astronomers' eyes and minds adjust to the new environment, some of these oddities will align with our previous theories. Others instead will remain disruptive and radically change our understanding of how the universe formed and evolved. Eventually, enough light will pierce the darkness, and everything will make sense. This is especially true - we hope - of black holes. The first black holes formed during the first few hundred million years of the universe. Over billions of years, they and their host galaxies grew larger, developing in a still-mysterious lockstep that has left a supermassive black hole at the center of nearly every large galaxy today. But how did the first black holes form? And what did they and their environments look like in their earliest years? What follows is the story of JWST's revolutionary findings regarding faraway black holes in its first year of operations. It is a story of giant black holes furiously swallowing gas near the beginning of time; a tale of smaller black holes that are much more numerous than we expected; and a chronicle of how astronomers, serving as modern-day Dantes and Virgils, " came forth to see again the stars " in primordial galaxies. sk yand tele scope .o r g * MAY 2024 21http://skyandtelescoper.org