Nothing says bad guy like storming the United Nations.
Creative Staff:
Story: Charles Soule
Art: Ryan Stegman
What They Say:
Medusa’s inversion in AXIS makes her a very different ruler of Attilan! What is the Ennilux Corporation?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the AXIS storyline running through Inhuman, it’s another pivot all over the place for the book, one that again shows that things here just aren’t going to take time to develop and be explored. Having Medusa involved with the events of Genosha isn’t something that I think the series really needed to do, at least from the point of view of this book, but I haven’t read AXIS so I have no clue if she was well used or not there. Here, it’s just one more complicated point as the interesting and engaging Medusa is now just Bad Medusa, reducing her to simple old school caricature of what a bad leader would do in seeing threats everywhere.
Those threats are basically the entire world since she sees humanity and the Avengers as what she has to protect her people against. So she’s doing what she can to get her trusted advisors to put together plans not only to defend New Attilan but also to attack New York City. Because, you know, that’s worked out so well. Medusa’s causing enough concern that even Gorgon goes behind her back to call in for some help from the Avengers as he sees her as just harming everything by what’s going on – even realizing that she’s likely being controlled or twisted in some way. It’s even more obvious how far off the rails she goes when she just strides into the UN during an assembly meeting and sets the tone for her new rule, noting that her people had left for the moon while mankind was just creating paintings on the wall. It’s not exactly a bad argument, but it’s also one that doesn’t really endear her to anyone either.
Naturally, we do get a guest appearance here to deal with her, and after having both Cap and Thor show up, it’s time for Spider-Man to get his time in the spotlight. The two actually tangle well, but it’s the kind of short and semi-aborted fight that doesn’t really feel meaningful, though you get plenty of trademarked Spider-Man quips along the way. There are some decent moments with webbing and hair though, so it’s not a complete loss. All of it serves to get Medusa to confront her own people over what happened, knowing she was betrayed, and that sets her off on her own, abandoning New Attilan. Which, of course, makes no sense when you get down to it, but she at least has a reason for not acting rationally at this point in time.
The book does spend some time with Reader and Xiaoyi as well, catching us up to where they were as he learned what the truth was behind her being brought there and being quite displeased by it. There’s still a very rushed and uncertain feeling about Ennilux and what it represents and while it could build to a decent storyline, it just feels dropped in without a proper footing. I do like that Reader makes it clear that he thought he was doing things for the greater good of the NuHumans here, and unknown Inhumans out there as well, but it’s also good to see Xiaoyi, now using the code name Iso, to give him some deserved grief over it, which in turn has him questioning everything he’s done. Which we know little of, so it resonates only so much.
In Summary:
Inhuman went from being a strong series that had me craving new installments to now feeling like it comes out too frequently and is far too rushed. I like the concept and what it’s trying to do in dealing with the fallout of the Terrigen bomb, but it’s been so haphazard after its initial story arcs that it’s making some big leaps without good bridgework to tie it all together. This issue, and the previous one, suffers even more because we’re thrown into Ennilux as well as getting an AXIS tie-in with Medusa being subverted. Which isn’t all that interesting to read because she had more than enough character depth and angles to work with already instead of going down this route of a caricature.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: December 17th, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
