Inhumans

"We're humans. We just have the potential to be more."

- Raina to Skye

The Inhumans are a race of altered human beings that were the result of experiments on ancient humans by the extraterrestrial race, the Kree, embedding into their genetic code the potential to transform and acquire superhuman abilities through a process known as Terrigenesis.

History
"The changes may not be on the surface but buried inside. You must understand, these creatures are weapons, abominations. Even if they don't know."

- Vin-Tak to Skye and Phil Coulson

Centuries ago, an extraterrestrial race known as the Kree waged a long war with high causalities. In need of more soldiers, one vicious faction among the Kree decided to genetically modify the DNA of other intelligent creatures across various planets, intending to create a warrior/slave caste that they could use to help win the prolonged war. The Kree eventually came to Earth, where they created their own installation and began experimenting on groups of humans, changing their genetic make up, which gave them the latent potential to develop superhuman abilities. Before the experiments could be completed, another faction of the Kree came to Earth to shut down the project.

The Kree eventually left Earth, believing their experiments were unsuccessful. However, the altered genes of their human test subjects were passed on through their descendants. The Kree also left behind numerous Terrigen Crystals, which could be used to activate the modifications. The crystals were contained in devices called the Diviners.

Centuries later, villagers of the Hunan Province, passing on stories about the Kree, or "Blue Angels", found one of the Diviners while digging at night. During World War II, HYDRA General Werner Reinhardt captured these villagers and the artifact, where he discovered that one particular woman, Jiaying, could touch the artifact unharmed, while the others became petrified. Before he could discover what made her different, he was forced to evacuate his headquarters to elude the Allied forces.

By 1983, Jiaying became a mentor to young Inhumans who had recently experienced Terrigenesis, each scared and confused; Gordon was one such adolescent. Though other Inhumans such as Yat-Sen would prepare adolescents for the process, the results were still unpredictable and frightening for each individual.

In 1989, Reinhardt was reunited with Jiaying, whom he noticed had not physically aged since their last encounter. Ambitious to regain the youth that he had lost locked away in an Allied prison, Reinhardt vivisected the woman, using part of her biology to revert his aged body to a younger appearance. He then dumped her body in a ditch, where it was discovered by her husband, Calvin Zabo, much to his despair.

Elsewhere, stories of the Kree were passed to Raina by her grandmother. In Thailand, Raina was taken in by Calvin Zabo, who told her that the stories were true and that she was one of the special people from those tales. He offered to help her discover her destiny if she reunited him with his daughter.

While working for the Centipede Project, thinking that its director, the Clairvoyant, would tell her of her destiny, Raina learned that a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Skye was actually Zabo's daughter and brought him a picture of her. When Raina obtained a Diviner, she took it to Zabo, who proved to her that she was one of the special people by having her touch it without harm, but told her that he would reveal more upon reunion with his daughter.

During a protracted conflict between S.H.I.E.L.D. and a HYDRA branch led by Werner Reinhardt (now going by the name Daniel Whitehall), Grant Ward eventually captured both Raina and Skye for HYDRA, allowing Zabo and his daughter to reunite. Whitehall had Skye touch the Diviner, proving that she was one of the descendants of the experimented. Uninterested in what the Diviner could really do, Skye chased Raina into the Kree City under San Juan, Puerto Rico, to stop Raina from using it, but they found themselves locked in a chamber. The Diviner that Raina had brought floated to a pedestal where it opened to reveal the Terrigen Crystals inside and released its Terrigen Mist. Both women underwent Terrigenesis, after which Skye emerged with the power to create earthquakes and Raina grew sharp thorns over most of her body.

Meanwhile, Gordon, who owned another Diviner, contacted one of his associates as the Diviner began to glow, informing them that he would begin searching for the two, newly transformed Inhumans. He found Raina first and volunteered to help guide her through the emotional and physical trauma of her change, just as he was guided years before.

The same incident also caught the attention of a Kree named Vin-Tak, who believed that Inhumans were abominations that needed to be destroyed. He explained to S.H.I.E.L.D. the origin of the Inhumans, while discovering that six Diviners the Kree had hidden on Earth were all missing. Ultimately, Vin-Tak returned to Hala, after being made to forget why he came to Earth, but S.H.I.E.L.D. now had a quest to find the missing Diviners.

Characteristic Traits
"The changes may not be on the surface, but buried inside. You must understand, these creatures are weapons. Abominations, even if they don't know it."

- Vin-Tak to Phil Coulson, Melinda May and Skye

Before undergoing Terrigenesis, Inhumans resemble normal humans with no apparently abnormal abilities. When exposed to the Terrigen Mist, inhumans become encased in an earthen-like cocoon. While encased, an inhuman will go through a myriad of biological changes, emerging from the cocoon with a varying manifestation of superhuman abilities. While some Inhumans who have undergone Terrigenesis maintain the physical likeness of a normal human, some have very clear physical differences, like Raina and Gordon. Known superhuman abilities expressed by different inhumans include a lack of physical aging, teleportation, and the ability to generate seismic events.

Appearances

 * Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * Season Two
 * The Things We Bury (flashbacks)
 * What They Become
 * Aftershocks
 * Who You Really Are
 * One of Us
 * Love in the Time of HYDRA
 * One Door Closes
 * Inhumans (unreleased)

Trivia

 * In the comics, the Inhumans were created by the Kree experiments designed to "jump-start" genetic modifications previously made by the Celestials on human beings, as soldiers in their war with the s. The Supreme Intelligence ordered the end of the project when he foresaw they would destroy him. The Inhumans since divided into several tribes who have migrated across the globe and even into space.
 * Due to Fox Entertainment having the rights to X-Men and "mutants", Inhumans in the MCU are filling a role similar to mutants in the main Marvel Universe.