Within the canon of Marvel Comics, there’s many kinds of enhanced individuals but those born with innate abilities tend to fall into two distinct but similar categories: Inhumans and Mutants. Both gain their powers from traumatic experiences, both are maligned by baseline humans and both have television shows currently airing so I figured I should compare the two for funsies. Don’t worry, no spoilers here!

I’ll be judging both Marvel’s Inhumans and Fox’s The Gifted based on three categories: Story, Characters, and Production Quality. Fairly simple, right? We’ll see!

Inhumans – Story

After the Royal Family of Inhumans is splintered by a military coup, they barely escape to Hawaii where their surprising interactions with the lush world and humanity around them may prove to not only save them, but Earth itself.

It’s Space Game of Space Thrones, essentially, except with shoddy acting and sterile sets. While this shouldn’t be too bad as a concept, we’re thrust into the lives of these extraterrestrial beings with only a fleeting mention of a connection to the Terrigen contaminant we’ve seen in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so unfortunately the audience can be kind of lost on initial viewing without prior knowledge of the characters.

The Inhuman Royal Family will be spending the majority of this 8 episode run on the stunning island of Hawaii and the unique cityscape and surrounding nature makes for a nice change of pace to the usual stock sets used in other Marvel productions.

With the cast splintered, we’ll be seeing lots of unique experiences for the relative aliens and maybe some good character development, all culminating in one final show with the main antagonist, Maximus.

The Gifted – Story

Two ordinary parents take their family on the run from the government when they discover that their children have mutant abilities, and join an underground community of mutants who have to fight to survive.

It’s your basic X-Men plot but not one that the Fox X-Men movies have tackled at all and with such a tight focus on two distinct groups of characters, this series aims to put a spotlight on all of the social commentary and allegorical story-telling ideas that X-Men stories are lauded for and in the current social climate, that’s a great thing.

With a Government-backed black-ops group intent on hunting them, the strife that the Struckers and the members of the Mutant Underground find themselves in definitely has echoes of The Underground Railroad or The French Resistance and this will lead to some fascinating character dynamics and some great set-pieces over it’s 10 episode run.

Inhumans – Characters

Let me give it to you straight, there’s only a couple of decent actors and, sadly, one of them isn’t Iwan “Barry Bolton” Rheon. Maximus’s actor struggles to act and put on his ropey American accent and his performance sadly suffers for it. Isabelle Cornish as Crystal is vacuous, uninteresting and your visual bathroom break cue. Eme Ikwuakor and Ken Leung provide decent performances as powerhouse Gorgon and calculating Karnak, respectively.

Rounding out the main cast are Anson Mount and Serinda Swan as Black Bolt and Medusa, the king and queen of Attilan. Serinda Swan is a little stiff in the first episode (much like her hair!) but as we see her adapt to her new situation and act proactively to reunite with her peers, we see that she’s got a little more depth than we first see. Interestingly, she appeared twice in Smallville as Zatanna Zatarra, which is neat. Anson Mount’s stoic Black Bolt portrayal is bang on and I have to admire his dedication to the role, creating a unique set of Inhuman signs to communicate (he hopes to create a functioning fictional language like Klingon or Dothraki). Between that and his quite comical expressions in the second episode, I think he was a brilliant choice for the role.

Of course, the actual best character is the 2,000 pound CGI teleporting doggo, Lockjaw! He’s adorable and he’s the only reason I wanted to see the show in the first place so I’m thankful that VFX company Double Negative did a fantastic job of rendering him, even if he doesn’t exactly fit into most scenes well.

The Gifted – Characters

The characters of this show can generally fall into three categories: the Strucker family, the Mutant Underground, and the jobbers du jour, the Sentinel Services officers.

The Struckers (no relation) are your typical family unit but with the added twist of the father being a prosecutor that specialises in putting mutants in jail but this doesn’t go the way you expect. The Mutant Underground are a motley bunch of B-List X-Men, Morlocks and new creations with a nice diverse cast and unique array of powers. Special mention goes to the adorable Jamie Chung (Blink) who is best known as Chi-Chi in the awful Dragonball Evolution and as the voice of GoGo Tomago in Big Hero 6.

From the pilot episode, I feel much more connected to most of these characters than any of the Inhumans cast and I think that’s down to the more grounded storytelling of The Gifted.

Inhumans – Production Quality

As I’ve said before, all the scenes shot in Hawaii are utterly gorgeous and very foreign from what we usually expect whereas Attilan, the Inhuman City on the moon, splits between barren royal accommodation to barren peasant-caste mine areas. Attilan feels sparce, sterile and lifeless. Even the Inhuman haven in AoS had more character to it!

Not only that but the use of Inhuman abilities is very limited. Every one of the Royal Family gets their moment to exhibit them but that’s about it and they’re all mostly underwhelming, lacking the punch I was expecting. The costume designs are a little weird too but I can chalk that up to space fashion.

The Gifted – Production Quality

The Gifted has a more subdued colour palette but more variety in it’s atmosphere than Inhumans does. The night-time opening has harsh neon glows while the suburban family life has a muted sepia feel and the cold blues of the industrial complex and prison facilities all add to the atmosphere in the show and giving it a more film-like quality overall. In terms of powers, The Gifted does not hold back; with each character using their powers offensively, defensively and even in fun/mundane ways!

The show oozes quality on par with it’s kooky cousin Legion and can easily stand up to any Marvel show on visuals alone.

Verdict:

This is purely down to my personal taste and I’ll give my best reasoning for which show I recommend but know that while I enjoyed both shows to an extent, one was clearly superior and that show was The Gifted.

The Gifted feels very much in line with it’s universe and it’s predecessors while Inhumans feels the most disconnected of the Marvel shows so far, mostly due to it’s bizarre subject matter. Not only that but while The Gifted has a lot going for it, Inhumans necked itself out of the gate by being a mediocre TV pilot that was shown on IMAX screens; further highlighting its flaws and thus gaining the infamous criticism that it’s garnered.

I highly recommend The Gifted if you’re a fan of the X-Men, the movie franchise, Legion or all of the above and I cannot do the same with Marvel’s Inhumans.

Hi guys, and welcome to Game Box; a new series where I look at some of the games I’ve been playing recently since I finally have a console again. First up, I’m coming to be talking about the recent Open Beta for Gazillion Entertainment’s Marvel Heroes Omega.

Marvel Heroes Omega assembles one of the largest gatherings of iconic Super Heroes, Super Villains, and locations from the Marvel Universe in gaming history for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Mac.

Set in the iconic Marvel Universe, Marvel Heroes Omega combines the core game-play style of Action RPGs and MMOs with the expansive library of heroes from the Marvel Universe. In the game, players can collect and play as their favorite Marvel Super Heroes (including Iron Man, Thor, Wolverine, Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America and many others).

Team up with friends and try to stop Doctor Doom from devastating the world with the power of the Cosmic Cube in a story written by Marvel comic super-scribe Brian Michael Bendis.

From moment one, you’re given a gorgeous introduction sequence featuring some pretty good 3D models and 2D animated sections retelling the origins of the more famous Marvel Heroes. A fair few of the cut scenes in-game follow a more motion comic style and while the blend of styles is a little jarring at first, I give the creators credit for trying something different.

The tutorial drops you in the middle of a mission with Captain America and allows you the time to figure out your buttons before setting you against Ultron and his minions. Each of your attacks is assigned to one of the four face buttons and you can bring up a secondary menu by holding L2. It’s an intuitive system to help console players easily access their full range of abilities that’s a staple of MMOs on consoles.

Throughout the tutorial, you’re given the ability to play as Cap, Black Widow and Hulk before they allow you to access the launch roster of heroes. It’s a right Who’s Who of MCU characters alongside more established characters. You get all the ones you know and then you get the likes of Wiccan, Squirrel Girl and Angela, which is cool. Given this is a Free-To-Play game, you’re given the opportunity to try before you buy any of these characters before Level 10 when you have to pick your starter character.

I eventually chose She-Hulk and upon entering the game proper, I noticed a cute quirk this game has. Depending on the characters in the vicinity, there are unique snippets of dialogue from both your character and those of other players. This gives the world a little more connectivity and hearing Shulkie interact with Gambit in the moments in the mission worlds or at the HQ is pretty fun. The voice cast for this game is exhaustive too, bringing in all the voices you’d associate with these characters from various animated shows as well as bringing in actors such as Clark Gregg and Keith David, voicing Agent Coulson and Nick Fury, respectively.

Being a FTP game, more heroes are unlocked through Founder’s Packs of various price points, by using Eternity Splinters or by accumulating the specfic in-game currency to buy them or unlock additional costumes. You can get an additional hero for nothing though, by downloading Daredevil for free and the additional Man Without Fear costume for free if you are a PS Plus member.

You can customise your heroes with character-specific loot drops for defeating enemies and augment their abilities through levelling or attaching Medallions from defeated super villains.

Given the amount of FTP MMO games on consoles at the moment, you could be forgiven for thinking this is just another but the game plays like the X-Men Legends and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games, taking an isometric view of the action but adds the MMO component and the whole package feels a little like that Avengers Alliance game for its breadth of characters and customisation potential.

If you’re looking for a quick and fun MMO to get into or are jonesing for a Marvel game that isn’t on mobile (that’s me) then I recommend giving this game a shot. Marvel Heroes Omega is currently available for Open Beta on Playstation 4 and will be officially released on June 4 2017. For more details and updates, head over to the official website and be sure to follow the game’s Twitter.

It’s everyone’s favourite Merc With a Mouth and Sharp-O’s here to show you Deadpool’s massive ten-inch clock! That’s not a typo.

As always, thank you to NJ Croce for this brilliant review sample!

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We’re back for round two of this year’s LEGO Superheroes Mighty Micros and this time it’s Marvel that’s up to bat with a trio of terrific sets.

We get a nice mixture of franchises showcased this time with Spider-Man, The Avengers and X-Men all getting the spotlight! Let’s get started with Marvel’s golden boy himself…

Spider-Man! Scorpion! A match up that doesn’t happen nearly often enough in my eyes because Scorpion is a pretty cool villain, design-wise.

The Spider-Man minifigure is much like last year’s but with an all-new, all-different wince! Or a wink. I suppose it depends on your perspective. Scorpion, meanwhile, looks like an adorably cartoonish version of his minifigure in the LEGO Spider-Man: Web Warriors Ultimate Bridge Battle. Both minifigures also come with an animal accessory tied with their theme.

In terms of the karts in this set, I’d initially written the Spider-Man one as uninspired until I realised that it was a simplified version of the infamous Spider-Buggy and I kind of walked back that opinion. It’s cool but still not as cool as Scorpion’s brutish claw-tank-thing! This thing is essentially a box on wheels but between the claw-like appendages and integrating Scorpion’s own tail pieces for the vehicle’s stinger is pretty clever.

Over with the X-Men, we have the comically mismatched Wolverine and Magneto. We don’t see the X-Men often enough in these sets so it’s great to see them here (and I’m hoping next year will see Deadpool in a mini-chimichanga delivery truck).

The minifigures are just as adorable as ever but, in an ironic twist, even more-so because Wolverine is an immortal, ninja-slaying samurai Canadian and Magneto is a holocaust survivor who has a mad-on for a human genocide. These two characters, out of all of Marvel’s characters, should not be this cute.

Again, their associated karts are hilarious! Wolverine is flying around in a shrunken Blackbird jet and Magneto has a giant magnet on it! They’re both really fitting with the characters and exemplify the tongue-in-cheek humour that I really like about this line.

Finally, with The Avengers and in the spirit of the future movies, we have Iron Man vs. Thanos. Earth technology versus space magic. Tony shouldn’t be looking anywhere near as cocky as he is.

In terms of minifigures, Tony’s Iron Man design is so simplified that it looks like a Halloween costume and he’s not helping his credentials by bringing a spanner to an Infinity Gauntlet fight. It’s no wonder that Thanos has the kind of manic glee on his face that comes from a sadistic villain who knows he’s going not only murder the hero but wipe him from existence. Quip your way out of this one, Stark.

The karts are equally laughably one-sided as Iron Man’s is a variant on The Flash’s from last year but with a quartet of repulsor jets. On the other hand, figuratively and literally, Thanos has used the Reality Gem to conjure up a kart shaped like the Infinity Gauntlet! That’s decadent and arrogant on a truly cosmic level but if I had a complaint, it’s that the gold used for this kart isn’t uniform, with some blocks cast in a metallic gold while the rest are a dull, lighter gold. It’s kind of the same problem that Wonder Woman’s jet faced but still, it’s a brilliant show of Thanos’s silly side and that’s saying something from a cosmic villain who once pestered D-Tier hero Hellcat in a ‘Thanos-copter’.

Once again, the creativity of the LEGO Marvel Superheroes Mighty Micros line shines through again with a brilliantly clever and fun set of builds. You can purchase these online and in stores for £8.99 each and I highly recommend picking them up for yourself or the Marvel fan in your life!

Logan is being directed by James Mangold, the man who did the previous excursion The Wolverine (also Walk The Line, which is funny considering the trailer’s choice of music). The list of writers is a little interesting. David James Kelly is making his big screen debut with this script and Michael Green previously wrote the Green Lantern movie. That’s… concerning.

It’s been 24 hours now since the trailer debuted so lets take a considered look at it.

– Interesting Factors

I like that the movie took the choice to move the story on to a future date. It really gives it a chance to do something different. For example, it seems pretty clear that Wolverine’s healing factor is no longer working.

– Chuck But No Chuckles

Listen, when they show you everyone’s surrogate grandfather in this sort of condition you can guarantee this isn’t going to have the kind of quips and light-hearted beats of previous X-Men films. Prepare to feel some feelings.

– She’s Like You

“Very much like you”. Yeah, I’m pretty sure we can rest easy knowing that little Laura here is the clone of Wolverine from the comics, X-23. Will she be a loyal adaptation though? Will she have the claws? We may have gotten a sneak peek at that later in the trailer (it’s unclear) but keep in mind what Fox did with the Deadpool character in the first Wolverine movie. She may be in this but she may not be the same…

– The End

The ending to this trailer looks and feels like it could be the last shot of the movie too but I don’t think we’re getting out of this that easily. If Wolverine doesn’t die in Logan I’ll eat all the hats in a hat factory.

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Overall: It looks a lot like the Old Man Logan comic that Marvel did a couple years ago, although a whittled down version of it which is a good thing. I can never be fully confident in a Fox superhero film living up to it’s trailer. Right now though, I’m interested, which I haven’t been for any Wolverine movie previously.

JJ and his amazing friend Jason continue the “Summer of Geek” with a look at the latest X-Men movie…eventually. First, they discuss other movies and such for about 30 minutes before getting to the spoilery discussion of the recent film. Feel free to listen to the opening and remain spoiler free! I promise there is a warning before we get into the X-Men part.

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As this is the second of these that I’m covering I’ll direct you to my last article about it. Once you’ve read that you can join me with the new one below.

P.S. I know we’re going to get sod all Jubilee in this movie and I’m still angry about it.

– Walk Like An Egyptian

There are a lot of crazy elements to Apocalypse and his backstory. It seems they haven’t skimped on any of it and I’m really happy about that. Go on, lean in to all that mental Egyptian technology nuttiness.

– With Arms Wide Open

I like that we’re getting the Four Horsemen. I like that Angel is one of them. He gets slightly more of a feature in this trailer which is good. And yeah, comics are silly looking sometimes, but it doesn’t mean you have to stand around like you’re in a Creed music video. That just looks awkward.

– Watch Us Wreck The Mic… Cyc

I’m an unashamed Cyclops fan. So I have no guilt and need no explanation for including the following screen grab.

– My Munny Is On… OK Fine, I’ll Stop

Listen, I have a feeling I’m going to hate what they do with Psylocke in this movie but all props should be given to a pretty cool representation of her psy-sword and all awards should be given to Olivia Munn for having to spend any amount of time in the very comic accurate but ridiculous Psylocke outfit.

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OVERALL: It looks good. It looks like it’s going to be very similar in quality to the last three X-Men films we’ve gotten, which is only a good thing. Who knows, maybe it can beat the “crappy third movie” curse that X-Men had the first time round. But honestly? I think I’m still personally on the fence.

Now he has the opportunity to bridge the gap between his original movies and the prequels by taking the team into the 80s with X-Men: Apocalypse. This movie is teeming with faces both old and new, which will make for some interesting interpretation of X-Men movie cannon. For example: hello Nightcrawler and Angel.

We won’t get many answers in the trailer but lets see what we do get.

– It’s a Jubilation

There were a lot of new character/actor reveals in this trailer but the biggest of all was of course Jubilee!

Right? What? Am I the only massive Jubilee mark? Oh, screw you guys.

Don’t worry though, it looks like she won’t be in the film very much as this is her only appearance in the trailer at all. In fact, it’s kinda weird considering…

– Let’s Make Sure We See Jennifer

In this scene and in so many other parts of the trailer it is made very clear we will not be seeing much of Mystique but lots and lots of Jennifer Lawrence.

Which is weird considering who the character is and what her motivations have been in every other movie up until now. She’s the leader of the X-Men now I guess. Jennifer I mean, not Mystique. And hey, look, all the white kids!

Look at all that space on the plane too, by the way. Always goes to waste. I don’t think I’ve ever see it full up.

– But wait, the bad guys!

Don’t worry folks, all the foreigners will get their comeuppance like the evil Egyptian Apocalypse, evil German Magneto, I guess evil African Storm, and the less said about the evil British but also kinda-Asian-as-well-but-don’t-think-about-that-too-much-because-it’s-a-long-story Psylocke (who is also only seen once in the trailer).

Although I do love me some mohawk Storm. Always the best storm in my eyes.

– Which brings us to the title

The great Oscar Isaac playing Apocalypse.

I’ve heard a lot of naysaying online about how he looks but I think he looks great. How the hell did you expect this guy to look in real life? And they showed him growing and everything! Great!

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OVERALL: This trailer seems groovy at first but the more I watched it the more I found things that bugged me a little. Just little things, like the time they give to individual characters. The fact that Angel is here (which is great, he’s such a big part of the Apocalypse/X-Men story) but knowing that they won’t really get into his story all that much. That’s the thing with X-Men movies I guess though. So many great characters and not enough time in two hours to flesh them all out.

We’re gonna get a whole lot of Mystique though!

Hello and welcome back to DOOM!’s exploration of the Comic Book film genre hosted by Aaron Fever and JJ Hawkins.

This month we return to the world of the X-Men with Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men First Class. Aaron has gone on the record as not being that fond of Fassbender’s American accent, stating it goes a bit Irish in parts. Is that a dealbreaker? What does JJ think of the whole shibang?

Nazi hunting, brogue having, Magneto. Slainte.

So, Cyclops, when you need to open your optic visor, just touch the side…like this.

Seriously, I am KEVIN BACON! My career has spanned decades, and I can’t get a helmet that doesn’t give me a PIGGY NOSE?!?! What the hell!

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