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bobkatt013 posted:I am looking to get into Valiant and only have the miniseries Valiant and Bloodshot reborn. What are the titles that need to be read? I'm a recent convert to comics and I dipped my toes into what seems like the first five titles they published: X-O Manowar is great. It's space opera action-adventure with about a million plot hooks, a fantastic world, and gorgeous action scenes. I got volume one and ended up getting a whole bunch more. Archer & Armstrong is really, really funny when it's not too on the nose and the character interactions are great. The most lighthearted of the bunch but also the one with the strongest characters and the deepest mythos. Bloodshot is an ultra violent sci-fi thriller complete with conspiracies, super weapons, betrayals, and redemption. It's probably my least favorite aside from Shadowman, but it's still very good. Harbinger is like a weird bildungsroman about telepaths and wayward youths. It wasn't quite up there with X-O and A&A, but it definitely feels like it's got massive potential. Shadowman is, you know, good. But it's the one book that feels like it doesn't fit into the Valiant universe - even with all these different books, they've managed to build a very convincing and congruous universe and Shadowman seems to stand completely apart from it. Since that's definitely my favorite part of Valiant so far, it's disappointing. Disclaimer: I only read volume 1 (and in some cases 2) of these, but I'd recommend them all, with an asterisk on Shadowman.
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Jan 6, 2016 22:14
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 16:36 |
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Space Fish posted:What are some other high points to you? Eventually I'll probably skim at least the first volume of each series so that I know who's who during the crossovers and events, but Harbinger turned me off and I'd rather hop to another Doctor Mirage-level gem. I picked up a whooole bunch of Valiant during the Comixology sale (all of my Christmas money evaporated) and I'd say the highest points so far have been Divinity, the Armor Hunters crossover, Dr. Mirage, Rai, and Imperium. Harbingers starts very slow and it might not be your thing since out of all the Valiant titles it's the one that spends the least time moving forwards. It's unapologetic about it too, but I really liked the contrast between that and the high-octane stuff like X-O Manowar or Bloodshot. Harbingers has a bunch of kids who have no idea what they're doing fighting an insanely powerful foe in a world of increasingly weaponized psychic powers. It also introduces Faith, the best character of all time, and the book eventually leads to Imperium which is just the goddamn best. I posted my thoughts about the first five series above (and I would scratch out Shadowman entirely, but I stick by the rest). Other than that, Divinity is an excellent semi self-contained book which you could dive into. I think virtually all of the other series bleed into each other but you can't really go wrong with any of them (and you don't have to read Literally Everything to get what's going on, since Valiant works hard on making sure you always know what you need to know when they introduce things from other books).
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Jan 24, 2016 15:37
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Aric is frustratingly dense and bull-headed for a very long time but I'd absolutely recommend you stick with it. I had the exact same opinion. The next arc will bring those issues to a head and he will collide with forces which he can't simply bulldoze. After that is when X-O gets really interesting (and the Armor Hunters crossover starts - which is one of the high points of Valiant).
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Feb 3, 2016 01:16
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Oh and to answer your second question; Eternal Warrior is great, both the character and his eponymous book. It's jam packed with opaque mythology and fantastic, very eclectic world building. In eight issues it spans about six thousand years, from Mesopotamia to modern America to post-apocalypse, and it doesn't feel incongruous at all. The second arc is especially good. I've only read the first issue of Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, the new book, but I'm really liking what I've read so far. It directly follows from Book of Death (which follows from The Valiant - you should check it out) and I'm excited to see Gilad struggle some more.
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Feb 3, 2016 20:43
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  Wrath of the Eternal Warrior is really good. So is Ninjak - the writer managed to salvage Shadowman from the depths he sunk to in his own book and Valiant does the magic voodoo stuff really well (minus Punk Mambo who is just the worst character on the roster now). I also wrapped up the final volume of Ivar, Timewalker, and  that was some good stuff. I can totally get behind Neela and the dinosaur as timecops, though.
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Mar 30, 2016 13:32
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Divinity 2 was great ('Now I am the state of Russia') but the last panel is extremely weird, to me. It features actual Vladimir Putin welcoming Myshka as the divine saviour of Communist Russia. Very jarring.
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Apr 21, 2016 01:51
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B_of_InfoRedux posted:So I just started getting into Valiant. Read a bit of Bloodshot, XO, and Harbinger. So far so good. But is there one book in particular I should be reading over the others? The only one to avoid is Shadowman, otherwise all of Valiant's books are really strong and it largely depends on your personal taste. Divinity and Dr. Mirage (the first one) are to my mind the best ones though, and both are largely self-contained 4-issue stories (Divinity crosses over with Unity, but you only need to know that they are the Avengers of Valiant). e: Bloodshot Reborn, Ninjak and Imperium are the best ongoings imo, but they all really benefit from having read Bloodshot, Unity and Harbingers respectively. Foul Fowl fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Apr 26, 2016 |
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Apr 26, 2016 09:40
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 16:36 |
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My girlfriend's father is a Chilean raised in Cuba (because of Pinochet) who spent most of his adolescent years in communist Bulgaria with tons of other Latin Americans as part of an exchange program. He also always points out that in Cuba, anyone who is a communist is a brother or sister, whereas in Bulgaria he got into fistfights every week with the locals because they were insanely racist but the intent was there.
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May 26, 2016 11:30
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