Valiant are pushing to the next stage of superhero this year, taking their five comics (all of which seem to have been very well reviewed so far, beating statistical probability to a pulp) and experimenting with crossovers and events. The first title they relaunched in 2012, X-O Manowar, is entering an event storyline called Planet Death in March, whilst Bloodshot and Harbinger are kicking off a crossover in April – if there’s one thing you can say about Valiant, it’s that the big new releases are staggered perfectly.

harb

 

And this Harbinger Wars crossover is looking very interesting indeed, with writers Joshua Drysart and Duane Swierczynski joined not only by Clayton Henry, but now also by Clayton Crain, whose art from the first issue of the four-part miniseries you can see here. Hopefully Clayton Cowles will also be involved somehow!

Crain, who paints his work and previously worked mainly for Marvel on books like X-Force and Carnage, is a lovely artist, but thankfully his work on Harbinger Wars is a lot lighter than his previous books, which had a tendency sometimes to be so riddled in shadows that they were very difficult to pick through. The crossover sees most of Harbinger’s ongoing subplots brought to the fore, as the book starts to bring things to a conclusion. Bloodshot’s introduction is as the catalyst for the action, and it’s an early chance to see Valiant start to weave its world into a single coherent universe.

harb2

I’ve been very much enjoying Valiant over the past year or so – which is why I’ve taken this news about an artist hiring and spun it out into a rather larger article than you might expect. We’re getting to watch a universe grow and progress slowly and surely, and so far it’s all been excellent fun. With events and crossovers coming into the picture this Spring, it’s going to be rather fascinating to see where things go.

1 COMMENT

  1. I’ve heard good things about the new Valiant, and ordered the first Archer and Armstrong paperback. But I really wish superhero publishers could somehow manage to put out multiple series without resorting to crossovers.

Comments are closed.