Former Marvel Writer Throws Shade at Publisher for 'Mandated Inhumans Story'

For years, X-Men fans accused Marvel Comics of attempting to downplay the merry mutants in favor of the Inhumans. Now former Marvel writer Rick Remender has lent fuel to that fire, revealing he abandoned plans to write Marvel's flagship X-Men title back in 2014 because of a "mandated Inhumans story." Remender has been very active on Twitter in recent days, posting glimpses of various Marvel and DC pitches that never came to be. Among those is a "story bible" he put together for Extraordinary X-Men, a 2015 comic that ultimately wound up in the hands of writer Jeff Lemire and artist Humberto Ramos instead. Remender reveals he had crafted a two-year plan for the franchise, one which would have hinged on psychic mutants Fantomex, Professor Xavier, Jean Grey and Mastermind.

Just found my entire 2 year X-bible plans from when I was going to take over the X books. Haven't opened it since I quit in 2014. Was very Fantomex, Jean, and Professor X-orn centric. Big bad was Mastermind. Just couldn't make myself do the mandated Inhumans story. c'est la vie pic.twitter.com/q122dxV8Yg

— Rick Remender (@Remender) March 24, 2020

Remender writes, "Just found my entire 2 year X-bible plans from when I was going to take over the X books. Haven't opened it since I quit in 2014. Was very Fantomex, Jean, and Professor X-orn centric. Big bad was Mastermind. Just couldn't make myself do the mandated Inhumans story. c'est la vie." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-top-25-marvel-villains &captions=true"] Remender's tweet is a rare, open acknowledgement of creative tensions behind the scenes as Marvel worked to elevate the Inhumans franchise in the wake of 2013's Infinity, a story which culminated with the creation of a Terrigen cloud that simultaneously created new Inhumans and poisoned mutants, radically altering the course of both franchises. That story eventually led to 2017's Inhumans vs. X-Men crossover. Understandably, Marvel has never outright admitted to downplaying the X-Men in favor of the Inhumans, but it's been widely assumed the company was prioritizing a franchise to which it fully owned the multimedia rights, as opposed to one whose rights were still in the hands of 21st Century Fox at the time. Marvel's Executive Editor Tom Brevoort effectively said as much when he wrote in 2014, "If you had two things, and on one you earned 100% of the revenues from the efforts that you put into making it, and the other you earned a much smaller percentage for the same amount of time and effort, you’d be more likely to concentrate more heavily on the first, wouldn’t you?" Coupled with an established pattern of Marvel downplaying the X-Men and Fantastic Four in its merchandising, many readers were unhappy with the way the X-Men seemed to be sidelined in favor of the Inhumans. Remender's tweet suggests at least some Marvel creators felt the same way. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/06/the-new-mutants-official-trailer-2"] Remender also revealed he was again offered the keys to the X-Men kingdom as recently as 2019, indicating Marvel may have been exploring other options besides Jonathan Hickman's Dawn of X relaunch. But Remender reiterated his disinterest in returning to Marvel, tweeting, "Was offered the X books again last year but declined. Don't imagine there's a world where I'll put myself through that again." Remender's Twitter feed is currently a treasure trove of concept art and other unused story pitches. He also posted a rejected pitch for a Spider-Man story called Pandora's Box, which would have dealt with a new group of insect-themed villains created through the same process that gave Peter Parker his powers. Remender even revealed he and American Vampire artist Rafael Albuquerque once pitched a DC series called Justice League of Tomorrow, built around a futuristic team that includes Superman, Sandman, Firestorm, Poison Ivy, Negative Man, Hawkgirl, Captain Blackhawk and the Atom. [caption id="attachment_2325695" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Justice League of Tomorrow concept art by Rafael Albuquerque[/caption] What do you think of Remender's abandoned X-Men pitch? Let us know in the comments below. For more on the current state of the X-Men franchise, find out how Dawn of X has radically changed the X-Men status quo and what to expect from the next big X-Men crossover, X of Swords. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

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