Writer: Al Ewing
Pencilers: Ryan Sook and Chris Allen
Inkers: Ryan Sook, Walden Wong, and Keith Champagne
Colorist: Paul Mounts
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Inhumans Prime #1 is largely set up for the upcoming Royals series. Al Ewing will be writing that series, so this should flow nicely right into it. In this issue, the Inhumans are dealing with there being no more Terrigen. They’re also going through a bit of a regime change with there being no more king and queen. For those who aren’t as familiar with the Inhumans, this is not a bad starting point. We’re given the context of the situation and the Inhumans we see are introduced to us.
Al Ewing does a nice job with that story. When you have something that you know is meant to be build up to something else, it can be hard to do it well. You have specifics that you absolutely need to get to and you have an end point that needs to lead you into the new series. Ewing has plenty of Marvel writing under his belt, so there’s no doubt he’s familiar with the characters and the universe. This issue is well written and doesn’t feel like it’s just filling in information, even though that’s exactly what it’s doing.
The art isn’t really ever a deal-breaker for me, but I did notice some inconsistencies in this. Close ups contained a great amount of detail whereas images that were from afar didn’t. At one point, Medusa doesn’t even have facial features. That’s really the main panel that stood out to me as inconsistent, but like I said, it’s not a deal breaker. This story has me intrigued and the art wasn’t horrible by any means.
Inhumans Prime makes Royals look more intriguing than when Marvel first announced it. We’ll have to wait for the first issue of that before knowing just how necessary this issue is, but if you’re looking to read about the Inhumans, you may as well just add this to your reading pile or list.
Verdict: Buy. This is a good Inhumans story and it has me intrigued. Not being familiar with a large majority of the characters makes this appealing as a jumping on point. At the least, check it out to see if it’s a story that interests you. With it being a one-shot, you won’t have too much invested in the story by reading this.
