Originally Posted by
TheFerg714
It's pretty great isn't it? I would actually recommend getting a different Vol. 1 before you get Manowar's Vol. 2, but that's just me.
Well, you're not wrong, but neither is he really. I think he really hit the nail on the head with: "they appear to be following in the path the Valiant crew successfully plowed for them." Not saying that Valiant is 100% to blame for this resurgence in non-Marvel/DC, but they really were the first small publisher in recent years to have an entire superhero shared-universe within every title they publsih. Obviously, stuff happened in the 90's, but Valiant really kicked started this whole business again in 2012. Another thing that makes Valiant's reboot so revolutionary, is that every single one of their titles are pretty fantastic. Sure, some have a few problems, but at the end of the day everything ranges from phenomenal-to-good. In the comics industry everything boils down to quantity or quality. Marvel/DC doesn't have to worry about quality because they will sell books no matter what. Valiant had/has to rely entirely on making damn good, quality comics. Nothing has dropped below a 6/10 imo. It seems like an easy feat, considering the talent at play in the independent sector, but when people look at DC/Marvel, it begins to seem almost impossible to make an entire shared-universe actually work. Valiant came back to tell people that it is possible. Dark Horse totally saw Valiant's success and decided it might be a good idea to get their own superhero shared-universe (not that that's a bad thing).
Yea, DynaKey clearly happened because they were trying to capture the momentum from Valiant. Why do you think the whole thing launched about the same time Armor Hunters started? And it really does read like Valiant-lite. The books aren't necessarily bad, but I do get a very serious "Hey, come read this because you like Valiant" vibe from it all.
But the crossovers and events are easily avoidable. For example: X-O went a total of 18 issues before its "crossover," but you could literally just ignore the entirety of Unity and completely understand what's going on. This is what Valiant does so great! You can't have a good shared-universe if you don't have crossovers or events every once in a while, and Valiant makes it very simple for people who just want to read their ongoings and people who want to jump in and read everything. Honestly if you don't get to Bloodshot #9 and Harbinger #10 without thinking "Holy s**t! These guys are about to collide! This is gonna be epic, and it's gonna need way more than one book a month!", I don't know why you're even reading superhero books in the first place. Everything works so naturally in Valiant, whether it's characters crossing-over, or staying to themselves.
Honestly dude, if you really dislike crossovers that much, this entire thread isn't for you, and neither is Marvel/DC.
Also, are you implying that you dropped DC, in favor of Marvel, because of event-fatigue? Because I can't see any logic in that statement. DC (Green Lantern line notwithstanding) rarely does big events, and when it does, it doesn't take over every single comic like Marvel does. For example Forever Evil only really had to do with the Justice League and team books.
EDIT: I'm sorry, but I really take issue with this statement:
"everything is a crossover in Valiant!"
It's just patently false. Like I said, you don't HAVE to read any of the crossovers, but just to be clear...
1. 5 out of the 9 series haven't crossed over with anything ever.
2. Titles like Unity and X-O you would expect to cross over every once in a while, because they're so integral to the core of Valiant.
3. X-O's crossover with Unity isn't even considered a crossover by Valiant. It's just concurrent stories about the coming of Unity.
4. X-O's first event happened 25 issues in, and was born out of the story brewing in X-O.
5. Harbinger and Bloodshot had their event early and haven't had another since.