Simons on Eternal Warrior, Valiant's Future

[CBR News]

Valiant Entertainment Editor-in-Chief Warren Simon weighs in on the return of the Eternal Warrior in "Archer & Armstrong" #5, talks recent announcements and looks ahead to Valiant's 2013 plans.


Full article here.

[nosocialize100]

Really love where this world building is taking us. Bring on more series!

[Dark-Flux]

Colour me excited :D

[EMeadow]

I'm calling Rai first appears in Bloodshot #6.

[Manga4life]

Eternal Warrior looks great, I've read elsewhere that people aren't really enjoying his look but I think he looks perfectly fine and some people need to separate this Valiant universe and it's scope from the old universe as things will change and have changed already.

[thewarning]

I've never seen art by Emanuela Lupacchino before, but that spread looks really great.

[BugsySig]

How brilliant of a marketing strategy does VALIANT have? Launch the first 4 books, then start the second arc of each with major "first" appearances to continue to draw new readers in and maintain interest.

If Rai shows up in BS#6 I will have a full-on geekgasm.

I will also look into my crystall ball and say the third arcs lead into the first VALIANT crossover event. Might as well keep this gravy train rolling!

[hondobrode]

LOVING everything I'm seeing Valiant. Great that you guys have done such a phenomenal job with the relaunch.

I am IN, IN, IN !

I'd either like them to buy the rights to the GK characters, since Dark Horse's run collapsed, or make a doppleganger-style character to keep in the VU.

[fredmanson]

Valiant... This name gives me chills because I know that I will read the best of the best comic books ever. I really like their approaches of other Valiant Universe's characters into the established new titles.

I like the "sort of" condensed stories: no more mega arcs of a huge number of issues with empty stories!!!! Here, we have the essential brings into 3 to 5 issues as the maximum. And I really like it.

Stories are well written, arts are beautiful and in concordance with the character(s). It's Valiant.

What more to tell?? BUY THEM ALL!!! You will not be deceived at all!!!!

[Obregon Kaine]

All of the Valiant books have already made it to the top of my "Read First List" each month and I buy over 20 books a month.

I'm particularly loving Harbinger and Bloodshot. But X-O Manowar is outstanding as well.

I can't tell you how excited I am to see the return of the Eternal Warrior! And I'm loving the battle-ax!

[Joecooler2u]

All of the Valiant books have already made it to the top of my "Read First List" each month and I buy over 20 books a month.

I'm particularly loving Harbinger and Bloodshot. But X-O Manowar is outstanding as well.

I can't tell you how excited I am to see the return of the Eternal Warrior! And I'm loving the battle-ax!

I feel the same as you. Bloodshot and Harbinger are my two favs but I like X-O as well and even Archer & Armstrong is enjoyable though one of my least favorite of the original Valiant. I just didn't connect with the series back then for some reason but it's coming off fun and funny this time around and they make it as much of a history lesson with a mysterious element like Da Vinci's Code to keep you guessing. Harbinger is way better this time out and I loved the idea behind the original run but it was often executed poorly. This run on Harbinger so far is up there with Bloodshot & X-O for best of the new Valiant so far.

Rai is gonna be off the hook. Shadowman looks a lot better than the original run. I don't know about Eternal Warrior cause I never got too into that but the new owners of Valiant have shown a commitment to quality over quantity. My biggest questions revolve around the old big guns of the original Valiant. Solar, Turok & Magnus Robot Fighter and if the rights will (or are) aquired or will be? Originally I had Rai in there but they revealed they're going to be doing Rai (which I'm pumped about since along with Bloodshot, X-O, Ninjak - Rai was one of my favorites when used right. I know Jim Shooter did something with those characters, which was nice but too much like the original Valiant but lacking something, but it disappeared suddenly so I never really heard anything about what happened.

[JoeStPierre]

So cool to see there are still many Rai fans out there. IMO he was, hands down, the most original idea that came out of the Valiant Universe. My first day of work in the V offices, they were color proofing the double page spread of the Dinosaur-robot island of Japan emerging out of the ocean and heading for war. I have been hooked ever since.

Joe St.Pierre
www.astronautink.com

[Sentinel Supreme]

So cool to see there are still many Rai fans out there. IMO he was, hands down, the most original idea that came out of the Valiant Universe. My first day of work in the V offices, they were color proofing the double page spread of the Dinosaur-robot island of Japan emerging out of the ocean and heading for war. I have been hooked ever since.

Joe St.Pierre
www.astronautink.com

I liked the idea of Rai more than the actual execution. There are lot of really cool things about the original Rai series, but it also smacks of Orientalism, which isn't surprising considering it was the early 90s.

If they can take the basic concept of what made Rai so potentially awesome (the long dynasty of cybernetic samurai; connection to Bloodshot; Japan caught in a civil war after it's matriarchal computer ruler goes AWOL) and make it modern, I think this could be a great series.

If done well, it could be Valiant's answer to Prophet.

[BugsySig]

So cool to see there are still many Rai fans out there. IMO he was, hands down, the most original idea that came out of the Valiant Universe. My first day of work in the V offices, they were color proofing the double page spread of the Dinosaur-robot island of Japan emerging out of the ocean and heading for war. I have been hooked ever since.

Joe St.Pierre
www.astronautink.com

Hey Joe, great to see you here!

RAI was my favorite VALIANT character (at least the original, Tohru). Like Sentinel Supreme said, it has a TON of great concepts to work with which were not carried out to their fullest (mostly because he was killed off too soon). The idea of a Prophet-like future world building book is intriguing. I don't know if that's the direction they will go, but Rai needs to be handled carefully so as to distinguish him from Bloodshot (and even Ninjak).

JoeCooler2U - To answer your question, Solar, Magnus and Turok were owned by Gold Key (a division of Golden books) and were licensed by the original VALIANT. Most recently Dark Horse licensed them and produced that run under Jim Shooter. It is believed the license has expired because DH stopped producing new books, but no one is sure. The ownership over the characters is also muddled because Random House (who bought Golden) split into Random House and Classic Media, then Classic was purchased by Dreamworks. As of now VALIANT has no plans to license or buy those characters.

[Destro777]

Take my money Valiant. All of it.