Okay, so the trailer for Marvel’s Inhumans tv series (showing up on ABC in September with a limited IMAX preview in theaters prior) dropped today:

Ehhhh….

I really *want* to like this one; I really do. Inhumans in classic Marvel terms ought to be huge, dramatic, over-the-top space opera rife with with courtly intrigue and backstabbing. It’s Shakespeare by way of Jack Kirby, with weird superpowers and giant teleporting dogs; It’s day-glo, pop art Game of Thrones; or at least it should be.

We get some of that political intrigue here, with Iwan “Ramsay Bolton” Rheon as Maximus the Mad monologuing over some fade in/out shot of Atillan (looking pretty grey and spartan) about taking back Earth as the inhuman (who are descendants of ancient humans affected by alien scientific experimentation and exposed to the Terrigen Mists to awaken their superpowers…Comics, Everybody!) birthright, and challenging the leadership of his brother the king, Black Bolt.

After that, we get…Hawaii. Running. Quick shots of the other characters like Medusa, Crystal, Karnak, and Gorgon, and a quick flash of Lockjaw, the giant teleporting bulldog. And not a whole lot else.

I’m afraid this is going to tank, largely because it looks like it’s trying to ground something that is absolutely NOT grounded at all. I want to see Medusa throwing cars around with her super-strong prehensile hair; I want to see Black Bolt (who has a voice that levels mountains, so he remains mute most of the time) conveying emotions and thoughts beyond “constipated”…I get that this is a TV budget, and the property has gotten kicked around between movie and tv divisions thanks to the internal Marvel feud between Perlmutter and Feige…but they’ve laid down so much inhuman ground work with Agents of SHIELD the last two years, there’s plenty to work with to get there.

Oh well, I’m still going to give it a shot (of course I will), but I’m not expecting much.

The only thing that gives me hope is that stinger with Lockjaw doing his dog thing. That’s awesome. He deserves the chance to be the next runaway success like dancing baby Groot. I’m afraid he’s not going to get it.