This is the sequel to Black Bolt: Hard Time, which I expected to hate but ended up ranking first when I voted in the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. Home Free is worth reading, but not as good; with Black Bolt back on Earth and interacting with other Inhumans, and "Crusher" Creel dead, a lot of what made the first volume so good doesn't apply. I still don't care about the Inhumans. Still, the stuff with Black Bolt trying to help out Creel's widow is solid, especially the way the funeral ends up going down, and the art is very nice; Christian Ward will hopefully go on to do great things. The story is a little slow (the six issues probably could have been handled in four), but Ahmed is a perceptive writer, and even though I don't care about Black Bolt's childhood, the parts where he interacts with his wife were actually kind of nice. So, not great, but better than any comic book about an Inhuman has a right to be.

Loved these books. Ward's art is, as always, phenomenal—"realistic," at least in terms of the comic-book spectrum, but also impressionistic, emotional, and evocative. His use of color is masterful. Ahmed's storytelling is intimate, personal, well-paced, and runs the gamut of human experience and emotion. There are definitely some impressive action set-pieces, but this run is primarily about relationships, and specifically about the work of humility, vulnerability, and forgiveness necessary to repair broken relationships. [same review for Vol 1: HARD TIME] ( )