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

[Geralt of Rivia]

Man, The Valiant #1... off to a terrific start, and already a gripping story. The Immortal Enemy just drips menace... truly the stuff of nightmares! And I am super curious to find out what is in the mystery box that Bloodshot was fighting for!

So glad that the general reception for the Valiant has been good on review sites and by the CBR Valiant fans. Really looking forward to reading my copy.

[Captain Craig]

I was glad my expectations for The Valiant #1 were met. I had avoided all the preview pages after the initial ones were shown so I felt like 2/3 of the book were new for me. I liked that we established that Kay as Geomancer can fly and has been working on her skill set as we see her manipulating vegetation. The growth of the Geomancer is what I'm most looking forward to in the book. That said I enjoyed the scenes with Gilad very much as well.

[Knight of DC]

Not getting Physical books till Saturday night (End-of-Semester crunch and all), but can't wait to grab The Valiant.

Also, new Imperium interview and art: http://www.newsarama.com/22949-imper...g-to-lose.html

[BugsySig]

The Valiant was sooooooooo good. Story, art, characterization, everything. This book is on par with any of the top books out there.

Also, very pleasantly surprised by the Valiant-Sized Quantum and Woody one-shot. Cool how all three (or was it four) stories really formed one larger story. The comedy (and specifically Woody) wasn't as over-the-top either. And I hope we see Woodrow again in the future.

[No_Problem]

Finally Valiant Deluxe Volume 2 starts to appear on amazon:

X-O Manowar Deluxe Edition Book 2 HC
Collecting X-O Manowar #15-22 and UNITY #1-4

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

now just waiting for the rest of them

[Aomalle27]

The Valiant #1
Just finished this issue, and sadly I can't say it was all that great. Nice exposition on Gilad and his eternal fight to protect the Geomancer from the Eternal Enemy. Even makes logical sense why these others characters ( Bloodshot, XO, Aram) would make appearances ( he needs to recruit warriors to help him in his fight); but there's just too much that doesn't mesh with whats come before.
1) In the initial A&A arc where EW is introduced; he's clearly at the beck and call of the Earth, full on
EW earth warrior mode, which contradicts the EW from the first EW arc where he foresakes the Earth, and is a aged " hermit" of sorts. Chrinologically doesn't jive. 2) Why the varied depictions of EW? I understand aging, but A&A EW looked vibrant, like the EW of vh1; whereas EW in XO and Unity is older but still pretty similar in appearance, whereas EW from first arc of the self title looks old but more native american, like Turok.... and this EW (assuming this takes place around the time of Armor Hunters, and it must since XO appears and he was on the Vine planet for thousands of Earth years)
again appears in the XO/Unity visage, which is fine but how do you go from Old ( EW 1st arc) to young (A&A) to old again? 3) what happened to the houses that were established in the first two EW arcs? Does the Eternal Enemy work for one of the houses? Death? If so, what's Gilads' sons' role? What happened to Gilad's so? EW 4 depicted him as a servant of death, yet we haven't seen him since. 4) when exactly does this take place in current Valiant timeline? Too much confusing stuff, and jumbled
continuity ( which is a problem in VEI right now) Good issue, just not great. I'll give it a go though, I think it does show promise if for nothing else than a good standalone mini.

[MECHANO]

They've done a good job re-imagining the immortal enemy in this... really freaky.

[Knight of DC]

Finally got my physical books. 1. Kudos to the high quality of the paper stock. 2. I very much enjoyed this. It got a little exposition-ey and it's more setup, but I can definitely see someone new to Valiant pick this up and get the gist.

Also, that Rivera art! Last time I saw was the beginning of Waid's Daredevil run. Purrr.

[ksbord]

Just re-read The Valiant again. One thing I like is that it fleshes out Gilad's relationship with the Geomancers more. Also shows why he got such a mad-on during the Archer & Armstrong arc... he takes his role as their protector very seriously (accept, apparently, those times when he has stepped away from the role) and dark times that follow the losses at the hands of the Immortal Enemy even more so.

[Captain Craig]

Finally Valiant Deluxe Volume 2 starts to appear on amazon:

X-O Manowar Deluxe Edition Book 2 HC
Collecting X-O Manowar #15-22 and UNITY #1-4

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

now just waiting for the rest of them

So if this hits in late May(Amazon has June but is usually two weeks behind most cases) we could see a vol.2, in theory, every other month, till the end of the year and those other three, Harby, A&A with Bloodshot&H.C. would wrap the first volume of the company's initial Summer of Valiant 2012 launch.

[ksbord]

Interview with Robert Venditti on Dead Hand:

http://comicbook.com/2014/12/15/excl...ars-dead-hand/

[Starchild]

I just finished The Valiant #1. The art was very sexy, but nothing much happened in this book, just a lot of setting up for what lies ahead which is good. If I learned anything from a book written by Jeff Lemire, it's that the development takes time, but when things happen, THEY HAPPEN. I didn't know what a Geomancer was, it turns out it's exactly what I thought it would be. I already feel for the character known as Kay, I see a bit of me inside her. This book is enough to keep me coming.


Did I just go on a rant? Awesome! And another thing is. What will make this team different from Unity?

[TheFerg714]

1) In the initial A&A arc where EW is introduced; he's clearly at the beck and call of the Earth, full on
EW earth warrior mode, which contradicts the EW from the first EW arc where he foresakes the Earth, and is a aged " hermit" of sorts. Chrinologically doesn't jive.

Dude there's like hundreds of years inbetween our A&A and the first ac of EW. Technically he's been "old" like 95% of his life. Any number of things could've happened between EW and A&A.

2) Why the varied depictions of EW? I understand aging, but A&A EW looked vibrant, like the EW of vh1; whereas EW in XO and Unity is older but still pretty similar in appearance, whereas EW from first arc of the self title looks old but more native american, like Turok.... and this EW again appears in the XO/Unity visage, which is fine but how do you go from Old ( EW 1st arc) to young (A&A) to old again?

I get the impression that EW tends to change his outfit every couple of decades. His "young" looking outfit in A&A was probably "young-looking" because Van Lente wanted him to fit in better with the tone of A&A. Also, Gilad changing his outfit every time a new Geomancer is called (which just happened in A&A #5) totally makes sense. He hasn't "aged" since he was like 20 years old, he just looked younger because of the sleek costume.

3) what happened to the houses that were established in the first two EW arcs? Does the Eternal Enemy work for one of the houses? Death? If so, what's Gilads' sons' role? What happened to Gilad's son? EW 4 depicted him as a servant of death, yet we haven't seen him since.

No idea. I get the feeling that all this stuff was either just forgotten, or is going to be explained in future issues of The Valiant.

4) when exactly does this take place in current Valiant timeline? Too much confusing stuff, and jumbled
continuity

Valiant has been pretty clear about issues being released in (at least mostly) chronological order. The Valiant takes place after Armor Hunters for sure. Not sure about X-O's Armorines arc, or Unity's Faith arc. Probably doesn't matter at all.

( which is a problem in VEI right now)

Yea, I just really don't understand where you're coming from with this. I gotta disagree 100%.

I think it does show promise if for nothing else than a good standalone mini.

Well that's exactly what it is...

Did I just go on a rant? Awesome! And another thing is. What will make this team different from Unity?

Yes, you did just go on a rant, and it was glorious. I don't think The Valiant and Unity are meant to be separate entities. Obviously, we'll get more information in the future, but it looks like The Valiant will just consist of every good, super-powered individual he can his hands on. Unity is just Aric, Livewire, Ninjak, and Gilad (and apparently a rotating member every mission as well )

[chaos X effect]

I missed the boat bad when I decided to not give the Valiant stuff a try on the re-launch. I think I'm going to check out Imperium and Divinity.

Does anybody know if Ninjak is going to be easy to jump on? Will I need to know much before going into it?

[Captain Craig]

I don't know that there is a solid answer on the Ninjak question.
However, I'd be disappointed if it's not written as 90% intro friendly.