Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
- Black Bolt (Blackagar Boltagon) (Main story and flashback) (Death and resurrection)
Supporting Characters:
- Blinky (First appearance)
Antagonists:
- Maximus the Mad (Only in flashback)
- Absorbing Man (Carl "Crusher" Creel)
- The Jailer (First appearance)
Other Characters:
- Inhuman Royal Family (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Medusa (Medusalith Amaquelin) (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Ahura Boltagon (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Lockjaw (Illusion or holographic simulation)
- Thanos (Referenced)
- X-Men (Referenced)
- Numerous unidentified inmates
- Metal Master (Molyb)
- Raava (First appearance) (Unnamed)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Milky Way (Main story and flashback)
- Unidentified secret prison facility at the far edge of the galaxy (First appearance)
- Sol System (Only in flashback)
- Earth (Only in flashback)
- United States of America (Only in flashback)
- New York (Only in flashback)
- New York City (Only in flashback)
- Upper New York Bay (Only in flashback)
- New Attilan (Only in flashback)
- Upper New York Bay (Only in flashback)
- New York City (Only in flashback)
- New York (Only in flashback)
- Attilan (Referenced)
- United States of America (Only in flashback)
- Earth (Only in flashback)
Items:
- Image Inducer (Only in flashback)
Synopsis for 1st story
Black Bolt finds himself in an unknown, dark and filthy location, chained and muzzled. He does not know where he is, how he got there and he hardly remembers who he is. A voice in the dark screams "NAME YOUR CRIMES! REPENT YOUR CRIMES!", as he is electrocuted repeatedly. After a while, Black Bolt grows tired of the situation, so he breaks his chains easily and walks out of the room. The chains got broken so easily he reckons he's being toyed with.
As he starts roaming through the mysterious and labyrinthine place, he starts putting the puzzle pieces together: he and Medusa had planned to take his crazy brother Maximus to a secret prison, but he used an image inducer to switch places and now Black Bolt is the prisoner. His captors know about his power, obviously, because the muzzle doesn't come off as easily as the chains broke.
Black Bolt keeps roaming through freezing rooms and fiery rooms, until he ears a terrible shriek of pain from a girl's voice. He immediately runs towards the sound, but he's too late: an alien-looking child has been electrocuted to death, as the voices keep repeating "NAME YOUR CRIMES! REPENT YOUR CRIMES!". As Black Bolt goes looking at her, a man appearing behind him with many others introduces himself: his name is Creel, previously known as the Absorbing Man and now simply "Crusher". He tells Black Bolt that if he wants to meet the "guy who runs this place", he must go through him, as he attacks him. It becomes clear that both superhumans' powers don't work in this place, so they resolve to fighting with their martial art knowledge. During the fight, a mysterious alien asks Molyb (who's also there) if he thinks Black Bolt will "join them", to which the other answers he'll have little choice. The alien concludes that Black Bolt fights well for an "Earther", but they'll have to see how he will do "when The Jailer destroys him".
Crusher hits Black Bolt with a strong punch to the jaw, damaging the muzzle. Black Bolt has no intention to use that to his advantage yet, so he knocks out his foe with a kick in the face. Crusher, defeated, taunts Black Bolt to go meet the Jailer, adding "never let 'em break your spirit".
Black Bolt follows a hallway to a bright room, alone, where he sees a huge, chained humanoid creature with its face covered by a reddish veil. Around him, the voices keep yelling "NAME YOUR CRIMES! REPENT YOUR CRIMES!". Black Bolt doesn't know the creature, but he senses it is evil and it must be stopped, as he crushes his muzzle, ready to use his power. As he whispers "Stop", though, nothing happens. Suddenly, the monster moves an arm and the voices scream "PENANCE IN DEATH FOR YOUR CRIMES AND VIOLATIONS!"; Black Bolt is electrocuted like the little girl before him, and dies.
Black Bolt wakes, reborn, in a cell in chains. Beside him, in another cell, the girl he watched die introduces herself as Blinky and argues that not everyone makes it back after they are killed by the Jailer. When she asks him who put him in there, Black Bolt answers: "I put myself here".
The prison where Black Bolt lived this strange adventure floats in space, far from any known location.
Solicit Synopsis
THE KING OF THE INHUMANS’ FIRST SOLO SERIES!
Black Bolt imprisoned! But by who? And where exactly? The answers to both will shock you! But to learn those answers, Black Bolt must first win a fight to the death with a fellow inmate — The Absorbing Man! Award-winning science fiction writer Saladin Ahmed (Throne of the Crescent Moon) crafts a story as trippy as it is action-packed, with truly mind-bending art from the one and only Christian Ward!Trivia
- When Blinky introduces herself, the alien lettering indicating her true name deciphered say, "Blinkagar Blunktagon".