To anyone who is a fan of Black Bolt in the comics, you’re going to want to tell Scott Buck and the Marvel’s Inhumans creative team to go ahead and ‘fork off’ because the king of the Inhumans will not have his classic forehead tuning fork when the series hits ABC come fall.
Anson Mount plays Black Bolt, the silent leader of the Inhuman Royal Family. The upcoming series is taking a more grounded approach to production and costume design, as seen (and criticized) in all the released footage thus far. This latest reveal, however, made comic book fans gasp in disappointment because the tuning fork is what makes the character so distinct and recognizable.
The decision to not include the fork-shaped antennas which strengthen his ability to harness his vocal powers is really too bad, but it doesn’t come as a surprise either. Buck took a more grounded and realistic approach to his last comic book adaptation, Iron Fist, too. The leather costume does however keep the zig-zag bolt designs on the chest piece.
“Dude, one of the tricks of this kind of adaptation from the graphic novel world to a live-action is to, you have to ground it,” Mount told ScreenRant. “You have to ground it in a way that makes these characters more accessible to a viewing audience rather than a reading audience. It’s a colder medium. They are not participating. Even if the novel is graphic, it’s still a hotter medium. There are certain aspects of the character in the world that are a bit more grounded than what you’d see in the graphic novels, but, uh, I was about to make a brilliant side thought and it just left my head, but, it’ll come to me.”
Series star Iwan Rheon, who fans know from Game of Thrones as Ramsay Bolton, reiterates Mount’s statements, telling ScreenRant he read the comics to prepare, but notes the series has a much different feel.
“It does feel very different to the story that we’ve started telling here. And I don’t know in terms of the storyline whether this is something that’s happened before with Inhumans . I’m not really sure. So, yeah.”
One similarity is Medusa’s hair, which is bright red and flowy just like the comics. We also get the teleporting dog, Lockjaw, who is certainly not a grounded character. It seems Inhumans may be going for a Legion -type adaptation where it’s similar but completely different, almost making it not at all comparable to the source material.
What do you think of Black Bolt’s new look? Let us know in the comments below.
