 The king of the Inhumans has been imprisoned, but where? Why has he been jailed? And who could be powerful enough to hold the uncanny Black Bolt? The answers will shock you, and Black Agar Boltagon as well. Hey everybody, welcome to another exciting episode, another edition of A Week in Geekdom here on YouTube. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in, this time we're continuing the Inhumans hype train that I've proclaimed, I don't know why, but I finally read Black Bolt Volume 1 from Saladin Ahmed and with, as the back cover says, mind-bending art from Christian Ward. This was, to me, one of the most underrated titles of 2017, one of the best titles of 2017. An examination of a character that has long been misunderstood, people don't really get the character of Black Bolt. They're like, okay, he's powerful, he's a king, but he's mute, he can't talk because his power, his sonic voice is so powerful. As many writers have pointed out, just a slightest whisper can knock out a destroy a mountain, if you will. Imagine what a full force scream would do. And in this book, it runs alongside the royals stuff, so you do get an explanation as to why he has been imprisoned. And it's actually pretty clever. It has to do with the royals books, so you might want to read that. But if not, do not worry about it. It is mostly standalone and you get an examination of this character. His trials and tribulations growing up, of course, being raised, if you don't know, Black Agar being the heir to the throne. He was raised in a vitro tube, Stasis Chamber, if you will. His mom, her pterogenesis ability allowed her to filter poisons and she basically fed the baby embryo, the pterogenesis stuff, from her womb. So Black Bolt was exposed to such immense power-changing mysticism since he was an infant. And then when they discovered his vocal talent, if you will, he was isolated and he had to learn to keep quiet and not whisper and not say anything. It's really interesting and I wish more writers would explore the inhuman origins and their earlier years, because it's actually pretty fascinating. So the character is locked up and he's trying to escape this prison and basically you get this prison drama with Marvel superheroes. You do see several alien species and some human supervillains, as well as the king of the inhumans. Now, with the character Black Bolt, you're like, hey, but he doesn't speak. How can you do a comic book with a new character? That's where comic books are best at. You've got narration and of course there are several twists, which spoilers do allow the character to say a few things. And yeah, man, it's just really fun and really interesting. Saladin is an award-winning author. He really knows his stuff and how to pull apart characters and examine their origins and what makes them what they are. You know what I think I like most about the book is the fact that Ahmed is able to bring these characters that are independent to each other and sort of create this dirty dozen feel to it. I don't know. I thought it was pretty fun seeing all these unlikely prisoners come together and face the music, you know. The villain of the book, it could be a little bit better, you know. It kind of sort of reminded me of something Bioware would have made with the Mass Effect franchise, something like that. I just thought it was a pretty fun overall experience having all these characters grouping up and the teen dynamic that forms and this friendship, this strange friendship between strangers, them trying to survive this cosmic prison. At some point, this book is really touching. There are some really honest scenes. There's the character, there's a supervillain absorbing man. He's in this and you get a look back at his life and it's the most heartwarming, beautiful and weird things I've read in a comic book recently that I was just floored by it. I thought it was amazing. The art, like I've mentioned, it's mind-warping but in reality it's really damn good and it's just fantastic. One of the best books in my opinion from the Marvel imprint of 2017. If you want to check it out, I do highly recommend it. The story kind of resolves itself but you get a cool cliffhanger waiting for Volume 2 which as of this video hasn't come out yet. So what do you guys think? Do you like the character Black Bolt? What would you like to see in a future Solo Inhumans book? Because we have seen Karnak get a miniseries and now we have Black Bolt. I want to see Crystal get her own solo book or maybe a solo Medusa or something. I don't know. I love these characters so much and hopefully you do too. Let me know down below. I'm very interested in finding out. Guys, as always, you can like and comment and subscribe to A Week in Geekdom if you like this sort of content and book reviews and all that stuff. Thank you. As always, volume in your favorite social media platform and I will catch all of you on our next video.