While we have the week off from “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” and the rest of the world enjoys the finals of this season’s “Dancing with the Stars,” let’s sit back and reflect on what may be the big game changer on the show, and I’m not talking about dancing – I’m talking about the Inhumans. Meet me after the jump and we’ll explore the Inhumans and their connection to “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Mission Status
So far, eight episodes into its second season, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” has concerned itself with one specific plot point. It’s been called The Obelisk, or The Diviner, and we’ve seen that it was the first 0-8-4 catalogued, an object of unknown origin and power. Only certain people can hold without being fatally turned to stone. Among those who can touch it are Skye’s mother and father, and I would bet that Agent Coulson can touch it as well.
Skye’s father, The Doctor, who identified it as The Diviner called it a key, and those with Kree DNA (finally verified by the powers that be as such), can use it. This key apparently leads to a city, a city whose location many with Kree DNA have been compelled to carve a map to. Now the forces of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra race to this city that promises answers to many questions. And hopefully those questions will be answered next week, but for now we can only speculate…
The Inhumans
Much of the speculation follows that the city is Attilan. Also known as The Great Refuge, Attilan is the hidden city of the Inhumans. Millions, or thousands (depending on who’s telling the story) of years ago, the Kree came to Earth and genetically manipulated the human race, creating a new super-powered human species – the Inhumans. These experiments to create super soldiers to use against their enemies the Skrulls were forgotten, and the Inhumans hid themselves away from homo-sapiens to form their own culture and society.
This society fell ill to inbreeding and certain steps were taken to secure genetic purity. One of these steps was the exposure to the Terrigen Mist, which assigned those exposed to a certain place in the society. The Mist does different things to different beings. As shown in the recent crossover event Infinity, humans exposed to Terrigen Mist can also gain super powers, if they don’t die, that is.
The Strange Case of Marvel Mutants
While X-Men is a franchise Marvel Comics is well known for, it should be noted that the film rights for those characters do not belong to Marvel Studios, but to Fox. Through quite a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo, the bottom line is that the Marvel Cinematic Universe cannot make use of the term ‘mutant,’ which is apparently exclusively an X-Men term. That legal dagger kinda puts the kibosh on many origins of superheroes and super-villains Marvel Studios might want to use in the movies and on television.
Unless of course they found another term, another word that meant much the same thing, but with different rationale and motivation. How about instead of ‘mutant,’ they went with ‘Inhuman’? Instead of mankind slowly and selectively evolving on its own into homo superior, what if it was ancient genetic manipulation we were talking about, or for faster effects – how about exposure to a gas?
Bombshells
Here are the dangerous thoughts I’m having. What if The Diviner is also something else? Not just a key, not just a map, but a weapon. I mentioned the Infinity event, and in it, Black Bolt, the silent king of the Inhumans, does the unthinkable – he detonates a Terrigen Mist bomb on Earth, with its effects covering the entire planet, turning a certain percentage of humans into Inhumans in its wake. What if The Diviner is a Terrigen Bomb?
We have seen the previews for the next episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” (above) titled “…Ye Who Enter Here” where Skye says, “Something really bad is about to happen.” Could it be a bomb? What really pushes this thought forward is the simple title of episode ten in two weeks – “What They Become.” Perhaps, do some members of both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra become… Inhumans? Will we finally get the show with super powers everyone wanted when this all first began?
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Marvel has been planning for the long run. Anyone who has been watching since the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe can tell you that. If any of what I am suggesting is true, it indicates that they are prepping now for an Inhumans film that won’t be released for another four years. But for how long have they been prepping? In a recent episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” one of the villains of the Avengers sequel is mentioned, Baron Von Strucker, as running the Hydra operations in Europe.
This is neither the first mention, nor the first appearance of Strucker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He first appears in the after-credits sequence of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, observing the captive Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. The twins are survivors of experiments that have killed others. What else has killed others but leaving other alive, possibly with powers? Ding ding, The Diviner. I’m guessing, as are a few other folks, that Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch will be established as Inhuman.
What other connections might be made? Who knows? We can only wait and see. No matter how it enfolds, expect the next two episodes of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” to be serious game changers…
What do you think is going to happen?
Filed under: agents of shield, comics, Film, Glenn Walker, Marvel, television Tagged: Agents of SHIELD, Attilan, avengers age of ultron, baron strucker, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, dancing with the stars, Fox, hydra, infinity, inhumans, Kree, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, quicksilver, scarlet witch, x-men
