The concept of the NuHumans was architected by writer Jonathan Hickman as a central pillar of his epic 2013 Marvel crossover event, `Infinity`. Their first conceptual appearance can be traced to `Infinity #2` (October 2013), with the full-scale emergence happening in `Infinity #3` (November 2013). The creation of the NuHumans served several strategic purposes for Marvel Comics during this era. Creatively, it injected a fresh wave of unpredictable, street-level super-powered characters into the universe, allowing for the exploration of themes of identity, fear, and societal change from a new angle. It also dramatically expanded the scope of the Inhumans' story, moving them from a reclusive, cosmic monarchy to a global phenomenon. From a business and publishing perspective, the elevation of the Inhumans and the creation of the NuHumans were widely seen as an effort to develop a franchise with conceptual similarities to the X-Men. During the 2010s, Marvel Studios (part of Disney) did not hold the film rights to the X-Men or the concept of mutants, which belonged to 20th Century Fox. By creating a narrative where new super-powered individuals were emerging worldwide due to a “genetic awakening,” Marvel could create new characters and stories for potential adaptation into the Marvel Cinematic Universe without infringing on Fox's intellectual property. This led to a significant publishing push, including new solo series for NuHuman characters like `Ms. Marvel` and event series like `Inhumanity` and `Inhumans vs. X-Men`.
The catalyst for the NuHumans' existence is the same in all continuities: Terrigenesis. However, the specific event that triggered this global phenomenon differs dramatically between the comics and the MCU, reflecting their distinct narrative goals.
The origin of the NuHumans in the main comic universe is an act of war, desperation, and sacrifice. During the 2013 `Infinity` storyline, the cosmic tyrant thanos and his Black Order launched a full-scale invasion of Earth while the avengers were off-world fighting another threat. Thanos's primary goal was to find and kill his last unknown child, an Inhuman living secretly on Earth. He confronted the King of the Inhumans, Black Bolt, in their city of Attilan, which was then located over the Hudson River. Thanos demanded a tribute: the heads of all Inhumans between the ages of 16 and 22. Realizing this was a pretense for Thanos to locate his son, Thane, Black Bolt defied the Mad Titan. After evacuating Attilan, Black Bolt played his final, devastating card. He armed a Terrigen Bomb, a device designed to spread the sacred mutagenic mists across the entire planet. As Thanos prepared to strike him down, Black Bolt unleashed his quasi-sonic voice, a power capable of leveling mountains. The scream tore through Attilan, triggered the Terrigen Bomb, and seemingly killed both Black Bolt and his brother, Maximus. The bomb exploded high in the atmosphere, releasing a massive, churning cloud of Terrigen Mist that began to drift across the globe on wind currents. This event, known as Terrigenesis on a global scale, was the birth of the NuHumans. Thousands of people across the world who were descended from ancient Kree experiments—and thus carried a latent Inhuman gene—were exposed to the mist. They were encased in a transformative chrysalis, a process called a “cocooning.” When they emerged, they possessed extraordinary and often frightening new abilities. A teenager in Illinois, Dante Pertuz, burst into flames and became Inferno. A Pakistani-American girl in New Jersey, Kamala Khan, discovered she had polymorphous shapeshifting powers and would become the new Ms. Marvel. The world changed overnight, flooded with terrified, powerful, and untrained individuals who were now, for all intents and purposes, Inhumans. This single act by Black Bolt defined the Marvel Universe for years to come, leading to new heroes, new villains, and a tragic war.
In the MCU, the origin of the NuHumans (referred to simply as Inhumans within the continuity) is depicted in the television series `Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.` and is rooted in accident and subterfuge rather than an epic act of war. The story begins with the Kree's ancient experiments on Earth, leaving a small population of Inhumans who lived in a hidden community called Afterlife, led by Jiaying, the mother of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Daisy Johnson (Quake). Jiaying, embittered by decades of persecution by humans (specifically hydra), planned to unleash Terrigen on the world, believing it would reveal her people and give them the power to defend themselves. Her plan involved a set of manufactured Terrigen Crystals. In the climax of Season 2, Jiaying's plan is foiled by S.H.I.E.L.D. During the battle aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. vessel Iliad, a case of Terrigen Crystals is dropped into the ocean. The dissolving crystals contaminated the marine ecosystem. Fish consumed the Terrigen-laced material, were processed into fish oil supplements, and then distributed globally. This created a slow-burning, “outbreak” scenario. Seemingly random people around the world began undergoing Terrigenesis after consuming the tainted supplements. This was a far more subtle and insidious origin than the comics' Terrigen Bomb. It was treated less like an act of god and more like a public health crisis and a mystery for S.H.I.E.L.D. to solve. The emergence was marked by fear and confusion, leading to the formation of government bodies like the ATCU (Advanced Threat Containment Unit) to handle the “alien” threat, and hate groups like the Watchdogs to persecute the new Inhumans. The MCU's approach grounded the concept in a more realistic, espionage-focused narrative, emphasizing themes of prejudice and government overreach rather than cosmic warfare.
The experience of becoming a NuHuman is defined by the process of Terrigenesis—a violent, unpredictable, and life-altering biological event. The societal structures (or lack thereof) that form around these new beings are central to their story.
Terrigenesis is the process by which an individual with latent Inhuman genetic markers is exposed to Terrigen Mist, unlocking their dormant potential and granting them superhuman abilities. In its traditional form practiced in Attilan, it was a sacred, controlled ritual. For the NuHumans, it was a global, chaotic catastrophe.
The Terrigen cloud that created the NuHumans had a horrifying side effect: it was extremely toxic to Earth's mutant population. Exposure caused a degenerative disease known as M-Pox, which led to sterilization, degradation of powers, and eventually a painful death. This biological reality placed the NuHumans and mutants in direct opposition. For one group to be born, the other had to die. This fundamental conflict was the primary driver of Marvel storylines for several years, culminating in the `Inhumans vs. X-Men` war.
In the MCU, the emergence of NuHumans was treated as a pandemic. S.H.I.E.L.D. and the ATCU raced to find a “cure” or at least a way to identify potential Inhumans before they transformed. The public reaction was one of pure terror, fueled by media outlets portraying the transformed as dangerous alien invaders. This fear led to the rise of the Watchdogs, a radical anti-Inhuman hate group that used violence and terrorism to exterminate them. Unlike the grand geopolitical conflict of the comics, the MCU NuHuman struggle was more of a gritty, street-level civil rights allegory. S.H.I.E.L.D. became an underground railroad, trying to find and protect these new Inhumans before the government could capture them or hate groups could kill them.
The MCU later revealed that the Inhumans were originally designed by the Kree to be living weapons. This history became terrifyingly relevant with the return of Hive, the first Inhuman, a parasitic entity that could possess the bodies of the dead and control the minds of other Inhumans. Hive's plan to transform the entire human race into primitive Inhumans under its control became the central conflict of `Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.` Season 3, representing the ultimate perversion of the NuHuman phenomenon.
As a newly emerged global population, the NuHumans' survival and identity were forged through their alliances and, more pointedly, their conflicts.
The story of the NuHumans is defined by the massive events that created them and the conflicts that ensued.
The genesis of the NuHumans. This cosmic-scale event saw thanos invade Earth, leading directly to Black Bolt's decision to detonate the Terrigen Bomb. The primary narrative focused on the avengers fighting in space, but the B-plot on Earth was entirely about the Bomb's detonation and the immediate, chaotic aftermath. The event concluded with the Terrigen cloud beginning its journey across the globe, and the first NuHumans like Dante Pertuz emerging from their cocoons. `Infinity` set the stage for years of subsequent stories by fundamentally altering the planet's super-powered landscape.
Picking up immediately after `Infinity`, `Inhumanity` was a sprawling storyline that explored the worldwide consequences of the Terrigen Bomb. The central plot followed the Inhuman Royal Family, led by a newly-empowered Queen Medusa, as they struggled to deal with the flood of new, untrained NuHumans. The story highlighted the different reactions to this new reality: the fear of human governments, the opportunistic scheming of villains, and the personal crises of those who underwent Terrigenesis. It was here that the foundation of New Attilan was laid and the core mission of the Inhumans shifted from self-preservation to global outreach and the protection of their newfound kin.
This was the brutal climax of the simmering conflict between the Inhumans and the x-men. After discovering that the Terrigen cloud had become saturated with M-Pox and was on the verge of making Earth completely uninhabitable for mutants, the X-Men launched a preemptive strike against the Inhumans to destroy the cloud and save their species. The resulting war was devastating, pitting friend against friend and hero against hero. The NuHumans were caught in the middle, forced to defend their very source of existence against a people fighting for theirs. The event concluded with Medusa making a heartbreaking choice. Realizing the genocide her people's sacred mist was causing, she personally destroyed the remaining Terrigen cloud, ending the threat to mutants but also sterilizing the potential for any new NuHumans to emerge on Earth. This act ended the war and fundamentally altered the future of the Inhuman race.
While a relatively recent concept, the NuHuman idea has been adapted and reinterpreted in various media.