Black Bolt: Hard Time

Black Bolt, Vol. 1: Hard Time by Saladin Ahmed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Black Bolt wakes up in a prison somewhere in space with no powers and the other inmates are Crusher Creel, aka The Absorbing Man, the Metal Master, and others. Can Black Bolt unite this band of criminals and bust out of jail?

Aside from the Marvel Knights miniseries, I've never ready many Inhumans comics apart from their periodic Fantastic Four appearances. Someone on Twitter likened the series to the sequence in Preludes & Nocturnes when The Sandman met The Martian Manhunter. Now that I've taken the plunge, it kind of fits.

Like I said in the teaser, Black Bolt wakes up in the clink and has to deal with being powerless, complete with being able to speak. After tussling with a couple of the inmates, Black Bolt is killed and resurrected. In fact, all of the prisoners are repeatedly killed and brought back to be killed again by The Jailer.

Saladin Ahmed does a great, believable job in making Black Bolt trust and befriend guys like the Absorbing Man. Hell, he makes the Absorbing Man a sympathetic character at times. Metal Master and the other supporting characters get similar treatment. Why isn't Saladin Ahmed doing a higher profile book? Also, the appearance by Death's Head was really cool. Yah, obscure 90s Marvel characters!

With a title like Hard Time, you know there's a prison break going. After some false starts, I was hooked for the duration. Before I knew it, I'd buzz sawed through the entire collection. Once Lockjaw showed up, it was pretty much academic but I was a little sad at the ending, although it wet my whistle for the next book.

It would have been easy to do a comic about Black Bolt and focusing on his powers but Ahmed focused instead on his (in)humanity and character, making for a great read. Four out of five stars.


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