Review – Luchaverse: Catalyst #1 (Massive Publishing)

July 18, 2024

3–4 minutes

Publisher: Massive Publishing
Writer(s): Marco Lopez, Ivan Plaza
Artist(s): Ben Harvey (Rey Mysterio Story), Diego Simone (Tinieblas Jr. Story)
Release Date: 17th July 2024

The first installment of Massive Publishing’s Luchaverse serves as a great introduction to the world that writers Marco Lopez and Ivan Plaza have created. A world where, rather than simply being larger-than-life in-ring competitors, Luchadores are real life heroes working to stem the rising tide of a malevolent evil that threatens to plunge the world into darkness.

Created in association with Masked Republic – an event, merchandising and media company with a mission statement to “expand lucha libre beyond the borders of Mexico” – this new series brings that ethos to the world of comic books with a double-length debut issue featuring the adventures of Rey Mysterio and Tinieblas Jr.

The opening story focuses on Mysterio, arguably the most recognisable luchador in the world, as he joins military group “The Ambassadors” on a covert mission to recover the only thing that can put a stop the aforementioned malevolent evil (dubbed “The Fallen”), an ancient artefact from his ancestors – the Mask of the First Mysterio.

It’s all pleasing Saturday Morning Cartoon-style action adventure for the most part, with Rey and The Ambassadors storming an Aztec temple and Mysterio using flying headscissors’ to dispatch its ‘Cat People’ guardians – but it’s the flashback sequences to Rey’s younger years that really elevate this story to another level. These sequences do a great job of adding context to the slightly bombastic action sequences, showing Rey struggling with the weight of his family line and the responsibility “to be the light in the darkness”. The final pages of this first story also do a great job of showcasing the power of the Mask of the First Mysterio, giving Rey access to a new set of suitably cartoony super powers and setting the stage for the upcoming battle against The Fallen.

The second part of this double-sized issue focuses on the slightly less well-known luchador (at least outside of Mexico) Tinieblas Jr., but follows a fairly similar format with the masked hero doing battle with The Fallen, albeit in the “Monster Realm” this time, which gives the story a noticeably less grounded feel. He also has a ‘woman in the chair’ in the form of Ramona, who talks him through his adventures, providing information and remote support as he battles some cartoony monsters with a variety of familiar-looking wrestling moves. This story is solid enough, but perhaps suffers a little due to a lack of familiarity with the main character and a significant removal from the ‘real world’.

There’s a pleasing similarity in the visual styles of each story, with Diego Simone probably leaning a little more heavily into the slightly cartoonish monster vibe with his Tinieblas Jr story than Ben Harvey does with his Rey Rey tale. Both artists do a great job of conveying the larger-than-life feel of the story, and as you might expect, we get plenty of wrestling moves mixed in amongst the action and a variety of fairly cool-looking beasties for our two luchadores to battle.

The next issue is set to adopt the same double-story format, albeit with double the amount of luchadores as “Los Cadetes del Espacio” (Solar and Super Astro) are joined by “The Lucha Brothers” (Penta Zero M and Rey Fenix) for two more tales.

Overall, while there’s perhaps nothing particularly fresh or original in the storytelling here, with evil monsters trying to take over the world and masked heroes trying to obtain artefacts to stop them, the fusion of these familiar tropes with the larger-than-life world of lucha libre makes for an intriguing combination. As a storytelling gimmick it definitely works, and Mysterio’s inclusion alone should hopefully draw a lot of new eyes to this series, but it’s going to be interesting to see if the story holds up once the initial novelty wears off.

Rating: 3.5/5.

[PREVIEW ARTWORK – CLICK TO ENLARGE]