Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.Until recently, the X-Men and most mutant related characters were outside of Marvel Studios’ grasp. To pursue similar storylines without danger of copyright infringement, Marvel mastermind Kevin Feige turned to a much less popular group of superheroes called the Inhumans to fill in the storytelling gaps of his world. But only within the last year has any of these characters breached the big screen. Who are the Inhumans? Why do they matter to the MCU? And most importantly to the mad Marvel multiverse, why was that Black Bolt (Anson Mount) death so brutal?
In Marvel Comics, the Inhumans are a subsect of humanity descended from humans that were experimented on by an alien species called the Kree, who you may remember as the blue skinned villains of the films Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel. When these descendants are exposed to an airborn chemical called the Terrigen Mist, they develop superpowered abilities, sometimes with completely new appearances similar to Mutants in the X-Men franchise. The most well known of this group are the Inhuman royal family, consisting of Black Bolt, Medusa, Maximus, and many many more. While they were originally conceived as simply villains for the Fantastic Four, they have since become a staple of any Marvel Universe diet, and thus fans have followed the rollercoaster that is their journey in the MCU.
The year 2014 was perhaps the peak of Marvel mania, creating the swirling vortex that would suck these heroes from comic panels to film frames. During the famous Phase Three announcement event in October at the El Capitan theater, Feige announced an Inhumans movie set to release in November of 2018, wedging it between Avengers: Infinity War and the film that would later be titled Avengers: Endgame. Of course, a lot of the announced slate was moved around, as in February of 2015, only four months later, a deal between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios over the rights to Spider-Man shuffled a lot of the slate around, including moving Inhumans to a 2019 release slot.
Immediately after this announcement, the MCU began its adaptation of the hero group during Season 2 of the ABC television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show retconned the origins of one of its main characters, who was named Skye (Chloe Bennet) at the time, to be an Inhuman who gains earth-shaking superpowers after an exposure to the Terrigen Mists in the tenth episode of the season. The history of Inhumans and their connection with the Kree would continue fulfilling a large backbone of the show in later seasons, but the royal family was never integrated into the series.
Parallel to all this was the man so tough he’s named after gasoline, Vin Diesel. The Fast and Furious star is nearly as equally famous for his geeky heart as his toned muscles. Back in 2012, basking in the glow of the first Avengers film, the actor changed his Facebook profile photo to an image of the Vision, who had already been widely speculated as being introduced in the second Avengers movie by this point. Fans thought this meant that Diesel had met with Marvel, but the rumors died down as the image was removed from his social media quickly and Paul Bettany was of course eventually announced to play the Vision. Yet Diesel continued to insist that he was up for a big Marvel project until the announcement that he would be playing Groot in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Yet voice acting was not enough for Dominic Toretto! While he was immensely appreciative of Marvel’s collaboration with him as Groot, Vin Diesel started a social media campaign to play Black Bolt, the leader of the Inhumans, whose almost always silent presence would allow him to not overlap too much with his Groot role. This wasn’t just some fan casting; the actor kept adding fuel to the fire over social media, and even as recently as his F9 press tour has commented that playing the Inhuman hero is still a possibility. Through every iteration of the character’s MCU history, Vin Diesel has been there hinting and campaigning.
The widely held belief at the time was that the push for major Inhuman storylines in the MCU was due to an ache for X-Men type storytelling. Since both Inhumans and mutants have powers related to identity and a long history of culture, the diverse metaphors and storytelling potential they present are obvious. Around this MCU era, Marvel Comics was in the midst of eliminating a lot of their mutant storylines. In 2016, the reveal that Terrigen Mists were actually deadly to mutantkind lead to an all-out war between the two hero leagues. Thus followed a huge event storyline called Civil War II in which the Marvel Universe became divided over whether or not to use the future seeing powers of an Inhuman called Ulysses to prevent crimes before they happen. These events really brought Inhumans into the spotlight, but even with such a huge push, readers just weren’t that interested in Inhumans books (with one exception that will be touched on in a moment) while X-Men comics continued to sell.
Perhaps this is why the Inhumans film was never to be. In April 2016, the film was quietly dropped from Marvel’s upcoming release slate. At the time, Feige claimed there was still a possibility of an Inhumans movie coming soon, but since has not commented on it. No official reason for the film’s cancellation was ever discussed. In December of 2017, Disney bought Twentieth Century Fox, who owns the rights to X-Men and the other Mutants. The move effectively stifled many fans hopes that the Inhumans would become a big screen focus for Marvel Studios. Why eat Hydrox if a package of Oreos is sitting right in front of you?
Instead of a feature, Marvel released a television show that was marketed as a superpowered Game of Thrones. The ABC series Inhumans was released in September of 2017, following the royal family as they navigate their banishment from Attilan, the Inhuman city, to Hawaii. The cast included Anson Mount as the silent Black Bolt, and his devotion to developing his own sign language for the character was a shining moment in an otherwise dead on arrival show. While lots of excitement was generated by Inhumans being the first ever television series shot with IMAX cameras, critics panned the overall look and feeling of the series in addition to its melodramatic storylines and sketches standing in as characters. After only one season of incredibly low viewership for an MCU property, the show was canceled and for the most part was swept under the rug. Even the most hardcore of Marvel fans barely seems to remember the show.
All of which brings us to the insanity, the Madness if you will, of today. Due to Disney+ classifying Marvel Television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Runaways, and of course Inhumans in the “Marvel Series and Specials” section rather than the “Marvel Cinematic Universe in Timeline Order” section, which includes series like WandaVision and Loki, it was widely accepted that pre-Disney+ series were almost all non-canonical outside of the quick Avengers: Endgame cameo from Agent Carter actor James D'Arcy as Jarvis. Not that anyone missed The Inhumans series very much, but it seemed like continuity was easily corrected, particularly after Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t acknowledge Thanos’ snap.
Those clearly defined lines between canon and non-canon became wispy and thin over the past few films and series. Most importantly to Inhumanity, the titular hero in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness visits Earth-838, an alternate dimension in which everything is just a bit different from our films’ main continuity. In that cameo filled universe, Strange comes face to face with the Illuminati, a team of heroes that includes Black Bolt, played in a surprising move by Anson Mount, who reprises his role from the show. While his costume design is entirely different and much closer to the comics’ portrayal, the character doesn’t seem that different from his television counterpart.
This confuses the issue immensely. Is the Inhumans television series canon, but in Earth-838’s continuity? What about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its glaring errors? Could Vin Diesel become Black Bolt in the main continuity? Is everything easily rewritable in the multiverse, making nothing sacred anymore? Marvel will have to deal with these questions sooner than we expect. The one popular Inhuman superhero in comic fandom is Ms. Marvel, who has her own Disney+ series coming to the MCU this summer. How they deal with her origin story might give us some clue as to Marvel’s direction moving forward with the confusing history of these characters. Let’s hope they treat them humanely… or Inhumanely.