Update: ABC has seemingly quietly cancelled the Inhumans TV series

Now that the X-Men are in the MCU, it means Marvel can finally leave the Inhumans behind. Marvel hasn't always been the powerhouse that it is today - in the 1990s, the comic giant was edging perilously close to bankruptcy, and while it managed to get back on track (obviously), this financial blip meant they'd sold some of the rights to many of its best-loved characters, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and X-Men. As a result, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe began to take shape (and subsequently take over the superhero genre), it was a version of the comic universe missing some of the biggest names - the X-Men and Fantastic Four were in the hands of Fox, while Spider-Man was with Sony, meaning that Marvel/Disney was unable to use them.

As a result of this, Marvel/Disney has been attempting to push some of their lesser-known teams to the forefront, hoping to find replacements for their biggest teams on the big screen. The Avengers may always have been well-known, but they were joined by characters who range from the huge success that is the Guardians of the Galaxy, to the total flop that was Inhumans.

Related: How The MCU And The X-Men Can Cross Over

Recently, however, Marvel/Disney has been taking back what's theirs; a rights-sharing deal with Sony brought Spider-Man back into the fold, and it looks like the X-Men will be coming home to the MCU as well, after Disney bypassed a rights-sharing deal and simply purchased Fox as a whole (not just to regain the mutants, obviously, but that's a major plus). Now, with all these big characters coming back to Marvel, it's time to retire some of those who were called up to take their places - starting with the Inhumans.

The Inhumans' Massive Failure Explained (This Page)

The Inhuman's Had A Terrible MCU Debut

Inhumans Finale Royal Family

The Inhumans have been around since the '60s but never rose to the kind of prominence of the X-Men - they existed as a lesser comic team for decades before Marvel started trying to bring them into the mainstream in order to make them a part of the MCU. Created by Kree experimentation on early humans, the Inhumans gained their powers through Terrigenesis - which was introduced to the MCU through the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Originally, the master plan was to have Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. introduce some of the concepts of Inhumans and Nuhumans to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, before the big guns of the Inhumans comics (the Royal family) came to the big screen in their own film

What actually happened, however, was that the Royals spent years in development hell, before being bumped to the small screen. Marvel still attempted to make a big deal of the eight-episode series, however, launching it with the first two episodes in an IMAX event that was, unsurprisingly, a critical flop. The smaller budget for the series meant that the special effects were simply not up to the IMAX format, and combined with some less-than-brilliant decisions in terms of writing and costuming, the Inhumans/IMAX experiment failed to work. The rest of the season was similarly unimpressive, not bringing in enough viewers and staying on the bad side of the critics, until it ended with a fizzle and left Marvel fans wondering if there was any point in a second season.

The Inhumans Won't Be Coming Back

While Marvel's Inhumans hasn't officially been canceled (yet), the combination of poor reception and the new Disney/Fox arrangement mean that a second season is highly unlikely to appear. It just doesn't make sense to continue the Inhumans story; the first season wrapped up very neatly with no cliffhangers to be addressed and. more importantly, Marvel simply no longer has need of the Inhumans to provide a new team of 'naturally occurring' superheroes now that the X-Men can return.

Related: Inhumans' Failure Hurts the Marvel Cinematic Universe

That said, the MCU is so carefully built that it would be difficult to just pretend they never existed - every detail of the universe connects, after all. A perfect solution to keep this failed team in play without having to give them the spotlight would be to fold the Inhumans into the world of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - it's a clean fit given the prior set up in S.H.I.E.L.D. and how the main series wrapped up with the Inhumans stranded on Earth. This combination could boost some interest in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as the fans who did enjoy Inhumans would watch AoS, as well as keep the Inhumans in the periphery of the universe. But is it even worth it?

X-Men MCU

How Will The X-Men Join The MCU?

Of course, for the departure of the Inhumans to really work, Marvel still needs a team to fill the gap they were hoping Inhumans would; a team of super-people with powers that are somewhat naturally occurring, that don't require elaborate origin stories and that provide a steady stream of new characters from a single explanation.

This is where the X-Men come in - but folding an entirely new race (mutants) into the MCU isn't as simple as just buying the rights. Unlike Spider-Man, who is a fairly straightforward addition (new, young hero in New York), the inclusion of mutants means the introduction of a vast number of characters and the entire concept of the X-gene. This isn't a team that can all pop up as teenagers overnight.

It's not yet clear exactly how the Disney/Fox deal is going to bring the X-Men (or the Fantastic Four) into the MCU, but Marvel Studios leader Kevin Feige has made several cryptic comments about how the MCU is going to become "a very different place" after Phase 3, with films being released in a new way. Given that the MCU has begun to receive some criticism for overly formulaic films, it sounds like Marvel may be making some major changes - and could even be ditching the sprawling, perfectly connected model entirely.

Related: Marvel Needs To Wait Until Phase 5 Before X-Men Crossover

Fox's X-Men films haven't always been a huge success, but one of the things that they have been praised for in recent years is their very comic-book approach, combining multiple genres and alternate timelines to allow for a huge range of stories to be told without having to fit perfectly together. If Marvel is ready to embrace this form of storytelling, it would be an easy way to hang on to the franchises that make money (like Deadpool), and ditch those that aren't doing so well. Relaxing the need to make every detail fit within the MCU could also be a great way to dump Inhumans entirely; call them an alternate universe and leave it at that.

Do The X-Men Properly Replace Inhumans?

Although it may seem that this is an ideal answer to the problem of the Inhumans, as well as the issues that come with introducing the massive X-Men franchise to an existing cinematic universe, this is all firmly in the realm of speculation. The ink on the Disney/Fox deal is only just dry (and pending approval), so Marvel will only now be thinking about how they can recombine the Marvel Universe on screen - and we won't feel it for a good few years.

While fans are already speculating that the reality-warping power of the Infinity Gauntlet will be the magic wand that opens the door to the X-Men, Marvel themselves are remaining tight-lipped. However, one thing is very clear: now that the X-Men can come home, and the Inhumans has been a clear failure, it's time to retire the Royal Family from the MCU.

Next: Predicting The 20 Marvel Movies After Avengers 4

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