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"The Evil That Lies Within" Coming To IDW's Hasbro Comics In April? The Return of the Inhumanoids

Published Mon, 06 Feb 2017 11:00:49 -0600

Last updated Thu, 09 Feb 2017 10:46:46 -0600

By Ian Melton

With every movie company trying to duplicate the success of the Marvels Cinematic Universe, the approach to produce a "Hasbro Universe" for film has been in development since last year. In anticipation of this the Hasbro comic licenses at IDW also worked to make their books into a cohesive universe last year in their Revolution cross over. At the core of both are the successful Transformers and G.I. Joe franchise as well as less generally well known Hasbro properties like Micronauts, Action Man, M.A.S.K., and Rom. However, the Revolution crossover did not bring in every Hasbro property, something IDW is working to amend in part in April in the new volume of G.I. Joe issue #5:

G.I. JOE #5

Aubrey Sitterson (w) • Giannis Milonogiannis (a) • Aaron Conley (c)
MONSTERS! G.I. JOE has fought Cobra, the Dreadnoks and more, but never before have they faced a threat like this: Gigantic, heaving abominations crawling up from the depths of the Earth itself. As teams of Joes struggle to respond to the unpredictable attacks, Scarlett must decide what to do with the enemy in the team's midst. Plus, the G.I. JOE leader reveals a troubling secret to her second-in-command, Roadblock.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Without stating it outright IDW seems poised to bring back one of Hasbro's cult favorites that hasn't seen new material produced for over 30 years, The Inhumanoids. The short lived cartoon, toy-line, and comic series debuted in 1986 and disappeared shortly thereafter, not gaining attention like Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Jem and the Holograms did, despite a 13 episode Sunbow cartoon series animated by Toei Animation that used the same voice actors Transformers and G.I. Joe did. The series introduced the giant monsters, the Inhumanoids, who lived in the depths of the Earth's core. Trying to stop the Inhumanoids from conquering the world was Earth Core, a ragtag band of humans who along with the Mutores, good beings also from the center of the Earth, fought the giant monster Inhumanoids.

The series was almost a horror adventure series with the Inhumanoids being true monsters, including one who could transform living beings into undead giants. For kids in 1986 watching people transformed into horrific monsters might have been too unsettling to keep kids watching and buying toys. In addition to the animated series and toys, Marvel produced a comic book series that tried to adapt the beginning of the animated series but was canceled with issue #4, though the material was run again in the back pages of Marvel's UK Transformers series from Issues #103 – #118. The series was rumored twice in 2010 to be returning, possibly retitled Primordia, or possibly under Kevin Smith's purview. The writer/director/podcaster said on Facebook he enjoyed the series as it had "really gruesome shit that I wouldn't mind tackling someday!"

Being one of the few remaining 80's animated property from Hasbro that hasn't been done as comics at IDW puts Inhumanoids as prime material to be utilized for story ideas for the new shared Revolutionaries Universe as even John Barber comments in the back matter for the Hasbro's IDW titles this month that "we're bringing in literally the last thing fans will expect – something that shakes the universe to the core, but absolutely fits into the bigger picture!" (A Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines comic series are still unlikely, but maybe Visionaries will return too.) Whether or not IDW will try to do a new Inhumanoids comic series or use the material for expanded cast and world building for the other established IDW titles remains to be seen, but after April we'll start to see how the Inhumanoids are part of the new Hasbro comic universe.

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