Valiant Entertainment had an unorthodox press conference yesterday. Live from Twitter Headquarters, the publisher held a “Valiant Summit” press release/Q&A over Twitter’s video platform Periscope. They announced…quite a lot. So let’s dig in, shall we?
First off, we’ve covered this elsewhere, but I’m so darned excited. The Q&A was announced on the heels of a firmer announcement about the Valiant/Sony movie deal. We knew that we were getting two Bloodshot movies and two Harbinger films, meeting up together in a fifth Harbinger Wars movie. We know now that we can expect the first of those, Bloodshot as soon as 2017, from the directorial team behind John Wick.
The next announcement was that X-O Manowar #50 is coming in 2016. This is cool, and exciting, but not a terrible shock for people who know how numbers work. Personally, I was super excited about X-O Manowar #36, because that meant that the new incarnation of Valiant made it through year 3. But that’s not a big, round number, and 50 is, so he’s a cool teaser poster. (In all honesty, I think this was a statement of intent more than anything – planting the flag and saying firmly, “We’re not going anywhere.”)
MUCH more unexpected and exciting is a second volume of Doctor Mirage. The old-school Mirage was a fun, supernatural adventure, with one of the best depictions of a working marriage this side of The Thin Man. Shan and Hwen’s chemistry was honest, fun, and moving. The modern Mirage was a dark, supernatural thriller that took the original’s heart – a story about lovers separated by being on two different sides of death – to incredible new extremes, with Shan Mirage wandering through the realm of the dead Orpheus-style to recover her husband. The new series is The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage: Second Lives. It finds the pair try to restore Hwen’s physical form, but in so doing unleash a massive horrible evil, capable of destroying everything a person had in life, and everything their spirit could be in the next.
Next up was a bit of horn-tooting. At 700,000 issues ordered, Book of Death is Valiant’s biggest debut yet. (And it’s no wonder. Check out that video trailer – can you blame anyone for wanting in on that?) The miniseries centers around Valiant’s war-weary immortal protector, the Eternal Warrior, as he guards a girl from the future and a book containing all that has and will happen in the world. The miniseries is being presented in 4 issues, each one coming out alongside a one-shot detailing the fate – specifically the death – of a Valiant character.
The next big announcement is a new Eternal Warrior book, Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, from Robert Venditti and Raul Allen. We’ve gotten to see Gilad in a couple of short-lived solo titles, and as part of the Unity team, but the new book is being touted as an ongoing, and frankly, it’s about time. The press release talks about him being “torn from the world he once protected and finds himself stranded in a hostile alien landscape unlike any he’s ever faced.” Judging from the cover, that’s…not a metaphorical statement. It looks more like they’ve taken the “Fist and Steel of the Earth” and gone all Planet Hulk on him. Could be awesome.
The last announcement is that Valiant is doing a wave of One-Dollar Debuts, from November to February of next year. Each one of the books highlighted is pretty cool and a good starting point for Valiant, but at the very least, please please please check out Rai. I promise you’ll be hooked on its fully-painted cyberpunk glory. (X-O Manowar was actually the very first book they published, and if you want a copy, it’s probably the most accessible way to get one.) The ol’ “reprint the first issue for a dollar” is a tried-and-true comics marketing technique, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome when one comes along, and this is the perfect chance to get in on the best-kept secret in superhero comics. (Though, let’s be honest, if you’re reading this far, you’re already into Valiant, so really it’s the perfect chance to get your friends in on it.)
That’s the big news from the summit, but knowing how fast Valiant moves, it won’t be long before the next piece of movie buzz or giant slate of new books. We’ll keep you posted.
