Man On The Moon

The Easter holidays- or "Spring Break" as the younger teachers style them- are almost over again. It's a sunny day again but deceptively chilly. I might walk to Lossiemouth, though and see the sea. At this time of year, my dad used to take us to Coalburn to toss pigeons ( prepare them for races with short flights to the loft) but often to Largs or Ayr. I associate these comics with one of those trips- just before I went to Uni for the first time.

This week, I went to see Gillian Anderson in All About Eve ( NT Live) at Eden Court in Inverness. But I also spent time trying to get my comics room/library/study into order. That failed for now because it's not big enough and because of course, I kept being side-tracked by reading: Keith Giffen's Blue Beetle Rebirth; Madame Xanadu by Englehart and Rogers; and Back Issue 110 from Twomorrows, about Englehart's lost WCA stories. I even watched an episode of Bixby's Hulk: astonishingly, I'd never noticed the DANGER sign flashes ANGER at first!




This is a golden era for superheroes in the mainstream media. While I was visiting family in Giffnock just over ten days ago, I caught the last episode of the Inhumans series on Pick TV.


I was fascinated by the Inhumans as a child- from about 1969 and their cameo appearance in this crazily miscoloured tv tie-in :

The next time I saw them was in two 1968-69 issues of the colour US comic and a little later, I got every issue I could of Amazing Adventures where they were drawn by Kirby and then Neal Adams.

At secondary school. I bought four issues of the Perez/Moench mid-70s series but as I always say, Scottish distribution and the cancellation spectre of the Bronze Age never allowed for more than that. A fifth turned up in a "Grab Bag" from Lewis's in Glasgow circa 1979.

I was always pleased to see the Inhumans turn up in Byrne's FF and the Englehart/Buscema stories of  the 80s. I even sampled their Marvel Knights series in the late 90s but I was never captivated by them again as I had been as a wee boy. More recently, their Terrigenesis ceremony has been the means through which new, all-ages heroes have been introduced: specifically Ms. Marvel and Moon Girl.




The Inhumans made their tv debut in Agents of SHIELD- a series which I only followed sporadically- ironically because of the dearth of classic Marvel characters. The 2017 series is set on the Moon and in Hawaii. It doesn't feature a crossover with SHIELD but instead focuses on the civil war begun by Maximus- Iwan Rheon, who used to appear in the dated ITV sitcom Vicious with Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen .

Anson Mount plays the silent Black Bolt and has gone on to star as Christopher Pike in Star Trek Discovery, a series I intend to catch up with this summer.




Sadly, the series wasn't terribly engaging after the initial excitement of seeing the family onscreen. Medusa's living locks were shorn in the first episode so there was little action for one of Marvel's most dynamic female stars of the Sixties. Lovable Lockjaw is brought to life with CGI and is probably the most entertaining aspect of the series. His mistress Crystal looks like she stepped out of a Kirby panel but she was eclipsed by Karnak, who encountered drug smugglers and had a romantic subplot.


 I was amused to see a guest role for Ian Cusick, who, like myself, used to act with Strathclyde Theatre Group in the late 80s and early 90s. (Peter Capaldi was a member before my time or Cusick's. )


The storyline concerns the caste system in Attilan and the sibling rivalry of Maximus and Black Bolt ( a theme Stan explored in Thor and with Xavier and Juggernaut in X-Men. Did that tell us anything about Stan and Larry?) The series began life as a movie project and I think that's why it felt that there wasn't really enough story to sustain a series. Also, "BB vs Maximus" is really the only important  story Inhumans have ever told.

When Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton (and later, Perez) introduced the Omega Men in the early 80s Green Lantern series, they were a regal, isolationist, super-powered race. But they were then re-purposed as Star Warriors. This is really the only other story the Inhumans can tell, as seen most recently in Al Ewing's Royals miniseries.

Incidentally, Marvel keeps trying to find a role for Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy, Noh-Varr, who feels to me like an update of Genis-Vell aka Legacy. He appears in Royals and in the current West Coast Avengers. With Carol Danvers secure in the Captain Marvel role, I'm not sure what the point of Noh-Varr actually is.

The Inhumans worked best as a cosmic Addams Family, a distorted reflection of the FF themselves. In an Avengers-centric MCU, they lose their potency. In fact, they may be upstaged by the touted Eternals movie, if the Von Daniken Space Gods element is in the foreground. A disappointing and surprising miss from Marvel, then.






Of course, this week, there have been internet rumours of a number of  new Marvel tv series, including Hawkeye and Vision and the Scarlet Witch. I would like to see more of Marvel's Bronze Age horror stable, like Werewolf by Night  or Lilith, Daughter of Dracula. Or how about the dark angel, Spider-Woman? Moving away from the spy genre where she's been placed for the last decade or more and back to the weird/mystery angle? I suggest Australian actress and singer-songwriter Bonnie Anderson as my pick for Jessica Drew:

Coming soon: Swords of the Swashbucklers, La Borinquena and the Star Beast


All images are considered copyright of their original owners