Before we get into the good stuff, into those early Fantastic Four issues that set fandom ablaze, we have to have a look back at the earliest instance of the Inhumans, both in 616-time and in print order. The fine example of man-beast love above shows the first instance of anything Inhuman being mentioned, and the first instance of an Inhuman tenderly embracing a fuzzy rhino, and it comes from waaaay back in Captain America Comics #1, the first Kirby/Lee collaboration of any type.
Between this and a couple of side stories from the back of Thor's comic, you should know the hidden roots of Inhuman origin, and get a glimpse of their complex and storied history.
The concept of the Inhumans seems to have long been an obsession of Jack Kirby's, to the point where I honestly kinda believe he thought that aliens had influenced life on primordial Earth. But back in 1941, in Captain America #1, when Stan Lee was just a copy boy helping edit in the office, Kirby created a back-up story called "Tuk, Caveboy, in Stories from the Dark Ages". In that, young Tuk, armed only with a knife, a loincloth, and moxie, searches for his long lost home. And that home...?
Attilan, fabled city of the Inhumans. But as you see, the story takes place 50,000 years BC, which is kind of a long time ago, and in Marvel terms, its a time when mankind still looked generally ape like, crazy creatures roamed the Earth, and the Inhuman race still hadn't discovered how to gain powers. Terrigenesis seems to be unknown to them. Tuk, his mother and father are all more beautiful, powerful and advanced than the world around them, but still not capable of the uncanny powers their people would later have.
As the story goes, one day, probably a Thursday, Tuk's father and pregnant mother were out picnicking when they were attacked by the horned beast you see being loved up at the top. That beast, in a jealous rage, attacks and kills Tuk's dad, and would have gotten his mom too, if it weren't for the timely intervention of the caveman Ak. Mom later gets eaten by a lion anyway. Ak raises Tuk as his child until he eventually pulls a Yoda and, upon his deathbed, he reveals that Tuk is not a cave boy, but likely actually comes from Attilan, where "God people" come from over the sea. With Ak dead and his journey begun, young Tuk would travel for six issues battling dinosaurs and sleestaks, but he would never find his people or Attilan before Kirby would shelve the idea for a while. Tuk's history and genealogy would remain a mystery. A mystery until...
In Thor 146 - 147, Thor, rather improbably, fights against the Circus of Crime. A Thunder God against a guy with a hypnotic top hat and a lady with a pet snake. The 60's were a different time. Regardless, those who made it to the end of this brawl found a two part story, part of a series of post-Thor vignettes, where Kirby was finally able to lay out the secret history of the Inhuman people.
Here we take a look back, still at the time of cave people, according to sources about 25,000 years ago (25,000 years after Tuk: Cave Boy!) when the Inhumans were still just as pink-skinned as you and I (and the rest of white-washed 60's media) but had still at this time mastered jets, built cities, eco-suits, hover tanks, and all kinds of crazy Kirby contraptions.
Its at this time that the Inhuman population, who do nothing but explore the Earth and advance science and their knowledge of the world discover Terrigen. It is unclear if the Terrigen is something from Earth or a rock of extra terrestrial origin, but the rare crystal is emitting mist into the chamber it is being held in, and so King Randac does what every good scientist/king would do and steps into the gas chamber without having previously tested the effects of the gas in any way. This would be the first Terrigenesis, and this Randac fella will be referenced by the Inhuman people for the duration of their existence. He's basically like Lincoln. Only instead of slaves, he freed their genes. And then would go on to make slaves. More on that later.
Randac dives headfirst into the unknown, and the energies unleashed by Terrigenesis wake a strange robot who has been hidden for at least a thousand years by his own recollection. This automaton is a Kree Sentry, one of an army of powerful 'bots sent by the Kree to survey worlds, send back info, and occasionally kick some ass. Luckily for these proto-Inhumans, today he's just on a fact-finding and ominous, cryptic message kick, because one of these guys could totally wipe out a city without any meta humans in it.
The Sentry comes in peace this day to see what progress has happened in Attilan, and speaking with a few of King Randac's attendants, reveals that thousands of years ago (Many thousands, if Tuk is to be believed) Kree scientists experimented on a group of mankind's ancestors, and created a genetic offshoot that led to this city of people. These people are more genetically advanced regular humans, stronger, smarter, and snazzier dressers. He's come today to see the results of the experiment, and send word back to the Kree. He also suggests that the Kree gave us the English language, which the Inhuamsn speak, and seems to know about the Terrigen Mists, which suggests that perhaps the Crystal was also brought to Earth by the Kree.
Though this mechanical man comes in peace now, further reading about the Kree in Avengers shows that they are a war-like race on conquerors, who use our solar system as a base of operations because it is the mid-point between their homeworld of Hala, and that of their chief rivals, the Skrull Empire. They began experimenting on the local indigenous life partly to solve the problem of their dead-end evolutionary chain, for while they are better than the likes of the human race now, their people have stopped evolving and will one day be surpassed by many other races. As a practical upshot of this experiment, the Kree believed they could also develop new soldiers for future battles in the area, and as such packed the Inhumans genetic codes with the gene-info of every known alien race in the universe, trying to make powerful, versatile, super soldiers.
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| Randac, so wise he knows that each person will get different powers from Terrigen, even though he's the only person to have been exposed to it. Also, seemingly way paranoid about invasion. |
The conversation goes something like this:
Inhuman Scientist: What are you?
Sentry: I'm a robot sent by the Kree. We made you, and want to see what's up.
Inhuman: Oh, that's cool. My King just wandered into some potentially deadly gas.
Sentry: Woah! Did anything happen to him?
Randac: *stepping out of mist chamber* Why don't you see for yourself?! *shoots the robot in the chest with new-found laser powers*
Sentry: Ow! Oh shit, what the hell, man! Next time you see the Kree, we'll be coming to kick your ass! Like, 25,000 years from now! I dub you Inhumans, btw.
Randac: Well I nickname my city 'The Great Refuge', now get your ass back to Hala.
Stuff escalates quickly in the Marvel Universe. Randac comes out blasting the 'bot with no provocation, and the 'bot promptly declares war in the Inhumans, though that war won't come in any of these guys' lifetimes.
In the meantime, Randac declares that all other Inhumans are to step into the mist in order to receive powers like his, as a means of protection. They will also keep themselves hidden from the rest of the mouth-breathing humans, who don't understand (who they could totally conquer and rule). Though its now a matter of practicality, Terrigenesis will eventually come to be much more to the Inhuman people. As will be seen later, some Terrigenesis result in really crappy outcomes, either terrible powers, or people turning into freakshow monsters, and so a selective breeding process is begun, so that certain power sets become more likely to be generated by the transformation. In this way, the Inhuman culture is obsessed with genetics. This is the moment that defined their culture forever.
And so end the origin tales of the Inhumans and Attilan, shaping the course of human history, though no one will realize it for millennia. When we return, we will see the origins of the Inhuman King Black Bolt, and find Inhuman culture now set in the traditions that Randac started this day.
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