9 Years Ago, Marvel’s Biggest Mistake of All Time Was Released And Fans Literally Laughed At It During Comic-Con

While there was a time when it seemed liked Marvel could do no wrong with the MCU, there have certainly been some missteps in recent years. On the big screen, The Eternals and The Marvels both fell short of expectation while on the small screen, Marvel’s Disney+ series haven’t exactly been flawless either. She-Hulk had its critics and Secret Invasion might just be the series that most fans want to pretend never happened. But while those are certainly notable choices maybe Marvel wishes they hadn’t made, there’s one series that still stands out as the biggest mistake the overall franchise has made. It was so bad that the premiere screened at San Diego Comic-Con was met with open laughter from fans — and it debuted nine years ago today.

On September 29, 2017, Marvel’s Inhumans debuted on ABC. The series was actually pretty eagerly anticipated for fans, having originally started out with the announcement of a film in 2014 as part of the MCU’s Phase Three only to be removed from the Marvel Studios slate in 2016 with the television series announced shortly after. The series had a solid cast, was filmed, in part, with IMAX cameras, and even got an IMAX debut, making it the first live-action television series to get that treatment. But for all the promise and the fanfare, the show was a disaster. It was cancelled after eight episodes and Marvel had largely distanced itself from it ever since.

Inhumans Was So Bad Even SDCC Audiences Openly Mocked It

On the surface, Inhumans should have been interesting. The series followed Black Bolt and the other members of the Inhuman Royal Family, the Inhumans being a superhuman race from Attilan, a secret city on the moon. The Inhumans has already been introduced as a concept on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the series would have expanded the overall universe as well as brought some truly interesting characters with interesting powers to the screen. Black Bolt can’t speak because his voice can cause massive destruction with just the barest of whispers. His wife, Medusa, has prehensile hair. There were Inhumans who could control the weather, those who can create seismic waves, and of course, the dog Lockjaw who is a massive (and we mean like 2000 pounds massive) dog who can teleport.

But things started going wrong pretty quickly. Medusa’s hair proved to be extremely problematic and the effects used to create Lockjaw as well as Attilan were pretty complicated. When the first trailer for the series arrived, all three elements looked pretty rough and got a lot of negative comments. It was bad enough with Medusa’s hair that that they had to reportedly spend around $100,000 trying to improve it. Even with IMAX being involved — they paid for the first two episodes — they were trying for a huge cinematic experience on basically a television budget and it showed. By the time we got to the show’s SDCC panel in July 2017, when actual footage was shown, things were so bad that the audience openly laughed — and they were laughing at things that weren’t supposed to be funny. And of course, the criticism and roasting of the series continued from there, with people saying that the costumes for the Royal Family looked like cheap Halloween costumes you could get at Party City and there was so much mocking of how bad Medusa’s wig and hair really was that Marve TV head Jeph Loeb even came out in a wig and jokingly said “What is with you guys and the wig? It’s not that big a deal. I think it looks lovely.” The show was pretty much dead-on arrival; it just got to play out its eight episodes before Marvel put it out of its misery.

In Retrospect, Inhumans Had Issues But Wasn’t Quite As Bad As People Claimed At the Time

The flaws with Inhumans were definitely many and the criticisms were valid, but almost a decade later, when we look back Inhumans wasn’t quite as bad as maybe we remember it to be — and it probably didn’t deserve to be laughed at at SDCC. First, Lockjaw actually ended up being really cool when done and fans still say he was the “goodest boy”. Most importantly, however, the cast actually turned in solid performances despite having scripts that maybe weren’t up to par. Both Medusa actor Serinda Swan and Karnak actor Ken Leung genuinely did everything they could to do their characters justice while Anson Mount deserves far more credit for his portrayal of Black Bolt. The actor had the challenge of playing a main character that must be completely mute so much of his acting had to come in expressions as well as other forms of communication — including an entire sign language which he created for his character rather than simply learning ASL.

The problem with Inhumans is one that we can see clearly now. It was a rushed project that had already been swapped from movie to television and then had to be shoved into a tight production timeline (just six weeks) in order to meet an IMAX deadline for the series’ theatrical debut. The show didn’t have nearly the budget it needed and the whole thing ended up being akin to trying to put on Shakespeare in a back alley: good performances from good talent doing the best they could with the materials they were given. It’s something that has its own charm now — especially since we’ve seen other Marvel projects have iffy effects and issues.  Marvel would end up giving them a little bit of redemption with Mount appearing as Black Bolt in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but the character’s fate made it clear that Marvel would prefer to keep that chapter of things dead and buried and it seems like that’s where they’re going to stay, at least for now.

Looking back, do you think we judged Inhumans too harshly? Let us know in the comments.

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