Imagine if Inhumans Was Still Coming Next After Avengers: Infinity War

When Marvel Studios first announced their slate back in 2014, Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t followed by Ant-Man & the Wasp; the next movie was actually Marvel’s Inhumans. How would Marvel’s plans have differed if Inhumans stayed on the slate?

The reality is that Infinity War would probably have played out slightly differently. Infinity War‘s screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely took both Ant-Man & the Wasp and Captain Marvel into account when writing the script. As McFeely put it in an interview with BuzzFeed:

“Put yourself in our positions two years ago. We’re looking at a blank wall, and it says Avengers 3, Ant-Man and [the] Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers 4. So there are four big shoeboxes, and we’re responsible for the bookends. As we’re going through deciding what we want to do, we have these two shoeboxes in the middle that you can either look at as burdens or opportunities.”

Related: How Thanos Decimated Xandar and Why It’s Not Shown in Avengers: Infinity War

As McFeely explained, there’s “a relationship” between Infinity War and the next three Marvel movies. While the filmmakers behind Ant-Man & the Wasp and Captain Marvel have been given the necessary latitude to make their own films, there’s an overarching narrative in play. Switching Ant-Man & the Wasp for The Inhumans would, necessarily, change that narrative, so Infinity War itself would potentially have played out very differently.

• This Page: The Original Plan for Inhumans
• Page 2: How the Inhumans Would Have Fit Into Infinity War

The Plan for Inhumans

Marvel Television began the buildup to The Inhumans all the way back in 2014, and according to Kevin Feige that was always part of the plan. “It was always the intention that introducing them to the public would be happening quickly,” he told Badass Digest, “and it would happen in [Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.].” S.H.I.E.L.D. introduced concepts such as Inhumans and Terrigenesis, paving the way for the movie. The film’s logo suggested that The Inhumans would center on the Royal Family, and Feige teased that this would indeed be the case. “Knowing the comics, you can guess the kind of things you wouldn’t see on a TV show,” he observed.

Even at the time, this seemed to be a rather strange decision. Far fewer viewers tune in to watch any Marvel TV show than turn up at the theater to watch a movie. While the idea of introducing big-screen concepts in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. holds true to the “It’s all connected” vision propounded by Marvel at that time, it doesn’t really make sound business sense; the vast majority of cinemagoers would be completely unaware of years’ worth of build-up.

Ultimately, of course, plans changed. In 2015, behind-the-scenes conflict between Feige and Marvel’s reclusive boss Ike Perlmutter led to a corporate restructure. Marvel Studios was pulled out of Marvel Entertainment, becoming a direct subsidiary of Disney. Feige became the man in charge, with the old Marvel Creative Committee completely disbanded. There’s now no direct relationship between Marvel Studios and Marvel Television. It’s generally believed the Inhumans were a priority for Perlmutter, who is rumored to have been responsible for pushing the brand in everything from the comics to the TV shows. If those rumors are indeed true, The Inhumans was no longer a priority for Kevin Feige’s Marvel Studios.

Related: Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Tying Into Infinity War Was A Mistake

Then came another twist in the tale. Marvel successfully negotiated a deal with Sony that would bring Spider-Man into the MCU. A new incarnation of the wall-crawler would make his MCU debut in Captain America: Civil War, before going on to star in his own solo film. That meant a new movie was added into Marvel’s Phase 3 slate. The studio shuffled release dates around a little, and made the decision to drop The Inhumans altogether. The idea was passed on to Marvel Television, with the Royal Family becoming the stars of their own (frankly unsuccessful) TV show. Whatever Marvel Studios’s original plans had been for the Royal Family, they were now defunct.

Page 2: How the Inhumans Would Have Fit Into Infinity War

The Inhumans Would Probably Have Been Part of Infinity War

The next two Marvel movies, Ant-Man & the Wasp and Captain Marvel, are both set before the events of Avengers: Infinity War. In spite of that, Marvel deliberately chose to save the “reveals” of Wasp and Captain Marvel for their own films, with both characters are then confirmed to appear in Avengers 4 next year. Would the studio have taken a similar approach with The Inhumans?

In this case, it’s doubtful. All the evidence suggests that, back in 2014, key players within Marvel Entertainment were impatient to develop the Inhumans as quickly as possible. That’s why the concept made its MCU debut in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. a full four years before the movie was slated for release. Thus, it seems more likely that the Inhuman Royal Family would actually have appeared in Infinity War, just as Civil War introduced viewers to the MCU’s Spider-Man and Black Panther.

It’s important to note that both Infinity War and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are heavily influenced by one particular comic book arc: Jonathan Hickman’s “Infinity” event. That was the miniseries that introduced the Black Order, featuring Thanos and his agents coming to Earth on a quest, with everything culminating in a battle in Wakanda. The comic also transformed the Inhumans franchise, releasing Terrigen across the Earth and triggering spontaneous Terrigenesis among people with the Inhuman gene. Given that “Infinity” has had such a major impact on the MCU, it’s tempting to assume that Infinity War would originally have seen Thanos head to Attilan to confront Black Bolt. Perhaps Marvel even originally intended the Soul Stone to be kept by the Inhumans? That would certainly explain the Soul Stone retcon in Infinity War; there’s no hint in Guardians of the Galaxy that Gamora had even heard of the Infinity Stones before.

Related: Marvel Can Just Ignore The Inhumans Now

How Would The Inhumans Have Followed On From Infinity War?

The Inhumans could either have been set before Infinity War, as a sort of “prequel,” or it could have been set after. In the latter case, there’s certainly potential for an interesting story; if Infinity War held true to its comic book inspiration, Attilan would have been destroyed by Thanos, and the Inhumans would have been forced to live on Earth. A post-“snap” humanity would understandably have been terrified of the Inhumans, who would simply feel like another group of aliens.

It’s more likely, though, that The Inhumans would have been set before Infinity War, serving as a reveal of the race’s MCU backstory. Notice that, so far, no Marvel movie TV show or movie is set in the period between Infinity War‘s cliffhanger ending and Avengers 4. Even Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 5 avoided the snap, despite dropping a number of references to the Black Order’s attack on New York. It’s impossible to know why this is the case, although one notable theory is that Avengers 4 will use time-travel to avert Thanos’s finger-snap. If that theory is correct, it would explain why Marvel is avoiding setting anything post-“snap.” It’s because they know any story they tell in that time-period will simply be erased from continuity in a year’s time.

Whatever the reason for Marvel’s reticence, the reality is that The Inhumans would most likely have been an “origin story,” set before Thanos’s attack, and revealing just who this mysterious Royal Family really were. Marvel would have hoped Infinity War would have raised interest in the franchise, leaving viewers curious to learn the backstory of the hidden race of superhumans who Thanos had brought out into the light.

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The Inhuman Royal Family were part of an MCU plan that was very different to the Phase 3 we actually got. The fate of The Inhumans was really decided when Marvel made a deal with Sony to bring Spider-Man into the MCU; in this scenario, you’d have had a Phase 3 with no trace of Spider-Man, a Civil War that played out very differently as a result, and most likely the introduction of the Inhuman Royal Family in what would have been Infinity War Part I.

More: A Complete History Of The Marvel Cinematic Universe