pursuer, Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva, Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau, Algenis Perez Soto as Att-Lass, McKenna Grace as a young Carol Danvers and Annette Bening as the Supreme Intelligence.