>>91143050Part of what I’m trying to do, stylistically, is to do an updated version of that. The Inhumans are these epic sets of characters like the Asgardians. They’re one of the places where Lee and Kirby came closest to almost doing illustrated books. There’s this real kind of mythical sense to them. I haven’t looked at things like word count, but if you looked at an issue of the “Fantastic Four” where the Inhumans appeared versus say an issue of “Spider-Man,” I’d guess that the word counts would be higher.
So there’s this prose quality about the Inhumans as opposed to some of the other characters. I’m trying to take that into the 21st century with “Black Bolt.”
In “Black Bolt” you’re taking your character to a location that I don’t believe he’s spent much time in: prison. And what’s it like for a former monarch to suddenly find himself behind bars?
That’s the thematic core of the first arc of the book. Black Bolt is kind of a mysterious guy, but he’s also kind of arrogant. We’ll see him humbled — but it’s not a story about humiliation so much as becoming less sure of the pecking order of things as he interacts with his fellow prisoners.
The comic book takes place in a space jail with aliens and super villains, but I think the story of what happens when we lock people up, having had family locked up myself, is an important set of questions. So this is very much a cosmic sci-fi comic, but the chance to occasionally examine some of those questions is why we started here.
Will readers immediately know why Black Bolt is behind bars?
You’ll get an immediate answer, but there is a much deeper answer that will be revealed over the course of the arc.
What can you tell us about the prison that Black Bolt is incarcerated in? Is this an established Marvel facility? Or something you created for this story?
It’s something new, and that’s all I can say about it right now.
