 When the King of the Inhumans is attacked, young Black Bolt and Maximus spring into action to save their leader. But when Black Bolt loses control, what are the consequences for his future kingdom and his own family? It's a pivotal moment in the lives of Black Bolt and Maximus and a turning point for the entire Inhuman race. Hey everybody, welcome to another exciting episode, another edition of A Week in Keep Them Here on YouTube. This time we're going back to the Inhumans with one of my favorite titles of recent memory. It is Inhumans, Ones and Future Kings. This is a five-issue miniseries written by Christopher Priest with art by the glorious Phil Nonto and his beautiful artwork. This is a book that I was really, really anxious to read because it takes us back to the history of the royal family of the Inhumans. And if you take a fan favorite writer like Christopher Priest and with the Inhumans book, I was really happy about the fact that he was going to explore all these characters in a possible new way or at least bring some drama into the royal family when they were youngsters. But unfortunately the series, to me at least, it's a little bit too short. Now the plot of the story, it starts out extremely interesting where we go back in time. Aegon, the former king and father of Black Bolt and young Maximus has recently died and the living Tarogen, which he is basically this unspoken king. He is sort of the Stuart King because Black Agar and Maximus are too young as of this moment. So he's warming up the seat, if you will. But when a failed assassination attempt occurs at the site of this monument with the Alpha Primitives targeting the king, he is forced to make a very strange decision. At first he accepts the help that the brothers give him by saving his life, but later we see that he is going to use this opportunity to basically frame himself as the hero and that he saved the boys instead of the other way around. Now I won't go too much into spoilers with this book, but just know the fact that this miniseries relies heavily on politics, on the rights issues of slavery and regular citizens of a city, because this story is based on Atalan and the Inhuman Society as a whole is a very reclusive and introverted society. They don't really care about the dealings outside of their world. And of course they may look human, but technically they're more alien than everybody else. The Alpha Primitives however, at first back in the Silver Age, it was a very complicated or convoluted method of explaining why the Alpha Primitives exist, but I believe it was the mighty Avengers run from a few years ago that it was explained that the Alpha Primitives are actual humans that have undergone pterogenesis and are deformed into mindless looking slaves. And the Inhumans, they live in a society where you have a role assigned to you and that's what you carry out. So they use the Primitives as a slave race, constructing, doing the heavy lifting and just maintaining the city's lifestyle and all that stuff. So yeah, there is a very interesting topic here that could have been exploited a little bit better in my opinion with Black Bolt questioning the rights of these Primitives, whereas the living pterogen, the Steward King, he is not really a fan of characters going against the norm and wants to keep everything on hush level, I guess I should say. Maximus, however, he's more in line with the Steward and he believes that Black Bolt is wrong and well, he is supposed to be the king, but we all know that Black Agar ends up in the actual throne. We also see characters like Triton, Karnak, Gorgon, Medusa, even Baby Lockjaw The cutest renditions of Lockjaw that I've ever seen. The story sort of takes off from there. I don't want to spoil it, just know that there is a character called, I think I'm saying this right, Elisha or Elisha. He is this alpha primitive that has retained his smarts and he knows he's very fluent. He studies, he wants to free the rest of the slaves. Elisha is part of this revolt of this new era, if you will, and it goes a little bit different than what is expected. The first issue ends with them arriving in New York after I mentioned earlier that they are, or the Boltagon brothers are framed for the assassination attempt. They are forced to go to the real world, to New York City. And that to me is the turning point of the series where I thought, man, this series is awesome too. It's okay. I liked it. It could have been better. To me, that's the main problem I have with the story that a lot of writers tend to take the inhumans at face value and they want to do action-adventure stories and make them superheroes. Where I think this race, I should say, these cast of characters are better handled on a more political level and interpersonal drama, not so much action-adventure X-Men copies, if you will. So once they go to the human world, you find out who Elisha's benefactor is and who the real mastermind villain is, sort of. And it has to do with an old Fantastic Four villain. I'm not going to spoil it just in case you want to pick it up. And the art, and it's just spectacular. Phil Nauto is legendary. He has a crafty way of just pulling out the most beautiful and sincere expressions from the character anatomy, anatomy, and you see it on everybody's faces. From the bad guys, you see the seeker, which is one of the henchmen to the king. You see it on the seeker and the way that he is so angry. You see it on Karnak with his contemplative nature, Triton. You see it even on Puppy Lockjaw with his cute little eyes. Medusa, she's super feisty. And you see the regalness of Black Bolt. And that can only be done by a master artist like Phil. And his art just speaks volumes. And it was meant to be. This is the highest selling point to me, why I recommend Inhumans Once and Future Kings. The art is just spectacular, folks. I really, really enjoyed the hell out of it. The story, like I mentioned at the beginning of the video, takes a very interesting turn. I love when we explore, like, this vignette, if you will, the earlier years of the Royal Family. And you get to see how they became the way they were. But unfortunately, it sort of derails into this action adventure where the consequences at the end, since this is in the past, the conflict sort of gets resolved with the Alpha Primitives, if you've read older Inhumans storylines. But it doesn't really match up when you consider the state of that race in actuality. I don't know. I have talked on for way too long. I thought the book was awesome, even though it could have continued on the more political aspect and the daily life inside of Ataland. That's what I want to see and how the kingdom is built and how all these houses get along and they work their way around. If you see heavy political play with characters wanting to marry other characters for more power and all that stuff, if the story would have continued down that route, it would have been one of the best Inhuman stories. Nonetheless, I digress whatever you want to call it. It is a fun ride. If you love the Inhumans, you're going to enjoy this, mixing the, or matching the puzzle pieces, if you will, of how everything came to be with wonderful art. And if you're not a fan and if you're wanting to read this for the very first time, then yeah, go ahead and pick it up. You will love the art and the story is intriguing enough that you will want to continue the adventures of the royal family. Tell me down below what you thought of the story, if you've read it, and if not, let me know what other Inhuman story would you like for me to review. There aren't a lot, but I kind of want to cover them all. As always, thank you once again for liking, commenting, subscribing, and doing all that wonderful stuff that you guys do. Thank you. Alright, I have got to go. I will catch all of you on our next review.