So, which of the Valiants are the best reading?

[Fan4Fan]

Had a few extra minutes to spend the other day so I stopped into a local used book store and started rifling through their long boxes.

 

It was an early 90's explosion of books (Street Poet Ray, Eclipse, Acclaim, Dark Horse, Marvel Edge, etc... made me almost glad I missed it ), but what caught my eye were the Valiant books.

 

Most were post-Unity, but they had 1-5 of Harbinger (tho' 1 had a tear through half of the front cover and 2 was probably VF at best). All had coupons. There were also the Rai/Magnus flipbooks and some other things.

 

How are these storywise? I'd never seen any Harbinger before (always saw Magnus, XO Manowar, Hard Corps, and Solar), so I was wondering if this was buried treasure...

 

Thanks,

Fan4Fan

[DiceX]

Don't expect much worth reading after Unity.

Harbinger was ok, but I prefer Solar, XO, Rai, and Magnus.

Solar is by far my favorite. Excellent title!

[tth2]

Harbinger was my least favorite title. Favorites were Magnus, particularly when Bob Layton was doing the art, Eternal Warrior and X-O.

 

Rai was good but never lived up to its potential, in my opinion. I also never got into Solar as much as most other Valiant fans--BWS just never did it as a writer for me. Having said that, I actually have a soft spot for Archer & Armstrong. It was supposed to be this sort of lighthearted book, but there was some really twisted stuff, like Archer`s background.

[bubbagump]

I too think that Harbinger was o.k.

My favorites were Solar, X-O, and Shadowman

[jbud73]

Honestly, compared to ALOT of stuff that came out during that period and ALOT of stuff out there now IMO you can't go wrong with XO, Solar and Magnus. Sure post Unity is not as good but its still not bad.

[DiceX]

If you want to try something post unity, you can't go wrong with Eternal Warrior.

[tth2]

If you want to try something post unity, you can't go wrong with Eternal Warrior.

 

Didn`t Eternal Warrior`s title start pre-Unity?

[Kevin Boyd]

Pre-Unity, read 'em all. The only real loser of the bunch is Rai.

 

Unity is fantastic. Rai #0 is excellent.

 

Post-Unity...

 

X-O Manowar thru to the end, although there's not much to the Bart Sears stuff.

 

Harbinger to #25, after that, forget it.

 

If you like Magnus, then Rai and the Future Force and Magnus entertwine to tell the story of a world war. Not bad... but it got real bad, real quick.

 

Eternal Warrior isn't bad, then Gulacy comes on board late in the run and the action gets cranked to 11.

 

Archer and Armstrong is really Barry Windsor-Smith's baby, so when he goes the titles loses a lot of steam.

 

I liked Shadowman right to the end. Bob Hall did a great job of gradually unhinging Jack Boniface.

 

I hated Hard Corps. Awful, pedestrian stuff.

 

Solar was hit and miss, but the creation of an arch-enemy helped a lot. The Dan Jurgens arc was as good as the book got post-unity.

 

Bloodshot was never that interesting.

 

Timewalker was ok.

 

Second Life of Dr. Mirage was fun, but it never really got that great.

 

The one I'm surprised that no one has mentioned yet is Turok, which ended up being the best book, quality-wise as the other books started to decline. The Sears stuff at the beginning is great, and there are so many copies out there you should be able to get it for a quarter. When Turok and Andy return to the Lost Land then the series gets really good. The alternating storyarcs by Paul Gulacy (the Nazi Amazons storyline is a great mix of action and camp), and Rags Morales (who was THE Turok artist. Rags stuck it out to close to the end of V1.

 

Geomancer had some nice Rags art.

 

Secrets of the Valiant Universe was ok.

 

Ninjak never clicked for me. There was a yearbook with Hitch art that wasn't too bad.

 

The Visitor vs. the Valiant Universe was ok. Great Bryan Hitch art. The follow-up series wasn't bad, and actually ties into Harbinger.

 

The other titles launched were pure [#@$%!!!]... Solar the Destroyer? [#@$%!!!]. The one with the guys covered in metal skin? So bad I can't remember what it was called.

[Kevin Boyd]

Didn`t Eternal Warrior`s title start pre-Unity?

 

Eternal Warrior #1 and Archer and Armstrong #1 are chapters in Unity. Archer and Armstrong #0 was released pre-Unity.

[DiceX]

I forgot about Shadowman. I agree, it was one of only post-unity titles I enjoyed.

[blutobc]

Storywise I was a big fan of

 

Solar - a reluctant superhero who wasn't about muscles.

X-O Manowar - Not a superhero he just wanted to survive and it was about muscles and tech together.

Harbinger - The early stories were some of the best teen team stories of its' decade.

 

Middle of the road books

Eternal Warrior - Nice Highlander feel.

Archer & Armstrong - Iron Fist meets a drunk mentor

Magnus - Once I missed a couple of issues it was lost city as far as the storylines.

 

Bottom of Pack

Geomancer - Nice title. Just came out too late to survive the valiant crash.

Timewalker - Same as Eternal Warrior with less brawn. He was a lover not a fighter.

Turok - See Geomancer.

 

Huh?

Shadowman - I just want to play "tunes" man just wasn't my cup of tea.

Hard Corps - Boring

Bloodshot - Boring times 2

Second Life of Dr. Mirage - Not qualified. read only the 1st issue and then ran far away.

[Fan4Fan]

Thanks all!

 

Looks like I'll have to stop in at the shop when I can give a few of the issues a read through.

 

Thanks again!

[matewan1990]

If you can pick up the Harbingers cheap, then by all means, pick them up.

Harbinger was one of the best books of the 1990s. I've said it countless times, the pre-Unity VALIANTs are our generation's ECs. Magnus, Solar, Harbinger and X-O Manowar are some of the best reads anywhere.

And I agree with Kevin that the Bart Sears X-O Manowars weren't as good as they could have been. The art was pretty, but there wasn't much substance to the book (isn't that the way it is with nearly all Bart Sears books? Except Eclipso, maybe).

Turok was awesome from issue 1 to the last. The best book of the post-Unity VALIANTs. Bloodshot never really clicked with me. Rai was okay. It told a good story and then died a good death. But, after it was resurrected, it was horrible. Ninjak, Armorines, Second Life of Dr. Mirage, HARD Corps and the rest were hit and miss ... not much to tell about these books.

But, if you can get the Harbingers with coupons, get them. The prices on these books keeps raising on eBay and will continue to increase as more and more people discover how great the pre-Unity VALIANTs truly are.

[valiantman]

... as more and more people discover how great the pre-Unity VALIANTs truly are.

 

The Pre-Unity List (with cover images)

 

[CKB]

Personally, I put Solar 1-10, + A&O, up there with the best arcs of the copper/modern era, with Watchmen, DKR, pheonix saga, etc.

 

Unfortunately for someone who wants to read them, the two or three trades you need to get most of it are more expensive (since they are out of print and collectable) than searching to find lower grade copies of the original issues. Solar 1-10 will run you about cover price for readers, if you can find them. Otherwise it's bargain box huning.

[Sharkey]

You can pick up the TPBs of the Pre-Unity titles to get a flavor of what they were like. Whenever I see those TPBs they are at least 50% off cover price, if not more.

 

Excellent reading, through the Unity crossover. After that went downhill pretty fast, IMO.

[DKB]

Seems I'm in the minority in thinking that most of the titles were great for a good while after Unity. Around when titles like Armorines and Hard Corps started coming out is when I think the quality began to suffer and I dropped the whole line. For the duration of the time it was a 6-10 title publisher, Valiant was great.

[Kevin Boyd]

I'm of the opinion that the Valiant LINE was great for about 6+ months after Unity. Then the level of quality varies and V1 resembles every other publishing universe... you have great titles, good titles, mediocre titles and poor titles.

[valiantman]

Seems I'm in the minority in thinking that most of the titles were great for a good while after Unity. Around when titles like Armorines and Hard Corps started coming out is when I think the quality began to suffer and I dropped the whole line. For the duration of the time it was a 6-10 title publisher, Valiant was great.

 

 

HARDCorps started 2 months after Unity...

if that's when you dropped the line, it sounds like you're in the majority, too.

[Sharkey]

So it sounds like we need a poll:

 

When did Valiant jump the shark?

 

1. When Shooter got booted

2. When Aerosmith guest starred in Shadowman

3. Armorines #1

4. HARDCorps #1

5. When Solar went Splitsville

6. When Harbinger ran out of cover ideas and had to do swipe of their own first issue

 

My money is on #1.