'Invulnerability is a pretty useless superpower if you’ve only got a one-hundred pound frame to back it up. That’s what Quinton West’s life became when he went from small guy who got beat up to small guy who can’t get hurt after the meteor shower dubbed “The Event” gifted him the power of invulnerability but no other powers to compliment it.
'But there’s more to Quin than meets the eye, and after some encouragement from his new mentor—a local New Orleans–based superhero named Glow—Quin realises that he can use his quirky hobby of creating Rube Goldberg devices to outsmart the opposition. But being a hero paints a target on your back, and Quin’s got to risk it all to join the ranks of the superheroes he looks up to. It’s a good thing he can take a punch.'
Quincredible is the first book that I've read in the Catalyst Prime comics universe, and was actually unaware that this was part of a larger world when I read the book, as such, I spent some parts of the book wondering who certain super heroes were, but it was still able to entertain me as a piece of fiction all on its own.
The book follows Quin, a young man living in New Orleans who received incredible powers when a meteor shower hit the already devastated city, granting some people superhuman abilities. Quin is struggling with his life, not sure what to do with the gifts he's been given to not be hurt by anything, not knowing if this means he's meant for bigger things or not, whilst also struggling as a member of the Black community in a city where the government left many of the most needy to survive on their own following a natural disaster.
This is one of the things that immediately jumped out at me about this book that sets it apart from a lot of other super hero books, especially books set in the Marvel or DC universes. This is a world where Hurricane Katrina still hit the city, where communities were devastated and left with little help from the government. It mirrors our world. There were no heroes swooping in to save the day, and minorities were left to pick up the pieces. It felt like it had more of an impact in ways regular super hero comics often fail to.
The book was also notable because of how diverse the cast was. I'm actually struggling to remember any main or important character that wasn't a person of colour; and all of the heroes were from minorities that are often overlooked in comics over white heroes. I'm sure that there will be some who will immediately accuse it of being 'woke' or 'too PC', but fuck that kind of view; in a world full of white heroes it's about time that more Black heroes are given the chance to take the lead and shine.
A lot of the book seems to centre on the struggle of the Black community in the US, and Quin and his family and friends have to worry more about the racism from police, social inequality, and a system designed to keep them down as they do powered villains suddenly turning up and destroying the city.
Whilst I did enjoy the book I feel like I definitely would have gotten more out of it if I'd read more from this universe and knew some of the already established heroes that appeared her, but that's not a criticism that I can really lay at the feet of the book. Instead, I'll say that this was an issue with how I read it, and I'm sure that if I went away and read the books that came before this I'd have enjoyed it more, and that's something that I'm actually going to try to do. I think once I read the books in order I'll get more from this. That being said, it was still an entertaining read, and acted as a good introduction to this new shared universe. It got me up to speed pretty quickly on how these heroes got their powers, and the general state of the universe and the way people feel about this new change in the world.
Quincredible might not be the best place to start reading the Catalyst Prime universe, but it still acts as a good jumping on point, one that introduces the world, the characters, and will leave you wanting to read more of both Quin himself, and the other books available.
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