Marvel's Inhuman Reins Handed Over to Charles Soule

Rising star Charles Soule will replace Matt Fraction on Inhuman before the first issue is ever published, Marvel Comics announced today. Artist Joe Madureira will remain on the title, the first issue of which has been resolicited for April. No word on what, if anything, Fraction will take on at Marvel to replace the project. He recently left Fantastic Four and FF to launch Inhuman, a project which is a high priority for Marvel. Spinning out of the events of Infinity, The Inhumans are poised to take on a more substantial role in the Marvel Universe than ever before, and it's been widely rumored that the group will be the subject of a major motion picture, as well. The thinking is that the vastly-expanded nature of the Inhumans (there are now potentially thousands or millions of "activated" Inhumans rather than the handful we've had for years) could set them up as a kind of X-Men proxy for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, dealing with the fear and racism themes that Marvel's mutants have traditionally faced down. When the project was recently announced as delayed, most fans immediately assumed the problem was on the art end, since Madureira is a notoriously slow artist. Whether elements of Fraction's scripts will be retained in order to maximize Madureira's efficiency (assuming of course that some pages were drawn--but that seems a fair assumption) remains to be seen. "Years ago, young(er) Charles made up a list of Marvel characters that would be a blast to someday write - my Marvel Dream Team, basically – and the Inhumans were on that list," says Soule,   "So getting an opportunity to work with those awesome, strange, classic characters, as well as to expand the existing mythology into cool new places is pretty extraordinary. Infinity and Inhumanity work as amazing springboards to new stories and new characters, and I cannot wait to create them!" "As soon as I read Charles' first Thunderbolts script, I knew he was going to be a star," says Marvel Editor in Chief, Axel Alonso.  "His pitch for She-Hulk proved that he thought big and would bring a lot to the world-building of Inhuman."