Marvel can't seem to get anything right with their Inhumans TV series. The first trailer got hammered pretty badly, and for good reason, and the reaction to the first episode at Comic-Con was lousy, too. It just looks awful, and at this point I think we can put a hefty share of the blame on showrunner Scott Buck, who also gave us the mediocre Iron Fist series on Netflix.
The press tour has been crappy, also. Everybody was on the defensive while presenting the series at the Television Critics Association panel recently. It's when the networks put the brightest polish on their shows, in hopes of generating some positive buzz before their launch. Well...there will be no such thing in the case of Inhumans.
Exec-producer and head of Marvel TV, Jeph Loeb, was especially sour at all of the questions lobbied his way. In fact, he acted like a Trump campaign official on the witness stand, claiming to not understand anything he had been asked. When questioned on the show's level of quality, he replied “I can tell you that it was written on the material that you were given, that the show that you have seen is not the finished product. If you’re asking me whether or not it was done, it’s not. So to be perfectly honest, I don’t understand your question.”
Loeb would later reply “I think you’re making an editorial statement, and I’m wondering what the question is", when asked whether the first episodes were IMAX-worthy, since that is where they'll debut. Bad answer, boss.
But the biggest "D'oh!" moment came from the show's star, Anson Mount, who plays king of the Inhuman royal family, Black Bolt. He was so unable to handle any tough questions that he compared himself to Ben Affleck, who got badgered right out of directing his own Batman movie...
RETRACTION: The "You're making me feel like Ben Affleck right now" quote from the #Inhumans TCA panel was from Anson Mount, NOT Scott Buck.— KSiteTV (@KSiteTV) August 7, 2017
Artist's rendering of various responses to reasonable, well-stated questions during the Inhumans panel. #TCA17 pic.twitter.com/f1NYOo57qo— Erik Adams (@ErikMAdams) August 6, 2017
Ugh, if Marvel was looking for ways to make a bad series look worse, this was exactly the stance to take. I've said before that everything I've seen looked absolutely atrocious, and like Marvel's first real dud. Bad decisions all around on this one.
Speaking of which, Loeb also managed to anger fans just a tiny bit more by revealing that Black Bolt, whose voice can level mountains it's so powerful, will never say a single word throughout the series. Why's that necessary? Loeb tries to explain...
"When we first sat down and started talking about the role, we said, very point blank, ‘You have no dialogue, and you will never have dialogue. It’s not as though there’s a point where there’s going to be a secret operation. You’re going to have to find a way to communicate with your hands and your eyes and another way."
It's true that Black Bolt rarely speaks in the comics, but he's not a mute. He uses his power when necessary, and has no problem doing so. I think Loeb may be exaggerating things a little bit. In the trailer we catch a tiny glimpse of Black Bolt's power (looking quite crappy, btw) so we do know he'll use it at some point. But if you were trying to anger fanboys, tell them their favorite character will never use his primary superpower. That'll do it. Watch Inhumans (or not) when it debuts on September 29th. [Slashfilm/io9]
