This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at Marvel’s 2nd attempt to give the Inhumans their own spinoff series.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #1 (October 1975)
Title: Spawn of Alien Heat
Villain: Blastaar
Inhumans Royal Family Roster: Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak and Triton
NOTE: This series picks up after Medusa ended her temporary stint in the Fantastic Four and was back to living in Attilan, the hidden futuristic city in the Himalayas (at this time) where the thousands of Inhumans have lived for millenia. Ever since the alien Kree experimented on their caveman ancestors with the Terrigen Mists.
Synopsis: Blastaar, a recurring foe of the Fantastic Four, is let loose from the adamantium prison in which he has been held for some time. His saviors are the Kree Empire, who once again want to try capturing those inhabitants of Attilan who have powers that would be effective in the millennia old Kree-Skrull War.
Blastaar flies to Attilan, the Great Refuge and fights his way in past the airborne guards. In the Royal Palace, a long-buried device rises from the lowest depths below Attilan and sits, apparently waiting for a clearly missing component to complete it. Black Bolt and Triton dive into the watery depths below Attilan to see where the machine originated from.
Shortly after they depart, Blastaar bursts in and begins fighting Medusa, Gorgon and Karnak.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #2 (Dec 1975)
Title: Star-Slaves
Villains: Blastaar and the Kaptroids
Synopsis: While Black Bolt and Gorgon go deeper and deeper into the waters of the Bottomless Fountain, Medusa, Gorgon and Karnak remain locked in combat with Blastaar. The villain defeats the trio, then completes his mission for his Kree saviors by using the Gong of Sovereigns to complete the mysterious device, which readers learn is called the Somnotherm.
Blastaar shoots the gong with his Negative Zone energy blasts and the gong’s vibrations shoot waves underground. His job done, Blastaar flies off. Meanwhile, Black Bolt and Triton have found a massive cavern filled with untold numbers of skeletons of Inhumans from thousands of years ago. The waves caused by Blastaar activate gigantic Kree robots amid the ocean of bones – robots called the Kaptroids.
These Kaptroids are to Inhumans what Sentinels are to mutants in the Marvel Universe; they capture then “swallow” them, keeping them imprisoned in their barred “stomachs.” The battle with the Kaptroids spreads from this underground ossuary back up to the streets of Attilan. The Royal Family fight the Kaptroids until, at length, Karnak manages to defeat them.
In the epilogue, we meet Iridia, the latest Inhuman to gain superpowers from the Terrigen Mists. She is a beautiful woman with wings like a butterfly’s.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #3 (Feb 1976)
Title: Panic in New York
Villain: Shatterstar
Synopsis: On the Kree home planet Hala, a meeting is held at which various dignitaries discuss why the Empire has renewed its desire to force their long-ago creations the Inhumans into serving as cannon fodder for their armies: A conflict enigmatically called the War of Three Galaxies is approaching.
A Kree operative called Shatterstar is dispatched to Earth wearing his high-tech armor designed to make him capable of defeating any of Earth’s superteams. Back in Attilan, the Royal Family has been investigating the cause of mysterious earthquakes which have been plaguing the Great Refuge for months now.
Finding no answers, Black Bolt places the Royal Family member Crystal and her husband, the former Avenger called Quicksilver, in charge of Attilan. They are to rule while he, Medusa, Gorgon, Triton and Karnak have Crystal’s car-sized dog Lockjaw teleport them to New York City to see if Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) can devise a solution to the earthquakes.
The Fantastic Four are out west on a mission to capture the Hulk, and before the Inhumans can seek out the Avengers for help Shatterstar shows up and attacks them. After a destructive battle around New York City he renders the Royal Family unconscious and prepares to kill Black Bolt in the cliffhanger.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #4 (Apr 1976)
Title: The Doom Called Shatterstar
Villain: Shatterstar
Synopsis: Black Bolt survives and rallies Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak and Triton in a second battle with Shatterstar. Eventually the villain is defeated and our heroes take his unconscious form onto his own spaceship and fly off back to Attilan with Shatterstar to get him medical attention.
We learn that Shatterstar was created by a Kree Empire experiment that took many years but left him with incredible power that he focuses through his armor. Arriving back in Attilan, the Inhumans see that the citizens of the city are enslaved by Black Bolt’s evil brother Maximus the Mad, who also has Crystal and Quicksilver captive and bound in Kree-made bonds for public display.
Maximus is in cahoots with Shatterstar. He and Shatterstar now inform Black Bolt and the others that Crystal, Quicksilver and half of Attilan will be killed if the Royal Family does not immediately surrender.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #5 (Jun 1976)
Title: Voices from a Galaxy’s End
Villains: Maximus the Mad, Shatterstar and the Inhuman League
Synopsis: Lockjaw teleports away with Karnak and Triton, the two Inhumans closest to him. Meanwhile, Maximus has Medusa, Gorgon, Crystal and Quicksilver imprisoned in high-tech cells. He also has his brother Black Bolt bound in Kree-made chains and hung spread-eagled, forced to watch as Maximus and Shatterstar force the enslaved inhabitants of Attilan build a massive spaceship.
The vessel will be used by Shatterstar to carry off those Inhumans who possess battle-worthy powers to forcibly serve until death in the Kree Empire’s armies in the War of Three Galaxies. The other (roughly) half of Attilan’s citizens will remain in the Great Refuge as subjects of Maximus the Mad, whose Inhuman League (formerly the League of Evil Inhumans) will serve as his Royal Family.
Black Bolt endures nine whole days and nights with no food or water, watching as his subjects slave away to build the ship meant to take many of them off to die in war fought in a distant galaxy. Black Bolt is thus unaware that on this ninth day, Iridia has helped the returned Triton and Karnak to free Medusa, Gorgon, Crystal and Quicksilver.
Triton kills Shatterstar by reflecting his own energy beams back at him via the Mirror of Eternity, and the others defeat Maximus’s Inhuman League like they have so often in the past. Tragically, Black Bolt, still unaware of all this and after days of torture and taunting from Maximus, snaps. Just before Medusa can inform him of their victory he screams, unleashing his incredibly potent voice hoping to destroy the spaceship and Attilan rather than let his people be enslaved.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #6 (Aug 1976)
Title: A King of Ruins
Villains: Maximus the Mad and the Inhuman League
Synopsis: We see the full scope of this tragic turn of events. Black Bolt’s voice levels much of Attilan and damages the spaceship. Maximus and his Inhuman League (Stallior, Falcona, Leonus, Aireo and Timberius) escape in the chaos. Amid the ruins, Black Bolt is informed by the rest of the Royal Family how unnecessary his action was, as he would have seen if he had held out only a few moments more.
So consumed by guilt is Black Bolt that he pens a document (read aloud by Medusa) apologizing for his despairing deed and his failure to have faith in his fellow members of the Royal Family to deal with the situation. In addition, he states that after years of seeing that they will never be safe from the Kree Empire’s attempts to capture or kill them, he believes they should abandon Attilan and the Earth entirely.
He, Medusa, Triton, Karnak and Gorgon will use the massive spaceship Shatterstar and Maximus had built – once it is repaired – to seek out a new planet for all of the inhabitants of Attilan to live on. When they find one, the rest of them will be evacuated to that world. In his absence, Crystal and Quicksilver will rule the city. (Hey, they did a bang-up job the last time you left them in charge!)
The throngs of Inhumans in the devastated streets cheer this decision and shout their forgiveness of Black Bolt. Right on cue, Maximus and the Inhuman League show up and attack. In his pent-up anger, Black Bolt manages to single-handedly defeat them all.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #7 (Oct 1976)
Title: A Trip to the Doom
Villains: Stentians
Synopsis: Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak and Triton depart in the spaceship, with Crystal letting her dog Lockjaw travel with them. Iridia is assigned to help Crystal and Quicksilver rule Attilan in their absence. She begins to detect a certain discontent among some of the citizens who aren’t as forgiving as the rest regarding the need to rebuild as much of the city as they can for now.
Months go by. In the Duggil Star System, the Inhumans’ space ark approaches the planet Stent. it is shot down and crash lands. Our heroes are picked up by one of the enormous, insect-shaped traveling cities of Stent – basically forerunners of the rolling cities in Mortal Engines.
The Inhumans get caught in the middle of separate battles between the ruling government of this city and its poverty-stricken rebels. The final battle results in the entire rebel section of the gigantic city being destroyed. This has damaged the city so badly it can now only crawl in a circle, meaning it can no longer travel to replenish its water tanks and other supplies.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #8 (Dec 1976)
Title: Dust and Demons
Villains: Stentians
Synopsis: While the “beetle” city’s inhabitants work on repairs to try getting the city moving again, Black Bolt and Medusa are permitted to return to Lockjaw on their downed Space Ark. Before too long they are attacked by ray-gun wielding soldiers of another mobile city, this one kind of spider shaped.
After a brutal battle, our heroes are forced to surrender and (Lockjaw included) are taken inside this spider city. They meet its ruler Warkon, a friendlier being than the beetle city’s rulers. Black Bolt and Medusa learn that the Inhumans have not traveled far enough yet to be outside the area where the War of Three Galaxies is fast approaching.
The planet Stent is torn between cities which want to side with the Kree Empire in the coming conflict and cities which want to fight against the Kree. Luckily, Warkon wants to fight against the Kree, so Black Bolt and Medusa are safe for the moment. Soon, the spider city and the stranded beetle city fight while our heroes go with Warkon’s forces to try to extricate Gorgon, Karnak and Triton.
After a lengthy battle in which the Inhumans are reunited and fight their way back to the spider city, the city-to-city clash ends with both mobile cities too damaged to move.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #9 (Feb 1977)
NOTE: Not all of the writing and artwork for this next issue were ready by the publishing deadline.
So, as we’ve seen in previous reviews, Marvel reprinted an old story as a fill-in this time around.
In this case it was a reprint (rerun) of a story from the previous attempt to give the Inhumans their own series, in Amazing Adventures.
This story involves our heroes fighting Maximus the Mad and his Inhuman League to stop them from detonating all of the Earth’s atomic stockpiles.
The cover actually features the villain of the next chapter of the Stent storyline.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #10 (Apr 1977)
Title: Isle of the Asteroid Web
Villain: Mon-Tog
Synopsis: The Inhumans and Warkon’s troops fight their way past more beetle city soldiers to reach what Warkon knew the beetle city’s ruler Skornn had in hiding – a spaceship used for travel from Stent to rendezvous with Skornn’s Kree allies and back again.
To escape from the deadlocked and stranded cities, our heroes all fly off in Skornn’s huge vessel. He jammed the controls, however and rather than take the Inhumans and Warkons troops to safety the vessel instead takes them to the nearest Kree Empire stronghold for the War of Three Galaxies – a moon-sized space island in a web of asteroids.
The Inhumans and their allies survive the Kree attempts to kill them when the ship docks on the space island. After several Kree soldiers are defeated, Black Bolt has the others go off without him while he stays behind to fight more Kree troops AND their leader, Mon-Tog, who wields a Neuro-Lance.
Black Bolt eventually defeats Mon-Tog and rejoins the others. They force their way into the space island’s observation center for a last stand. The Inhumans realize the countless viewscreens in the massive room each cover specific planets on which the Kree have agents at work. Our heroes realize Earth is one of them but they can’t tell what the Kree agents are doing.
Presently, the remaining Kree forces on board the space island attack our cornered heroes and in the massive battle that results, all of Warkon’s troops are killed. He sets the space island to self-destruct while the Inhumans reach a Kree vessel and escape before it blows up.
EPILOGUE: The Inhumans realize that they must return to Earth to thwart whatever plan the Kree agents are running to try conquering the planet.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #11 (Jun 1977)
Title: Return to Earth
Villain: The Pursuer
Synopsis: More months have gone by. The stolen Kree space vessel carrying Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Karnak, Triton and Lockjaw back to Earth at last reaches its destination. For just plain no reason it crash-lands in the Atlantic Ocean just off New York City, but our heroes get out alive.
Humanity is still distrustful of the Inhumans, despite the fact that both Medusa and Crystal have at different times served as members of the Fantastic Four, so the Marines and the Coast Guard attack our main characters. They fight their way past them and have Lockjaw teleport them away.
Meanwhile, on the Kree home planet Hala, the destruction of their asteroid web has so infuriated the Kree Council (and presumably the Supreme Intelligence, the A.I. which rules the Kree Empire) that they decide to kill the Inhuman Royal Family immediately. They use their Omni-Wave Technology, which allows for instantaneous communication and teleportation through interstellar space, to transmit their latest ultimate warrior creation the Pursuer to New York City to kill the Inhumans.
The Pursuer possesses Black Bolt-level strength and wields a Power Scepter which lets him shoot energy blasts and animate unliving matter. After a destructive battle throughout the city, the Pursuer is defeated and left in a comatose state while the Inhumans slip away.
INHUMANS Vol 1 #12 (Aug 1977)
Title: A Berserker Called Hulk
Villain: The Hulk
Synopsis: The Inhuman Royal Family seeks help from their oldest friends the Fantastic Four, but this time they are in New Salem in the Colorado Rockies helping Agatha Harkness fight her evil son Nicholas Scratch. The New York City police attack the Inhumans.
Before long, Bruce Banner, who is in hiding in New York, stumbles upon the fighting and the excitement turns him into the Hulk. The Hulk remembers fighting the Inhumans in the past and soon it’s him against our heroes. In the end, our main characters convince the Hulk they are friends, so he leaps off on good terms with the Inhumans.
NOTE: This was the final issue of this series due to low sales. The Kree scheme and the War of Three Galaxies storylines are continued in the pages of Captain Marvel.
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