WARNING: This article will most surely contain some form of spoiler that will make someone very angry. This is a column dedicated to reviewing each Valiant comic each week, right? I don’t always tell you everything about every book, but I can’t keep everything a secret, geez.
Welcome back to Comic Booked and Thursday’s Valiant Effort. For fans of Valiant Entertainment, this is the place to be every Thursday to find out what happened in the world of the new Valiant Universe. With last weeks first issue of Armor Hunters, we finally had the kick off of Valiant’s big Summer event. This week, we follow up the shocking death of a Renegade with the fallout and revelations of what happens to team as well as continuing the story of the Armor Hunters battle to destroy the X-O Manowar armor.
Review
Harbinger #24 – Part 3 of “Death of a Renegade”. The death of Charlene, Flamingo of the Renegades, was a terrible shock last issue. Faith and Kris make is to the rendezvous point. Faith relates the end of their fight with Ion, one of Harada’s psiots and how Charlene gave her life to save Faith and Torque. Faith is unsure at this point if anyone else survived, so we jump back to the end of the fight and see Peter and Harada clashing on a riverboat. The battle raged, causing many unnecessary deaths, and ends only because the Bleeding Monk interferes to try to convince Harada that his purpose has been served and they both need to remove themselves before they do more harm. In the end, the battle explodes on the bottom of the river, both combatants suffering for their follies, and the final scene is Harada crawling on the riverbank with his eyeball hanging out (gross, I know, but I didn’t draw it) and Peter on the bottom of the river looking dead and deformed. As the rest of the group tries to sort out their feelings and remember their fallen comrades, Kris admits to having been in love with Charlene. The revelation explains a lot about the interactions of the past issues. Finally, as they all sleep, Peter comes to them in dreams and says his goodbyes. As he leaves them, he throws his jacket into the fire barrel and the symbolic shot of the Harbinger symbol in the fire is the last we see of him. Ax, meanwhile, has taken all the data they stole from Harada and released it to every news agency in the world. What will be the repercussions to the human race of the psiot revelation? We find out next issue as we celebrate Harbinger #25!
Unity #8 – Last issue, our team was on the hunt for Silk, a man who created a visual virus that could clone his consciousness from person to person. Pretty cool and wicked. Thinking they had destroyed his body, the team moved on to other things. Now, a new threat has appeared, as the Armor Hunters have arrived. In search of the X-O Manowar armor worn by Aric, the Armor Hunters are members of an alien team that has hunted the armors from world to world destroying both the armors and, usually, the entire world in the process. For those of you who missed Armor Hunters #1, you shouldn’t have. We begin the issue in the fallout of the end of that issue, with the destruction of Mexico City… I warned you about spoilers. Now, Unity needs a new team member, and, following the explosive finale of Bloodshot and H.A.R.D. Corps, Bloodshot, if they could find him, would be a perfect addition. Livewire is sent to hunt him down. A week later and Ninjak and Gilad are crashing a plane in to a Russian installation to find the armor the Russians had taken from Aric’s spaceship in an attempt to have the power the X-O Manowar armor. As we have seen in Armor Hunters, the team of aliens is already on site and is destroying this armor even though it is not yet “sentient”. Even as Ninjak and Gilad fight Quartz and Helix of the Armor Hunters, our two heroes realize they are outmatched. They are able to snag one armor and be on their way. This was only their first meeting with the Armor Hunters and already, the toll is great. As Ninjak says, they are going to need a bigger team.
Another great week from Valiant. The continuing story of the Armor Hunters event is already pretty cool. Who knows what the next few months will hold as the story unfolds? Someone does up there at Valiant HQ.
Thanks for joining me for another installment of Thursday’s Valiant Effort. I hope you enjoy this column and come back next week. Be sure to like and share this article. It is about time for another giveaway, so I will see about including something in next week’s column for all you fans out there, maybe for a coffee mug or shot glasses? Let me know in the comments below.
Shot glass!
shot glasses are always fun!