Black Bolt

Black Bolt is an Inhuman and, as the living patriarch of the Inhuman Royal Family, the rightful king of Attilan. Black Bolt possesses an incredibly powerful voice: a mere whisper of his can cause catastrophic damage. Consequently, he rarely speaks. His suit bears a headpiece with an antenna on it that absorbs electrons in the area. When charged, Black Bolt possesses remarkable strength and agility, but when the charge is expended, he becomes utterly helpless. Black Bolt is ostensibly the master of the family dog Lockjaw, though Lockjaw is much closer to Crystal. His brother is the insane and ambitious Maximus, who usurped the crown from him in the past.

Biography

Exile from Attilan

In the early 1960s, King Black Bolt ruled Attilan peacefully and justly while his mad brother Maximus was imprisoned. Maximus fomented a revolt among the Alpha Primitives, led by the empowered Trikon, in an attempt to wreak havoc and allow him to usurp the throne. During the battle, Medusa was violently stricken with amnesia, and Black Bolt and Lockjaw sent the Trikon through a portal to the Negative Zone. Medusa wandered out of Attilan, conscious of little beyond her own name. Maximus's insurrection proved successful, as he banished the rest of the royal family from Attilan while making their ousting look like a voluntary abdication and self-imposed exile. The family spent the next several months searching for Medusa, their powers attracting unwanted attention in Europe. The young Crystal in particular grew restless without children her age to play with. Gorgon surreptitiously visited Maximus and negotiated the family's return on the condition that they bring back Medusa as well. Maximus and his loyal lieutenant the Seeker secretly planted a transmitter on Gorgon's person to spy on the family's doings. After the family had spent two years searching, Gorgon found Medusa outside Paris, France, but she fled from him due to an unconscious association with the Trikon.

Emergence

Medusa appeared in New York City as a member of the villainous team known as the Frightful Four, formed to combat the heroic Fantastic Four. The four proved a potent challenge to the famous heroes, but in the end, all but Medusa were captured and incarcerated. Medusa became an infamous figure, and her publicity drew the family to New York, where they hid in an underground base in the Bowery while Gorgon pursued her. The family's private meetings were transmitted in full to the Seeker, who arrived in New York shortly after the Frightful Four were defeated. Medusa naturally resisted Gorgon's pursuit, roping the Fantastic Four and (inadvertently) Dragon Man into the chase. Gorgon eventually made off with her, returning her to the hideout. Medusa's memory was restored, though it's unclear how—it's possible that being around her entire family triggered the return of her memories. While Black Bolt was away on a brief excursion, the naïve Crystal soon granted access to the hideout to the Fantastic Four's Human Torch, thinking he was a fellow Inhuman. Gorgon recognized him and attacked, but Torch quickly fled through the ceiling, burning through it and exposing the hideout. He signaled for his teammates, who soon arrived and confronted the Inhumans.

Black Bolt returned soon after, and the Inhumans and Fantastic Four fought. Black Bolt proved a mighty challenge to the Fantastic Four's powerhouse, the Thing. He even seemingly came close to defeating him, but his electron charge ran out, forcing Karnak to grab his limp body and flee. Mr. Fantastic fought Triton, ripping his robe and unwittingly forcing Triton to flee into the ocean. Almost immediately after diving in, Triton was found by the Seeker and abducted. Seeker and his men imprisoned Triton in a small aquarium in a secret base nearby. They also held the unconscious Dragon Man captive, having taken him from containment in the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building after assuming he was an Inhuman. Meanwhile, the other Inhumans discovered that Triton had been taken, and concluded that their hideout had been compromised. Afraid of the Seeker's pursuit, they fled to Attilan using Lockjaw's portal to confront Maximus directly. Crystal wanted to remain with the Human Torch, Johnny Storm, and Medusa supported giving her the chance to live as a human, but Karnak and Gorgon held her back, insisting that she remain to keep the family together. Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four arrived at Seeker's base as Dragon Man escaped, though they soon subdued him. Seeker left for Attilan with Triton in tow, but Mr. Fantastic planted a tracking device on his ship allowing the heroes to follow.

Reclaiming Attilan

The family arrived in Attilan, and Black Bolt recovered his energy as they came to Maximus's throne room. Maximus glad-handed the family, feigning peacefulness. He made his intentions known: namely, that he wished to make Medusa his queen. In an act of desperation, Black Bolt snatched the crown from Maximus's head and wore it himself, reclaiming his rightful title. They asked about Triton, and Maximus revealed a monitor showing him contained in water in another room. The Fantastic Four arrived outside, and Crystal ran out to them to greet Johnny. The other Inhumans came outside to separate them, escalating tensions between the two groups. Speaking on Black Bolt's behalf, Medusa told the Fantastic Four that the king would spare their lives if they left now and told no one of what they had seen. Mr. Fantastic tried to convince them to cease their isolationism and join Earth society at large. Meanwhile, Maximus retreated to an inner sanctum of the royal palace, revealing a huge, special weapon called the atmo-gun, which would vibrate the Earth's atmosphere in such a way as to kill all humans (but not Inhumans) on the planet. By using it, Maximus hoped to conquer the world upon reclaiming rule of Attilan.

It soon became clear that, though the vibrations were strong enough to knock everyone in the world briefly off balance, Maximus had miscalculated his plan. He had believed that humans were farther away genetically from Inhumans, and thereby unwittingly fired the atmo-gun at a non-fatal frequency. Black Bolt slapped Maximus to the ground, and the Seeker shamelessly submitted to the rightful king's rule. Medusa told Maximus that she would only ever give her heart to Black Bolt—but that she would wait until he had fulfilled his destiny of helping the Inhumans rejoin humanity. Enraged at his failure, Maximus reversed the charge on the atmo-gun and used it to create a thick "negative zone" around the city that forced the Fantastic Four to retreat, much to Johnny and Crystal's dismay.

Gorgon chased down Maximus and Seeker, eager to mete out revenge for his father's death and their other crimes against their people. Seeker triggered a painful electric shock in Gorgon's headband transmitter, incapacitating him as the two fled. Black Bolt arrived and destroyed the device, and he and Gorgon reunited with Triton in his tank nearby. Triton and Gorgon deduced that Black Bolt's energetic abilities would allow him to track the signal operating the transmitter to locate the Seeker and Maximus. Black Bolt and Gorgon found the villains lying in wait in the dungeons, where Maximus used his mental powers to control the king's mind and attack Gorgon. A downed Gorgon taunted Seeker and demanded that he do the killing himself instead. The arrogant Seeker complied, firing his laser gun at Gorgon, who pulled Black Bolt in front of him. The blast hit Black Bolt's antenna, redirecting and focusing its energy toward Maximus, striking him unconscious. Seeker tried to escape, but Gorgon stomped and caused a cave-in, killing him and achieving vengeance for Korath. Maximus came to, but had suffered severe psychological damage. He was imprisoned once again, and Attilan returned to Black Bolt's peaceful rule.