'Accell Volume 1: Home Schooling' by Joe Casey is part of the Lion Forge event series about a bunch of young folks that find themselves with powers. Unfortunately, imitation isn't always the sincerest form of flattery.

Daniel DosSantos moves pretty fast normally, but when fragments of a meteor hit Earth, he finds he has speed powers. When he uses them and runs through things, he gets beat up and broken bones, but it's ok because he has fast healing as well. He decides he needs to head to the desert to see just how fast he can run, and he finds himself running into a weird other dimension.

Whenever someone has super speed as a power (or any power that mirrors an existing one from a famous character), comparisons are inevitable. In my mind, this book falls short. I did like the kind of loopy art with it's exaggerated perspective and character dimensions. This was the most coherent of this series so far. I'll keep reading. I like the idea of this series and I'm hoping it will.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Lion Forge, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

First thing first, it is inevitable that any superhero who is a speedster, will and should be compared with Flash. So I was prepared for similarities. But not this nightmare. 

This is basically a story of a young man (having superpowers similar to flash), his friends, his love of life and many characters appearing out of blue just for the sake of it. There is no serious danger; even if there is, it disappears within one or two pages. Nowhere going plots, ridiculous artwork, flat characters and disastrous plot-holes this book is infected of all. This is beyond repair and reinvention.

I am really sad to give the book a bad review because rarely someone tries to write new speedster. You can only read this book just for time-pass and even then you will not be satisfied. 

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Accell: Volume 1 by Joe Casey from Lion Forge.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

After finding a meteorite and placing it under his bed, 20 year-old Daniel Dos Santos has gained super speed. He seems to spend his time playing video games, trying to save the day, and pushing away his girlfriend who is more interested in him than he is in her. We follow Daniel as he tries to fight crime, speed heals himself, and finds himself in the desert on a vision quest. I don’t care for using the girlfriend’s character as a way to include a mob boss daddy. There’s an abrupt change in the story to tell how the meteorites came to earth and to introduce a new villiain. The story felt rushed and disconnected. This story wasn’t for me.

Accell Vol. 1 is a graphic novel about a Flash type speedster whose powers resulted from a meteorite. The hero in this comic has severe injuries when moving at super speed for a more plausible superhero. Young and inexperienced, Daniel spends a lot of time on video games and girls before deciding to explore his powers. The story moves at a quick pace full of action but falls flat a few times. For example, a random native American in the desert and the monster he just happens to describe just poof and show up, action sequence follows, and Daniel goes home to the city. The art and color is splendid and the characters interested. A few tweaks on the story line ( the event chapter is kind of random and offers no clear explanation of how it pertains to the story for Daniel is no where in it) and this would be an interesting new series. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy from Netgalley.

Very much enjoyed this book. Loved the graphics, the free spirit of the main character, the ethnic mix and the unique story. Highly recommend this.

So this Daniel Dos Santos guy runs fast. Like Flash fast. And he heals fast, which is good, because he pretty much burns up his body by running fast. This has something to do with a meteorite he stored under his bed, which makes about as much sense as any superhero origin story. The idea is that a bunch of kids, not just Accell, have superpowers because of the meteor, and they’ve all chosen really lame superhero names.

A story called The Event sort of explains all of that, but not very well. The Event also appears in Superb 1 and Noble 1 so you can read it over and over if you are so inclined. If you’ve already read it, well then, you’re paying for a bunch of pages you’ve already read. That’s good for the publisher (pages filled without paying extra to writers and artists) but not so good for consumers.

Anyway, running too fast for too long sends Daniel to the hospital, and so in the next issue, apparently having forgotten that fact, Daniel goes to the desert, where there are no hospitals, to see how fast and how long he can run. Things go off track when Daniel is chased by a demon whirlwind after meeting a Native American spiritual guide who probably slipped Daniel some peyote, but Daniel isn’t smart enough to figure out that he’s tripping. So issue 2 and part of issue 3 is just a big waste unless you are doing the kind of drugs that will put it in a proper perspective.

Anyway, Danny’s girlfriend’s father is very anti-Danny, as any sensible father would be. I liked the parts of the story that deal with Danny’s life at regular speed better than the parts where he’s running fast and battling spirit demons or videogame players who are terrorized by their older brothers. I also like the art as it appears across all the titles. On the whole, I think Accell is somewhat better than Superb, so I’m giving it 3 1/2 stars (rounded down to 3 because I can’t quite say I liked it), but I doubt I’ll become a lasting fan. In fact, I doubt the series will last unless it becomes a whole lot more coherent.

The worst of the Catalyst line. A generic speedster with no plot, no direction, no character. Joe Casey's a decent writer but this felt like someone else wrote it and he just stamped his name on it.
Damian Scott's art has only gotten worse over time. His characters look like Stretch Armstrong pulled to their limits. He doesn't even try and put anything in proportion. It's difficult to even tell what is in each panel they are so out of whack.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I had no idea this comic was connected with Noble Vol 1 by Brandon Thomas, Roger Robinson et al. It's just as well, because if I had, I would not have requested it! As it happens I did request it, and ended up enjoying this one whereas I did not like the first one at all. While I still assert that the plot twist at the end is too far-fetched to be realistic, the story leading up to that was actually really good.

In this case, this was not one of the astronauts who was affected, but a guy down on Earth who saw the meteor shower and found a meteorite near his home - just a tiny piece. He slept with it under his bed and suddenly, he can move like the Flash. Unlike the Flash, he actually pays a price for his super-speed, which means hunger. He has to eat a lot.

Sometimes he pays more than that. If he gets injured while running - or fighting crime - he really gets injured, but it doesn't stop him until he stops himself, and at that point he'd better have stopped in an ER. But he heals really fast. He's a 'person of color' as they say, so this was also appreciated - there are too few and far between of those in comics, TV, movies, you name it. His Name is Danny Santos; I'll leave you to figure his ethnicity!

So he fights crime and he has a girlfriend who at first does not know of his power, but during the story he reveals it to her. I felt bad for her because of two things: first, her father hates that she's seeing this guy, and he's willing to do quite literally anything to break them up; second: Danny is a jerk towards her to begin with, but even that changed as he grew to appreciate her and realize he actually had a responsibility to her.

Overall this ws an entertaining and well-written comic, with great artwork (although the main character was a little bit too stick figure-y for my taste!). That aside and with the caveat about the improbable ending, I recommend this as a worthy read

Danny is an interesting character but he isn't fleshed out as well as I would have liked. His relationship with his girlfriend rubbed me the wrong way. Kind of disappointing.

When I saw this comic on Netgalley, I immediately hit "read now" because of the cover art. It looked funny and well illustrated and pretty much reminded me of The Flash.
I expected a lot more of this one. Lets start with the most obvious. If there's a comic about a speedster who got his powers from some freak event, there will be a comparison with the Flash. So what do we have: a 20 year old guy who has found out he got super powers after some big event and what he really wants is to understand this new super power and save some people in the process. Naturally, he's going to test the limits of his powers and along the way he runs into some trouble (pun intended). Sound familiar? So the basics are very, very similar to the Flash. In order to stand out, everything else has to be pretty damn perfect doesn't it?
Sadly, in my honest opinion, it wasn't perfect. The artwork varies a lot. The guy in this story doesn't ever look the same and the art style is different every few pages. I don't like that. I picked it up because I liked the art on the cover, but I hardly saw that in the comic itself.
Daniel, the main character, also had no appeal to me. Obviously his physical appearance got a lot of attention from the writers, but his character is just flat. He's not funny, talks like he's in the early 90's and has to remind you every page that he is mexican and can run super fast, like totally...
Last, but not least, the storyline. It felt very unfinished and vague to me. I really can't tell you what it's supposed to be all about. Which is a shame, because some interesting things happen. There is some mention of how he got his super powers, but there's hardly any background. At the same time the father of his girlfriend tries his best to send some thugs to stop the speedster, but the speedster doesn't really deal with this. He is way to busy testing what he can and cannot do and what happens to him when he speeds up, and even that isn't actually clear, because by the end of the book he hasn't figured that out.
All in all, not as good as I expected it to be.

Three stars for this, as I don't object to the idea behind it, of initialising a brand new comic book universe, even if that is through a weirdly naff speedster teenager. He's naff because he has weird, hippy-type problems in the speedyverse, or whatever it's called, and he's naff because any other teenager would be boning his girlfriend, but he can't be bothered to, preferring to talk to us about speedystuff. Which might be a good thing, as her dad is hiring just the worst people to keep them apart... The other thing to his detriment is this publisher is going to play the diversity card, and you have to be reminded at every turn this guy is a Mexican. So he swears in Spanish - it doesn't make for a convincing play of the card at all, rather an added inconvenience preventing anyone of any colour getting a firm grip on what this book is going to be. It doesn't really lead anywhere, and ends with the prologue we've seen before, so the verdict has to be wholly open, both about the universe and the title. I wish them well, but they'll have to sharpen their game a lot.

Accell Volume one is one of the newest graphic novels out from the Catalyst Prime series from Lion Forge. There’s a lot of pressure being put on this franchise right now, as many fans are hoping it’ll establish a world capable of competing with industries with larger universes, like Marvel and DC.
I loved the cover right away; it’s different from the other covers one typically sees out there, making it stand out (as well as being more memorable, which is a bonus for establishing a new universe). I’ll admit I was surprised that the color palette seen on the cover is carried over into the comics – it’s all very bright with mostly prime colors and the like (intentional pun perhaps?).
So I’ll say this right away; I really wanted to like this series. I love what Lion Forge is doing with Catalyst Prime, and I’m without a doubt one of those fans hoping this new venture of theirs takes off big (I think the comic industry on the whole could use some more competition, as competition is great for the fans!). Unfortunately this particular series failed to hold my interest, and it was a struggle to actually read it through to the end (perhaps I let my hopes get too high, resulting in me liking the series less than I otherwise would have? I’d like to think that is the case).
The description on Goodreads will give any curious readers a good idea of what they’re in for; it’s a fairly accurate synopsis of the entire volume. Essentially what we’re dealing with here is (and I hate to say it like this) a Flash/Quicksilver copycat, which frankly is fine with me (I’m convinced there’s more ways to play out the speedster concept) when done in an interesting manner. Sadly this one was a bit of a miss; the character himself is uninteresting and underdeveloped. With time I think he would have some potential – for example I would love to see a character like this go through something that forced heavier character development. So while I didn’t like Daniel in this volume, I’ll acknowledge the possibility that I could grow to like him in later volumes.
As for Daniel’s abilities…I was really excited at first. In the first issue we see Daniel take some very serious damage in response to the actions he took. I love seeing consequences for super hero abilities, I can’t say that enough. So naturally I was pretty excited to see some legit real world consequences happening here. Unfortunately those consequences didn’t actually linger…it turns out that Daniel can also accelerate his healing; bringing him back to normal in rapid time (wouldn’t that theoretically age him or have some other consequence?). So that was a bit of a let down. Perhaps the writers will expand on that further later, one can hope!
I’m torn on how I feel about the artwork. On the one hand, I love how bright the comic is, as it stands out from all the others I’ve been reading lately. But then again, perhaps there’s a reason more serious comics tend to avoid that color palette? I’m ok with the deviation from the norm I think, I’m just finding myself wishing I had like the series better on the whole. Despite all of this, I still really do have high hopes for Catalyst Prime, and will continue looking forward to what is coming out next.

Nothing out of the ordinary. The illustrations are mediocre. Nothing interesting and the plot ha been used so many times before.