Secret Invasion: Inhumans cover

Holy ba-jeezus guys. This week is cram-packed with FIVE Secret Invasion titles and of all of them, I’ve decided to start with Secret Invasion: Inhumans #1. Boy-oh-boy this first issue is one that had me turning pages at near-rip-rate.

The last time we heard from the Inhumans, as a people not just Black Bolt, was in Silent War–a six-issue mini-series depicting exactly what happens when you mess with the Inhumans. The story begins in the aftermath of House Of M (Decimation) where Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff) gets away with the Inhumans’ source of power: the Terrigen crystals. Now, the Inhumans aren’t too happy with good ol’ Pietro and deicde to come after him. This ends up in a full scale war between the United States government and the Inhumans. The ending is simply this: Black Bolt loses this war in the eyes of his people and his brother Maximus becomes king of the Inhumans.

From here, we see Black Bolt a few more times in New Avengers: The Illuminati and in the most recent (I assume the last issue involving this whole group) Black Bolt is found to be a Skrull! And this is where Secret Invasion: Inhumans begins.

**spoilers and more after the break**

Beginning with a meeting between Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Medusa and her sister Crystal of the Inhumans over the body of a dead Skrull who was posing as Black Bolt. A dispute as to where the real Black Bolt is arises (my prediction of Medusa knowing about the Illuminati is confirmed!) and Crystal and Medusa leave the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier with the dead Skrull back to the Attilan, the kingdom of the Inhumans on the moon. Upon their arrival my “spidey-sense” began tingling as we see a small bit of the Inhumans’ inner council meeting in dealing with the Terrigen crystals. Apparently the new king doesn’t speak much on many subjects outside of war on Earth, which has me suspecting something of him.

Immediately after Medusa arrives and throws the matter of Black Bolt missing on the table of the council, Maximus delcares that Black Bolt should be considered dead by any means and that given that Black Bolt could be feigned as being a Skrull, anyone could be a Skrull. Therefore, he decides to go against Inhuman tradition and deems himself as the new ‘dictator’ of sorts.

Following, we see a few scenes depicting a few random sub-plots: The queen wonders if Black Bolt is really dead, Karnak–a priest of the Inhumans–is shown studying the dead Skrull when Luna (Quicksilver’s daughter with Crystal) appears, the watcher of the Terrigen crystals is overlooking the crystals when ’something’ enters the chamber he is in, a ship appears over Attilan… then all of Attilan is in chaos: the Skrulls have invaded.

Hundreds of supposed Inhumans in a bar turn into Skrulls and the only one left to fight is Gorgon–cousin to Black Bolt and his protector when he was in power. A skrull appears at Medusa’s terrace and grasps her by the neck saying the ever-loved phrase of this monstrocity of a cross-over: “He loves you….” We’re then taken to a new scene somewhere unknown; a skrull is talking to a badly beaten Black Bolt explaining that he is oh-so-close to being able to manipulate Black Bolt’s power to use it as a weapon! And here’s where the issue ends…

As expected, this was a great start to this series. I purposefully picked up this title because I knew it was going to be good. I just knew it.

Art-wise, I effing loved the cover of this issue. It’s beautiful; an amazing portrait of Medusa sobbing as she holds onto the empty suit of Black Bolt. But it didn’t stop there. Combining the pencils of Tom Raney (DV8, Ultimate X-Men, Annihilation: Conquest), the inks of Scott Hanna (Nova, Venom: Dark Origin) and colors by Guru-Efx it was a guaranteed win. I felt every punch, emotion and explosion with my eyes. No complaining here.

Now, I hadn’t heard of Joe Pokaski at all until this series, and what I found out was that he had written some of the episodes of Heroes on NBC and 10 issues of the mini-comics for the Heroes graphic novel.

Given that, I’m expecting no less from this series as it continues, so makes sure to keep your wallets open for this 4-issue limited series.