Quasar (Kincaid)

Origin

Avril Kincaid is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stationed in Pleasant Hill. She is the leader of "plainclothes surveillance," the agents on the town posing as citizens. She is also in charge of the daycare for imaginary children and Kobik.

Creation

Avril Kincaid was created by Nick Spencer and Angel Unzueta and first appeared in Captain America: Sam Wilson #7.

Major Story Arcs

Assault on Pleasant Hill

When Baron Zemo staged a revolt in Pleasant Hill, Avril was attacked by the Blood Brothers. Captain America and the Winter Soldier, two of the heroes on the scene, tried to protect her, unaware that she was planning on getting caught so she could be taken to the location of Baron Zemo.

She later directed Cap and the Winter Soldier in retrieving a powerful weapon from the Pleasant Hill museum. Later, Avril claimed the Quantum-Bands and was instrumental in turning the tide during the chaos at Pleasant Hill. She was offered the mantle of Quasar and instructed in the use of the bands by Wendell Vaughn himself.

Attack of the Chitauri

When Carol Danvers, Maria Hill and Captain America (Rogers) thought they were done fighting off the Chitauri, Kincaid sensed that the attack was not over with her cosmic awareness and went to help. When she arrived she single handedly managed to destroy the massive horde.

Later when an even larger unending wave of Chitauri was attacking Earth she was one of the key fighters holding them back with the team trying to push them towards her so she could destroy them however, it was said that she could only kill them as long as she could see them and was eventually taken out by a Leviathan. The attack left her in a coma but she eventually awakened and offered to destroy the Defense Shield after an attempt to breach it by crashing an Alpha Flight module into it failed. After much effort, Quasar sacrificed herself to destroy the Defense Shield.

Everyone assumed Kincaid dead until while working to assist the Silver Surfer to free him and a host of others from a black hole, Wendell Vaughn had a vision of Avril Kincaid as he escaped the black hole.

Since then, he had returned to his station of Protector of the Universe, but continued to work on finding and freeing Avril Kincaid and eventually succeeded. Now between their shared link to the Quantum-Bands they are able to switch places by slamming the Quantum-Bands together. One is trapped "in exile" while the other is free, not unlike the shared experience between Mar-Vell and Rick Jones using the Nega Bands.

Shortly after, Vaughn and Kincaid both apparently agreed to join the newly expanded Guardians of the Galaxy. At this stage, the Guardians appear to be making use of which Quasar will best suit the purposes of the mission at the time for example, be it Vaughn's experience and mastery of the Quantum-Bands or Kincaid's advanced undercover SHIELD field agent training.

Personal Data

• Eyes: Blue
• Hair: Brown
• Identity: Known to Authorities
• Citizenship: American
• Marital Status: Single
• Occupation: S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, Protector of the Universe

Powers and Abilities

The Quantum Bands allow the bearer to control all forms of energy and generate constructs of any shape including force fields, giant weapons and a suit of protective armor. The bands allow her to fly, create teleportation portals into the Quantum Zone and can be programed protect her from mental attacks/telepathy.

Primarily, the bands are tools for manipulating forms of energy. A bearer of the quantum-bands can affect, alter, absorb, and channel any form of energy found in the Electromagnetic spectrum, from Gamma Rays to Radio Waves, and this also includes visible light.

• Energy Constructs: The bands can construct anything the wearer can imagine from "Quantum energy", This energy is derived from the Quantum-Zone, although the bands can absorb energy from all known sources.

• Flight: The bands allow the bearer to fly in atmosphere or in space (surrounding the wearer in an energy aura to protect from air-friction or the vacuum of space), and can achieve incredible speeds (Wendell Vaughn once flew from New York Harbor to the Sea of Tranquility in under 5 minutes). Vaughn was often clocked at near light-speed. Starhawk was estimated at traveling at "thrice light-speed" by Era, Eon's child in an alternate future.

• Teleportation: they also enable the bearer to quantum jump or create apertures between the fabric of space/time of various sizes. Allowing the wearer access to the realm of potential energy which the bands interface with known as the Quantum-Zone. A wearer can then travel through this trackless, featureless zone and emerge at a different point in our physical space light years away from his starting point only seconds later. The Quantum-bands would enable the bearer to keep their bearings while in the zone and thus emerge wherever they want to. A bearer can cross countless light years in a single jump (Vaughn regularly traveled from our star system to systems in other galaxies) if desired. Important note, however, a bearer cannot quantum-jump within an atmosphere without ripping a hole in its ozone layer.

• Communications: The bands can detect, emit, and receive radio waves; thereby the bearer can communicate with other radio receivers. The bands can also create a “Quantum-link” which appears as a glowing golden sphere about 2 inches in diameter, which travels to the point of contact at warp speeds and connects with any communication device present allowing the bearer to carry on near-instantaneous communications even over extra-galactic distances.

• Altered metabolism: One previous bearer of the Quantum bands (Marvel Boy) has been known to be able to augment his strength and stamina to unknown limits. William Wesley was shown to be able to lift an automobile (roughly 2 tons) when he was field testing the "Power-bands". Vaughn himself rarely exhibited this ability and only when it was needed. He once physically lifted Terminus with the help of the cosmically powered Spider-Man and once physically restrained She-Hulk by himself, whether this was a statement of his augmented physical strength or her own restraint is unknown, though she seemed to struggle against him.

• Mental protection: Despite the fact that the Quantum-Bands have no control over the mind or Psionics, at least one previous bearer (Vaughn) had "programed" the Bands to protect his mind for mental attacks and takeover. So powerful is this protection that powerful psychics, such as Moondragon or the Overmind could not overcome it. This however, did not protect a bearer's mind from being scanned or surface thoughts being read.

• Mental/Physical bond: The Quantum Bands bond with their bearer upon contact interfacing the bearer's mind with the Bands allowing for mental control. Permanently affixing themselves generally to the bearer's wrists, the flesh and bone within rendered indestructible so long as the bond with the bands persists. The bond can only be broken upon the bearer's death, at which point the bands could be removed easily. In recent times, this has been contradicted, showing the bands moving easily back and forth between living beings (Annihilus, Phyla-Vell, Wendell Vaughn, Richard Rider... etc...)

• Cosmic Awareness: When wearing the bands one is aware of thing happening throughout the universe, Avril had visions of events happening on the other side of the globe or even in outer space.

Limitations:

• Worthiness: Similar to the hammer of Thor (Mjolnir), a bearer of the Quantum-Bands must to be worthy. As the Quantum-Bands are tied to the station of the Protector of the Universe, the bands seem to require a calm mind lacking ‘killer instinct’ to learn to use them to their fullest potential. A bearer with the intent to commit acts of depravity and destruction will quickly find himself losing control of the energy output of the bands until they disintegrate him.

• Magic: The Bands cannot absorb it or resist it. However, an enchanted physical object will only be as strong as the object itself would otherwise be. Therefore, Thor's hammer (Mjolnir) will simply not shatter Quasar's forcefield like glass. Fortunately, magicians have no control over the energies he manipulates so, it evens out.

• Extradimensional energy: Quasar is susceptible to all persons using Darkforce. The Q-bands cannot create constructs to hold or resist darkforce energy. The Darkforce penetrates his energy like it wasn't even there. Also entities from the Negative-Zone (such as Annihilus) can corrupt the bands if wearing them.

• Kinetic energy: The Quantum Bands have no defense against someone manipulating it psionically. But a bearer can resist a kinetically imbued object (such as a knife or a deck of cards) If a bearer of the Quantum Bands senses the attack they can throw up a shield to defend themselves with.

• Psionic energy: A psionic blast will cut through any quantum constructs like paper mache'. Fortunately, most psionic manipulators are susceptible to the energies of the Quantum-Bands, so it evens out.

• Matter manipulation: Foes who manipulate matter, psionically or otherwise, the Quantum Bands cannot effect their powers. They deal with energy, not matter. The Molecule Man, Sersi, Phoenix, Her, and the Silver Surfer, among others, affect matter in a way that a bearer of the Q-bands cannot. However, Her, Sersi, and the Silver Surfer use cosmic energy to power their matter manipulation abilities and therefore a practiced bearer could affect the energy source, but not the ability itself

Other Media

Games

Marvel Future Fight

Avril Kincaid, as Quasar, is a playable character in the game. She an universal type.