Valiant Entertainment has had a rather busy end of 2017 and beginning to 2018. Back in January, DMG Entertainment announced that they had fully acquired Valiant, invoking a clause in their 2015 contract with the comic book company.
It was also in 2015 when Valiant partnered with Sony Pictures to bring five of their most popular properties to film: Harbinger, Bloodshot, Shadowman, Quantum and Woody that would culminate in a crossover epic entitled “Harbinger Wars“.
At New York Comic Con 2016, Valiant also announced a series based upon the characters. To be produced by ‘Bat In The Sun Productions’ (Super Power Beat Down), the series was said to star Jason David Frank (Power Rangers), Derek Theler, Michael Rower, Ciera Foster and more.
Later, in March of 2018, the rumored deal with Vin Diesel (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Fast and The Furious) to portray Bloodshot in those Sony films was confirmed and made official.
Now, after a series of delays, that web series first announced in 2016 is out! The first episode premiered on April 21st. One episode per day will be released until the finale on April 26th, 2018.
I have to say, it has been a lot of fun seeing these Valiant characters realized in a live action format. The show opens with Ninja-K being used against MI-6 and their army of assets such as Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, and more. The fight choreography was excellent and I am happy that they did not back away from showing blood and the brutality of combat. While I did have some issue with the acting and a bit of the CGI (namely Roku), this was overall a good watch. For the most part, the characters are true to their comic book roots and looks. I say ‘for the most part’ because Ninjak was a bit too quippy and John Morrison’s Eternal Warrior was a bit too clean.
Again, the highlight for me was the fight scenes. They are clean and crisp, without the all-too-popular jumpy edit filmography that is the trend in Hollywood these days. I really need to erase the ‘for a web series’ qualifier from my vocabulary as I believe it to be obsolete at this point. I mean, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu are all, technically, web series and are some of the best, highest quality and biggest-budgeted programs available. One thing I will say is that this Schoenke-produced production has got me excited for more Valiant!
Watch the three episodes (links below) and then check out my review on YouTube which is right at the top of this page (that’s where you will find my star rating)! Also be sure to head to your local comic book shop to pick up Valiant Comic’s ‘Ninjak vs the Valiant Universe mini-series.
Episode 1: http://comicbook.com/comics/2018/04/21/ninjak-vs-the-valiant-universe-premiere-episode/
Episode 2: http://comicbook.com/tv-shows/2018/04/21/watch-ninjak-vs-the-valiant-universe-episode-2-right-here/
Episode 3: http://comicbook.com/comics/2018/04/23/watch-ninjak-vs-the-valiant-universe-episode-3-right-here/
