The original Valiant line was a great read back in the day, when they first came out I was working for the main distributor and when they first arrived, people were not too excited about it but then the demand grew fairly quickly. We had some of the creators come through the warehouse to meet the retailers, I remember Bob Hall who was working on Shadowman was really nice, and Jim Shooter who was out for a store signing was incredibly kind. Loved the story Jim Lee shared about how he was asked to do the cover for Hard Corps #1 and did it in exchange for U2 concert tickets.
We would see endless amounts of the variants, which at the time were nowhere near like they are now, it was mostly retailer incentive variants, stores at the time weren't doing them, etc. Anything that was left over I generally managed to get a copy, and was sent a copy of the Archer & Armstrong Ale and Darque Brew. I ended up selling most of mine a few years after Unity came out but still kept a few Solar #1 and #10 issues signed by Shooter, which was one of my favorites.
I didn't pay much attention to the new Valiant line, but am hearing great things about them.
