Valiant Universe: Harbinger, Unity, Rai, A&A; current state & future prospects

Replacing the dearly departed, previous version of this catch-all megathread.

As I posted earlier today:

No significant reveals in this year's FCBD offerings. We get two books, Armor Hunters preview and Valiant Handbook.

The Armor Hunters preview has a bunch of previews we have already seen in the back of books for the past couple months (Armor Hunters #1, X-O, Rai), a couple of pages from Venditti about Armor Hunters, a page about Valiant First, and full-page teasers for The Delinquents and Dr Mirage with the art we have already seen.

The Valiant Handbook is meatier, featuring bios of the main cast of characters in the current Valiant Universe. (Entry of note: General Redacted.) No ads besides for collections.

Did anyone read Rai #1 today? I have to wait until next week to get it...

Yeah. It was really dense, a lot of world-building. Something about the lettering bugs me. And the girl-interlocutor character/approach to Rai reminded me an awful lot of Dark Horse's recent reboot of X...

Nevertheless, off to an intriguing start with a pretty fresh futuristic setting. Especially interesting to remember this is happening at the same time as the recent arc of Eternal Warrior. Its a wildly different world.

I got the Plus edition, which had a Spylocke mini-comic, pull-out poster, pull-out/connectible maps of 4001 Japan drawn by Kindt. A bunch of pages of written copy, too. It was kind of strangely plopped into the middle of the book, instead of tacked on at the end. A little weird to flip through in order to continue an interrupted conversation scene.

[QUOTE=thewarning;5227]Yeah. It was really dense, a lot of world-building. Something about the lettering bugs me. And the girl-interlocutor character/approach to Rai reminded me an awful lot of Dark Horse's recent reboot of X...

Nevertheless, off to an intriguing start with a pretty fresh futuristic setting. Especially interesting to remember this is happening at the same time as the recent arc of Eternal Warrior. Its a wildly different world.

I got the Plus edition, which had a Spylocke mini-comic, pull-out poster, pull-out/connectible maps of 4001 Japan drawn by Kindt. A bunch of pages of written copy, too. It was kind of strangely plopped into the middle of the book, instead of tacked on at the end. A little weird to flip through in order to continue an interrupted conversation scene.[/QUOTE]

Can you tell me about Spylocke, how does he look compared to the original?

[QUOTE=md62;5123]Did anyone read Rai #1 today? I have to wait until next week to get it...[/QUOTE]

Read it and loved it. Crain killed it on the art and like the thewarning said, it had a good amount of world building.

I've been reading the new Valiants hit and miss, and for me the biggest surprise is "Archer & Armstrong." The original dozen or so that Barry Windsor-Smith did in the '90s are on my short-list for best comics runs ever, and while the new series hasn't been as good as that, I've enjoyed it a lot more than I thought was going to be possible.

I buy them all except Quantum and Woody, just not my cup of tea. But other than that, I freakin' love Valiant.

Reading all and liking all.
Q&W or XO would be my favorites. Bloodshot or EW the weakest, but still enjoyable.

Read Rai #1 yesterday. Not bad. I'm thinking of picking up a few trades of some Valiant stuff today.

[QUOTE=Shadowras;6570]Can you tell me about Spylocke, how does he look compared to the original?[/QUOTE]
Mostly consistent with this image:

[img]http://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w670/Rcsiegel/image_zps57dff58c.jpg[/img]

The only book I read is Quantum & Woody, but I am totally on board if Ninjak gets a new comic. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Ninjak is currently the star in Unity. The first arc may be too X-O centric for your tastes, but the current arc tackles Dr Silk.

I wish I knew more about the Valiant characters. I was going to start buying some of the titles when the company restarted the line, but I opted out unfortunately.

[QUOTE=steeplejack2112;11651]I wish I knew more about the Valiant characters. I was going to start buying some of the titles when the company restarted the line, but I opted out unfortunately.[/QUOTE]

I felt like they did a good job of reintroducing the characters. It's not like they're direct continuations of the old Valiant books, just with pixelations where Magnus, Turok, and Dr. Solar should have been. Valiant treated all the characters as if they needed to be introduced for the first time. So I wouldn't be afraid of diving into any of the series, they'll tell you everything you need to get started.

[QUOTE=clayholio;11759]I felt like they did a good job of reintroducing the characters. It's not like they're direct continuations of the old Valiant books, just with pixelations where Magnus, Turok, and Dr. Solar should have been. Valiant treated all the characters as if they needed to be introduced for the first time. So I wouldn't be afraid of diving into any of the series, they'll tell you everything you need to get started.[/QUOTE]
I agree, Steeplejack you should try some of the trades and see which book catches your fancy.