The Inhumans first appeared in Fantastic Four #45 created by the legendary team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
The in-universe history of the Inhumans is steeped in Marvel's cosmic side of the universe. A million years ago the Kree-Skrull war began. If you watched this summer's Guardians of the Galaxy you'll remember that Ronan the Accuser was a member of the Kree. At that time the Kree set up a base on the planet Uranus, which has a strategic position of being between the Kree and Skrull empires. It was at this station that they discovered life on Earth. Not only life but life that was tampered with by the Celestials. Again going back to Guardians of the Galaxy, the Celestials were the giant cosmic beings in the movie.
The Kree came to Earth and began experimenting on then primitive homo sapiens to circumvent their own evolutionary stagnation and to produce super soldiers to fight the Skrulls. While the experiments proved to be successful the Kree abandoned them after a prophecy foretold that the experiments would create an anomaly that would destroy the Kree empire. The surviving test subjects would form a society which thrived in seclusion from humanity and developed advanced technology.
Experiments with the mutagenic Terrigen Mist (a process known as Terrigenesis) gave them various powers, but caused lasting genetic damage and deformities. This led to a long-term selective breeding program in an attempt to mitigate the effects of these mutations.
Attilan's (The home of the Inhumans) society and culture are predicated on a conformist belief system which permits individuality as it applies to genetic development and physical and mental ability, but demands rigid conformity in that each member of society is assigned a place within that society according to those abilities following exposure to the Terrigen Mist. Once assigned, no Inhuman, no matter how great or powerful, can change their place within this rigid caste system. Although a member of the Royal Family, Crystal married outside the Inhuman race to the mutant Quicksilver (who will be introduced in the new Avengers movie).
The Inhumans are led by their king, Black Bolt, and his Royal Family, consisting of Medusa, Karnak, Gorgon, Triton, Crystal, Maximus the Mad, and the canine Lockjaw. Both Crystal and Medusa have been members of the Fantastic Four; Crystal has been a member of the Avengers as well.
Black Bolt has guided the Inhumans through some of the most turbulent times in their history, including several attempts by Maximus to usurp the throne, revolts by the worker class (with their eventual emancipation), attacks by human renegades, the kidnapping of Medusa, the destruction and rebuilding of Attilan, and the revelation of the Inhumans' existence to humanity.
So let's take a look at the main characters:
Black Bolt
Black Bolt's Terrigen-mutated physique surpasses the superhuman physique of typical Inhumans: his strength, stamina, durability and reflexes are all well above typical Inhuman or human levels. His speed and agility are also highly enhanced. An organic mechanism in his brain's speech center produces an unknown particle that interacts with ambient electrons, enabling him to produce certain mentally-controlled phenomena. The most devastating of the effects is Black Bolt's "quasi-sonic scream". Because his electron-harnessing ability is linked to the speech center of his brain, any attempt to use his vocal cords triggers an uncontrollable disturbance of the particle/electron interaction field. Because of this limitation, Black Bolt must be constantly vigilant of even the softest of utterances lest he destroy anything or anyone in its path. At full strength, his voice has the capability to destroy planets, while a whisper can rock a battleship. When Black Bolt was captured and experimented on by the Skrulls, it was shown that his "Sonic Scream" is triggered by, and at least partially dependent on, his emotional state.
The fork-like antenna worn upon his forehead helps Black Bolt control his powers. He can channel his powers inward to increase his strength and speed, and can focus it through his arms as concussive blasts. Black Bolt is capable of channeling all available energy into one devastating punch called his Master Blow, which renders him extremely vulnerable subsequently. By concentrating his electrons into anti-electrons, he can fly at speeds up to 500 mph for a period of 6 hours, protected by an anti-graviton field. Black Bolt can create a nearly impenetrable force field by focusing his energy around himself, and can use his electron abilities as extrasensory probes, highly sensitive to electromagnetic phenomena, and he can also jam certain electromagnetic mechanisms. Though exhausting, he can create particle/electron interaction fields solid enough to be traversed upon.
Black Bolt also is at least partially resistant against telepathy and shares a semi-telepathic bond with those of his blood (such as the Inhuman royal family and certain others), as was evident when he was able to resist the mental abilities of his telepathically powerful brother, Maximus, and on different occasions, use his own abilities to overpower and take control of Maximus' mind. One of Black Bolt's main uses for his telepathic ability is to communicate his wishes to his wife, Medusa the Queen, who then acts as his mouthpiece to the rest of his subjects. He can also use this limited telepathy to communicate his destination wishes to the royal family's teleporting dog, Lockjaw.
Medusa
Medusa possesses a long, thick head of red hair; thanks to her exposure to the mutagenic Terrigen Mist, every strand of her hair has greater tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, and shear resistance than an iron wire of the same thickness (average hair diameter: .045 inches). She possesses the psychokinetic ability to animate her hair for a number of feats, including elongating it to almost twice its normal length (Medusa's hair is approximately 6 feet (1.8 m) in length when relaxed), and using her hair to lift and move heavy weights (up to 1.6 tons); a portion of her hair must be used to anchor the rest at these greater weights, so that more than her scalp/skull is used as a brace.
Medusa can control the movement of her hair as if it were countless thin appendages growing from her head. A psionic field permeates her mutagenically altered hair-cells, causing mutual attraction across the gaps between strands. These relatively small forces operate in conjunction to develop larger forces. Through concentration, she can psionically move her hair in any manner imaginable. She can snap the length of it through the air like a whip (the tip of which moves faster than the speed of sound), or rotate it in a fan-like manner. She can bind persons or objects with it as if it were rope, or use it to lift objects which weigh more than she could lift with her arms. Her scalp, skull, and neck do not support the weight of an object that she lifts: It is held aloft by the psionic force coursing through the hair. Medusa can also perform delicate manipulations with her hair such as lock picking or threading a needle, and such complex acts of coordination as typing or shuffling a deck of cards. Although she has no nerve endings in her hair, she can "feel" sensations on all parts of her hair by a form of mental feedback from her psionic field.
Medusa is also able to retain some degree of control over her hair after it has been cut or otherwise severed from her scalp. She presumably has the typical enhanced physical abilities granted by the genetically superior Inhuman physiology. She is also highly skilled at interpreting the gestures and body language of Black Bolt, and has a fluency in a special sign language used to communicate with Black Bolt.
Like all Inhumans, Medusa's immune system is weaker than that of an average human. However, due to her frequent ventures into the outside world, Medusa's immune system has been strengthened so much that it is no longer as weak as that of her fellow Inhumans. As such she has attained a resistance to the pollutants of the outside world, which enabled her to join the Fantastic Four (as well as be a former member of the Frightful Four) in the first place.
Karnak
Karnak has enhanced strength, stamina, durability, agility, and reflexes as a result of his genetically superior Inhuman physiology. Unlike most Inhumans, he does not have superhuman powers as a result of exposure to the mutagenic Terrigen Mist, as he was never exposed to the Mist. Instead, Karnak has the extrasensory ability (achieved through meditation and intensive training) to perceive stress points, fracture planes, or weaknesses in objects or persons. He has complete voluntary control of most of his autonomic bodily functions. All striking surfaces of his body are extremely toughened. He is capable of shattering substances up to and including mild steel and rendering superhuman opponents unconscious by striking them.
Like all Inhumans, Karnak's immune system is weaker than that of an average human.Karnak has received his fighting skills as a result of Inhuman royal militia training. He is also a graduate of the religious seminary, at the Tower of Wisdom in Attilan.
He uses a hover-platform for transportation designed by Inhuman technicians.
Gorgon
Crystal
Crystal possesses genetically superior Inhuman physiology, which has been enhanced and mutated by exposure to the Terrigen Mist. She has the ability to mentally manipulate the four classical Greek elements: fire, water, earth, and air. She does so by means of a psionic interaction with the substances on a molecular level. By controlling oxygen molecules she can cause fire to spontaneously ignite or she can douse any oxygen-based flame by depriving it of oxygen. She can join hydrogen and oxygen molecules to create rain, summoning these molecules from a volume of atmosphere within a radius of approximately two miles. She can control the movement of water by manipulating surface tension, divining water from the ground and causing it to flow in designated directions. The observed maximum volume of water she can control is approximately 2,000 cubic feet (about 15,000 gallons). Thus, she cannot change the course of rivers or cause the sea to part. She can control the various substances that make up common bedrock (earth: iron, granite, shale, limestone, etc.), creating seismic tremors of up to 6.7 on the Richter scale (greater if tectonic plate fault lines are nearby) by causing a sudden shifting of the earth. The observed maximum volume she can affect at once is 1.8 x 10" cubic feet (approximately 1/800 of a cubic mile). She can also control oxygen atoms and oxygen-containing molecules to create atmospheric disturbances of various kinds. By intermingling air with earth she can cause a dust storm, air with water a typhoon, and air with fire a firestorm. She is able to create a wind of tornado intensity.
Triton
Triton is a member of the Inhuman race, artificially mutated by the Terrigen Mist, giving him scaly greenish skin, a small dorsal fin running from the base of the skull to the forehead, membranous fins extending from his temples, and webbing between his toes and between his fingers. Triton is able to breathe water, to swim at great speeds, and to withstand the pressures of the deep sea. He cannot naturally breathe air and needs near-constant contact with water to survive, and cannot exist out of water without artificial aids. His resistance to deep sea pressure also gives him superhuman strength and speed underwater. He has the ability to survive underwater indefinitely, and the ability to withstand the temperature and pressure of ocean depths.
Triton has undergone basic Inhuman royal militia training. When on land, Triton employs a water circulation system consisting of lengths of plastic tubing which run along his torso and limbs, maintaining a constant mist of water and providing a supply of fresh water to his gills.
Lockjaw
Lockjaw seemingly has "super-canine" strength in his jaw for a dog his age and size. At one time, he locked on to the Thing's arm and the Thing could not get him to let go. Lockjaw can also teleport himself, and nearby living creatures and matter to anywhere he wants, from the Earth to the Moon, and can even open passages between dimensions. Energy barriers that are seemingly impenetrable to others seem to pose no problem to him. Lockjaw also has the ability to psionically trace a given "scent" across dimensional space.
Maximus The Mad
Maximus has a genius-level intellect and great inventiveness. His Inhuman telepathic powers granted by the mutagenic effects from exposure to Terrigen Mist give him the ability to numb, override, and even efface a person's mind. He has the ability to induce short-term amnesia in others, and the ability to exchange his consciousness with another's. Maximus's mental powers have a limited range as well as variability - he can only affect minds in a certain radius and only create one effect at a time. His influence generally functions while Maximus concentrates, but he has left long-buried influence in his subjects as well. Maximus, despite his mind-control powers, is not a true telepath.
Maximus's mental instability often prevents him from making full use of his powers. Also, like all Inhumans, Maximus's immune system is weaker than that of an average human.
He is an extraordinarily gifted inventor, with advanced knowledge of physics, mechanics, and biology. He has invented an Atmo-gun (able to create seismic shockwaves and "negative zone" force fields), and a Hypno-gun (able to control minds at a far distance).
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