The superheroes known as the Hyperaturals are the main defenders of human space, but when the team vanishes near 28 Kosov, a reserve group of retired members and newbies on their first mission goes looking for answers — and uncovers long-hidden truths about human history of the past 100 years.
Tropes:
- Absent Aliens: An important plot point.
- Artificial Intelligence: The Quantinuum AI
- Deus est Machina: Most people treat the Quantinuum as, essentially, God — down to the curses they use (see Oh, My Gods!).
- Brain in a Jar: Ego, who has a mechanical body called Id to carry him around.
- Chainmail Bikini: The original Halfshell and her replacement wear a metal bikini, boots, gloves and helmet, leaving the thighs and midriff exposed. When Deedee Cadiz takes over for her missing predecessor, she claims she wasn’t chosen first because her more voluptuous figure would be too provocative. In reality, Deedee didn’t make the cut the first time because she had problems with authority.
- Destructive Teleportation: People start to balk at using the Trip Network once they learn that it literally destroys and recreates you.
- Differently Powered Individual: In the title.
- Hit So Hard, the Calendar Felt It: It takes place in the year 100 AQ (Anno Quantinuum), a century after The Singularity.
- Legacy Character: Clone 45 is the forty-fifth (duh!) in a line of super-soldiers. Each Clone inherits their powers from the previous one and they can potentially access all the abilities of their predecessors.
- Oh, My Gods!: The exclamation "Quant!" — likely a shortened form of Quantinuum — seems to be used where "God!" would be today. Notably, in a flashback scene set in the early years AQ, people still seem to be using "God".
- Proud Scholar Race: The Nthites (from planet Nth) reject all forms of AI and devoted themselves to improving the human mind. They're the people of Thinkwell, although he is unusual in that he is interested in AI.
- Running Gag: Each issue starts with a newsfeed. Part of the news items function as a recap of the previous issues, but there is always one news item about Show Within a Show AI Law.
- The Singularity: It happened, now what?
- Super-Intelligence: One of the main characters, Thinkwell, has level 10 hyper-intelligence. The villain Sublime is even smarter, having been estimated to be at least level 12.
- Super-Speed: Bewilder's power, which she uses to great effect.
- Super Villain: Sublime.
- Teleporters and Transporters: The Trip Network.
