Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Keith wrote:If the opportunity is there, try and grab a copy of Rai #0 as a post-Unity read asap.
I'll look for that. :) Turns out I had Solar #17 so I was able to continue XO last night :)
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

X-O Manowar 12-17 + Solar #17

#12: Aric is being brought by the Armor to the dark side of the moon where he finds a city that's been set up. This city has abducted humans, aliens who have some different armors. The XO is being summoned here to breed. Aric fights and gets swarmed by people in armor. Very fun issue.

Solar #17: Solar heads off to the dark side of the moon in his own storyline, brought there by Harada. This is a direct continuation from XO #12 after this. Solar and XO fight off the aliens, then fight each other for a bit in superhero-crossoverstyle, surrounding Aric then they head into the city to try to get more info on the aliens' homeworld so they can take them out once and for all -- brutal superheroes!

#13 The aliens want the armor, Aric agrees to fight a champion without it for possession of it to give Solar time to snoop around. Aric nearly gets killed by a genetically engineered fighter, Solar looks for info on the homeworld of the aliens. They don't find info, it's been removed, but they take down the alien moon base and fly back home. Excellent storyline concluding here.

#14 I think they missed out on developing Aric a bit more -- and instead go into another crossover mode. XO's been ridden with crossovers since about the 3rd issue. The book really doesn't have much time to breathe and let Aric and his cast develop. His company finds out there's dinosaurs being cloned -- Aric is offended by this for a reason that doesn't really make sense, and then they travel to columbia and find Turok who we met briefly in Unity. Turok and Aric get together and take to each other, ready to fight.

#15 Dionsaurs in central park. Off the wall, I kinda like this. Turok and Aric go on a mission as Turok sniffs out the dinosaurs and the two of them take them down together. Turok goes off alone afterward.

#16 Well, we got back to XO's cast, but not in the way I'd like. New creative team. Art and story quality dropped drastically from issue to issue. The Mafia has some alien weaponry, Aric discovers it, goes and messes them up. A sad use of the XO story that Layton set up to generic-ize it as a comic. Some of the dialogue is just atrocious. Aric cannot be differentiated from a 90s kid except when he says "good skin."

#17: Same creative team but at least they have their foot under them a little better. Was a jarring difference between 15-16 but now I'm getting used to this I suppose. Aric sends the mafia a message. Some good action. His interaction with his security chief is interesting.

I hope the quality picks back up again from where it's fallen off to, but it's still readable. First arc is a 9/10. Turok 8/10, mafia 6/10.
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

I know there's the whole publishing order and all that, but I have almost every X-O issue (still missing 68!) so it was easy to just continue on with this series. I may read the whole thing before choosing what to read next (probably depends on what I have a full or close to full run of) barring crossovers, which it doesn't seem like they did that many after the early issues.

X-O Manowar 18-24

#18- 20 a three part ystory. A senator in conjunction with the CIA and... IRS? are after the Armor and Aric's company. They kidnap Randy in order to get to Aric for his sense of loyalty. While it was driving and fun, kinda doesn't make a ton of sense, but that's okay. At least i enjoyed this and felt that Jorge Gonzalez was getting a little more comfortable in his writing role here.

Aric busts Randy out and they realize there's some weird antarctic expedition going on. Kinda some generic tropes which made me laugh but still not exactly sensical. They go down there and fight and finally the CIA gets Randy under the gun, Aric gives up the armor to them and they go to a prison. Aric gets it back, messes up all the base guards, they cave him in in an avalanche. Lots of action. Which is good, it was actually fun to read despite the nonsense of it all.

When he gets back, Aric calls in a favor with Harada to get the government off his back and reclaims his company. The Ken getting finnicky while Aric is gone and comes back and cleans up the company mad at Ken subplot on repeat is getting a little stale now. I like Randy a lot more as of these issues, however. The weird smoking bombshell from the IRS made me laugh... was she supposed to? I don't know. Aric ends up giving up the armor to Randy to go on a like walkabout thing afterward. So emo.

Overall, somewhat fun. 7/10

#21: The best issue since Bob Layton. Randy tries on the armor, kinda gets lost in it. Ax from issue #5-6 who tried to steal the armor before returns with some thugs. I'd almost forgotten who he was, nice callback. Ken gets drunk says he'll lead Ax to the armor, Randy finally shows up for a pretty cool fight with Ax. First real sense of danger I've felt in awhile as Ax has some stuff to hack into tech. Randy went savage beastmode on him. 9/10

#22: Aric is on walkabout in Peru, joins some tribe, fights for them. Randy writhes around in bad dreams and underwear and then in the X-O armor. She gets aggressive with Ken and warns him not to mess with the company. Kinda a weird issue. Good action, but actually a bit decompressed, some bad dialogue. 7/10

#23: Randy goes back into beast mode tracking her dreams to Afghanistan, heads out there and takes out some fighters after dodging some scud missiles. She feels bad about it after. Aric, meanwhile, faces a generic trope of a logging company taking out the native village, chases them off, and then gets in a fight with them after being led away which he loses, finds out the logging company is his company. Quick read. I like Randy's part, Aric going away and being basically summoned back in 2 issues seems unnecessary. Overall the book is starting to feel not very well planned, but haphazardly created each month. Art wise -- I think I'm most getting annoyed with how much Randy's hair style changes from panel to panel and issue to issue. 7/10

#24: Aric goes back cancels his operations with the logging. Then we have a very personal issue where he talks a lot with Randy - and some guys get fresh with her and Aric goes full on bar fight. Another generic trope in some ways makes me wince to read, but in other ways is fun. Jorge's run has been a lot like that all around half alright, but with problems. This felt a lot like filler waiting for #25, and there was a bit at the end introing the Armorines which started on an interlude page last issue. It's okay. One panel had Aric looking like Owen Wilson. Completely inconsistent art strikes again. 6/10
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by myron »

These are great but probably belong here
Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?

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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

myron wrote:These are great but probably belong here
I'm not rereading technically ;) but wherever the mods think is appropriate. I've stuck it all to one thread so it doesn't clutter the board too much.
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

And did a lot more reading last night.

Armorines #0: This issue was actually folded into the middle of X-O 25, and the first page of X-O told the readers to read this first. It detailed several Armorines and their co-pilots getting ready and trained for battle to ultimately face Aric. There's some good intrapersonal drama, though a little tropey. The art was fine in it and it makes the whole plot with Aric vs. the government -- or vs. some shadowy people in the government who want to abuse their power -- far more interesting. 8/10

X-O Manowar #25: Excellent issue. Aric vs. the Armorines. Randy sees there's something wrong, goes to find him. During this, the General returns and finds the Armorines orders to attack Aric were forged. The Armorines almost succeed in taking down Aric but stand down. Some of the best art/fun through this group's run so far. Lots of action. Very enjoyable. 9/10

X-O Manowar #26: Company Christmas party. Aric gets taken in by another bombshell trying to manipulate the company. She drugs him and leaves a bomb with him (overly complicated means of killing him aside... why didn't she just poison him or stab him to death when he was drugged?). It's pretty doctor evil-y, but a lot of good personal development with Aric/Ken through the issue. Trite but fun. 8/10

And I found out that issue #27 had a crossover starting in Secret Weapons 6-7. I have the first 8 issues of this series... so I decided to start at #1.

Secret Weapons #1: This is very near unreadable. Tough art. Convoluted story. Darque I guess is making Eclipse via some demon in some void or something and Geomancer gathers heroes together to stop them. I didn't quite get what was going on most the time. Even with my knowledge of valiant, it didn't stop to explain anything. Jim Shooter would have not called this a story. 2/10

Secret Weapons #2: Pure action, conclusion to #1. It sorta kinda made sense. Easy to skim over 5/10

Secret Weapons #3: It's really hard to see what this series is about. Now it's about bloodshot and a bunch of temporary bloodshots called "speedshots" running around? This ties into the Bloodshot series and continues there. Kinda a worthless issue. I think this book is about Geomancer, Eddy and Mandy, the latter two I'm not sure who they are but they were mentioned to be Harbingers (I know they're Stronghold & Livewire after looking on the internet, but the book so far has explained almost nothing). 5/10

Secret Weapons #4: Finally settles into the main characters. Now I for sure understand this is Mandy/Eddy/Geomancer. This has a nice personal touch to it. Eddy goes on a date. He gets drugged with something that messes up his powers -- cool conceptually. Cool characters. Best issue of the series so far by leaps and bounds. 8/10

Secret Weapons #5: Immediately back to crossover. This time with Ninjak. They follow some hacked message to Eastern Europe of all places (how mandy and eddy can just jetset around isn't explained). Ninjak goes into like some single combat with a demon and I guess saves the day? Very weird. I'm not sure what happened again. This series is hard to read. 5/10

Now I'm ready to start that X-O crossover. :) I don't look forward to the next two Secret Weapons issues. This has been a rough series.
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Got to this next little secret weapons/xo crossover. It's little as I'll explain.

Secret Weapons #6-7: The gang goes underground and finds there's spider aliens in a colony. Lots of fighting. X-O and Turok show up in 7. It actually overlaps with X-O 27 more than actually is a continuation, so I didn't have to read these to get that, as it just kinda shows the perspectives of Livewire, Stronghold and the Geomancer. However the comic here FINALLY starts to introduce their characters so you know who they are. They must have gotten feedback that 1-5 were super confusing for new readers. A plus. These were readable. 7/10

X-O Manowar 27-28: X-O is underground and we go through the "lose your powers" trope. He fights, and in the second issue he fights without the armor as it's destroyed. I feel like Gonzalez is really hitting his stride as a writer. The book's interesting and compelling and I have very little issue with it. 8/10

X-O Manowar #29: A continuation of before. Bugs come up to the house, Randy's one-eyed Nick Fury boy gets beat up really bad. Aric and Randy are both upset the armor's destroyed. Good story arc. 8/10

X-O Manowar #30: The armor laid an egg, but there's a catch. Solar goes and retrieves it but someone needs to bond with it and become a part of the armor for it to grow and become a sentient piece of work. Randy's old boytoy volunteers and bonds and Aric gets his grove back. I love this, it was a pretty unique story all things considered, about the most creative by Gonzalez to date. 9/10 .

Looks like I'm going to have to brace for Chaos Effect as a crossover in a couple issues here. I'll have to see how many of these I have and if I can do that in one go. If I can't, I may catch up on another title. Now I'm up to the point of the Omnibus, from this point out is no longer collected. Let's see what Valiant has in store for X-O.
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

X-O Manowar #31-32: Yikes the art took a nose dive for the worse. It's kinda hard to look at some of these figures in these issues. This is a 2 part story where Aric is dealing with some mystery place he owns and has to break into it as XO, runs into someone in some armor suit who's really working for Spider Aliens. It's split with half an issue of Randy and friends up at Paul's cabin, some character stuff but it really ends up slow. ends with a mystery of someone dead. A little weak off the heels of Gonzalez's best work. 6/10.

It turns out I am short like 4 issues of Chaos Effect so I'm probably going to pop over to Shadowman next unless there's overwhelming demand for me to read something else :)
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Shadowman is interesting. A lot of the first 6 issues were one offs and Unity really threw it for a spin, issue 7 really started something weird happening and then it hit full speed. Bob Hall is fantastic. Love the art and story.

Shadowman #8: A mysterious villain is bringing someone back to life, playing off the grave scene from issue #7. Shadowman is beating up some drug pushers. It's a fun action packed issue, decent art. 8/10

Shadowman #9: Filler issue. Bob Hall must have taken a break because St. Pierre was writing this -- and that scared me because Secret Weapons was his and I thought that was unreadable. This didn't follow up on the mystery storyline at all but just had Shadowman take out some guy kidnapping kids. Some bad dialogue, art wasn't quite as good, I got worried that there was going to be a creative change in this one. 5/10

Shadowman #10: Bob Hall is back and intoduces Darque and his sister. I read about them in issue #0 but didn't see the importance as they played no role in issues 1-7 in the valiant masters trade. Now I see he's an important villain. He with his new undead creation lures shadowman into a fight. Some mental manipulation, really good villain and compelling storyline. Very fun, some of the best VH1 work I've read 10/10 .

Shadowman #11: Darque continues to mess with shadowman, who researches and finds the guy's been around since at least the 1800s. Things start going well, too well as dreams are coming true -- at the price of souls and death. I get the feeling Darque's sister Emelie will turn out to be very interesting as this goes on. I'm loving it. So well done all around. This really should be collected. 10/10 .
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Shadowman #12: Epic conclusion to the Darque storyline. Ends up a big battle at the tree where shadowman found a portal to the future. Darque is trying to open one, his sister helps shadowman. Nice little remembrance of Elya in here thus not followed up on. Great conclusion 10/10

Shadowman #13-15 Jack goes on the road in a series of one shots where he gets into trouble against a few supernatural things. Solid issues all, not a ton of depth but fun enough. Happy Bob Hall is continuing month after month, he does a great job. 8/10 .
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by Sunlight on Snow »

Just read the original Shadowman #19 again. There's a line by Darque:

"And here comes my servant.... the would-be prince of the ringing ear drum."

He really should have said that backwards! :lol:

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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Sunlight on Snow wrote:Just read the original Shadowman #19 again. There's a line by Darque:

"And here comes my servant.... the would-be prince of the ringing ear drum."

He really should have said that backwards! :lol:
LOL. I'll get there in a sec. Missing Issue 16 I think which I'll have to pick up. I read that one a few months ago when I first discovered shadowman and was like wow this is a pretty cheesy thing to do. Aerosmith? lol.
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by kinggirlfriend »

Sunlight on Snow wrote:Just read the original Shadowman #19 again. There's a line by Darque:

"And here comes my servant.... the would-be prince of the ringing ear drum."

He really should have said that backwards! :lol:
LOL they should have had BABEL from the RAPTURE story say it. Missed opportunity, that.

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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

The Chaos Effect:

Well I saw the next XO issue I needed was part of an event arc, so I waited until I attained all the issues so I could read it as intended instead of continuing on in XO. With Unity, I found a masterpiece, a true visionary work that was unified and living up to its title. It was a beautiful event, something I'd read again. Well, Chaos Effect also lives up to its name, and not in a great way.

It starts out in Alpha, which follows monks who are seeing some weird energy thing happening and everyone kinda freaks out. This was a "free issue" to get the hook in, and it was alright.

Then we get into the books themselves. Each phase has 4 books over 1 week and it looks like this:

Beta:
Shadowman #29
The Second Life of Doctor Mirage #11
Turok Dinosaur Hunter #16
Secrets of the Valiant Universe #2

This phase saw Darque gaining unlliimmmmited power, and his sister kinda trying to undermine him. He creates a clone shadowman, pretty fun. However it only goes through 3 issues, Turok is unrelated, making this a kinda weird crossover. The books aren't clearly marked as to what to read first so you have to hunt around for what continues where. Chaos in that aspect. An interesting plot hook but it's totally and completely dropped for

Gamma:
Bloodshot #20
Secret Weapons #13
Ninjak #8
Archer & Armstrong / Eternal Warrior #26 (flipbook)

These loosely fit together, as there's some fight going on. I found it hard to care about this storyline. Didn't have a great set up or resolution though Ninjak was probably the strongest issue of the lot.

Delta:
Harbinger #34
Armorines #5
X-O Manowar #33
H.A.R.D. Corps #23

Again unrelated. Harada is up to sheenanigans, trying to get to space to see what's going on. This week flowed the best with direct continuatoins in every issue. I was interested in this as well, and it actually resolved much better than the Shadowman storyline in Beta. Solid overall, but less interesting than the Beta storyline.

Epsilon:
Solar, Man of the Atom #38
PSI-Lords #3 (in early promotions still listed as Starwatchers #3)
Rai #26
Magnus Robot Fighter #41

Finally a storyline that mostly relates back to Alpha. Solar is finding things are acting weird and we need a solar the destroyer of the future to come fix things. I don't quite get why, but it moved along nicely, and had some of the best emotional beats of Chaos Effect. I feel like we could have skipped everything except Epsilon and still got most the story. The Omega and Epilogue books that come after mostly deal with this. A little shadowman/darque in Omega, but the other stuff is mostly dropped.

It just didn't flow like Unity. It didn't hook me. The books were a bit of a jumbled mess at points and though there were some bright spots, I think this event failed overall. It didn't get me pumped on Valiant like Unity did, and actually makes me wary for the future after this.
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Was nice to get back into XO Manowar again after the crossover which was dubious in quality.

#34-36 revisited Aric having troubles in south america with people in his company hurting indigenous peoples. Someone's on the loose, and blaming Aric's company, meanwhile Aric finds his lost tribe from the Unity series (nice callback) who got flung 7 years in the past to here, and were now living in this world. They have a new king, and Aric has to fight him and a buncha dinosaurs for control. Very fun stuff. 9/10

#37-41: The Wolfbridge Affair! Randy's story has been threaded throughout like the last 10-12 issues, which is a lot of build up, and very cool on that front that they stuck with it and Gonzales kept it going for the big payoff here. Her people are getting killed, and they found the culprit. It goes worldwide into a conspiracy where people have obtained nukes, along with some Renegade harbingers (the 1/2 issue ties into this as well, which I read awhile back). XO gets caught up in it, and even brings Ninjak in. While I didn't care for much of the build up to this, I found this to be one of the better storylines of XO so far. Glad I read it. Aric vs. a nuke was very fun. 41 is a coda that deals with the aftermath and has some nice emotional scenes. Near perfect comic storytelling here. 10/10

Next is a crossover with Shadowman... and I think I'm going to go back to shadowman and just catch all the way up to continue.
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by WrathOfArmstrong »

Your reviews have been pretty close to my own--so I am very excited that you rated this last batch of XO comics so high.

The omnibus ended and I wanted more, but I was getting the impression from others that it took a nose dive in quality. Still crossing my fingers for a volume 2 omnibus, but I might have to start looking for these issues.

Thank you for these reviews, both your threads are must reads for me.

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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

WrathOfArmstrong wrote:Your reviews have been pretty close to my own--so I am very excited that you rated this last batch of XO comics so high.

The omnibus ended and I wanted more, but I was getting the impression from others that it took a nose dive in quality. Still crossing my fingers for a volume 2 omnibus, but I might have to start looking for these issues.

Thank you for these reviews, both your threads are must reads for me.
Thanks :) Glad someone's reading and having fun at least haha. The Omnibus ended at 30 right? So I'm a bit past that now?
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

And catching up on Shadowman for the XO Crossover. I might actually like Shadowman better than XO, I'm not entirely sure. It's definitely got a cool fun factor to it, even while being grittier.

#16: Shadowman's trip takes him to New York. He meets a girl he's rescued, and it turns out she's gone back to her literal tricks. He gets his bike stolen, gets in some fights and is like okay I'm done with this road trip nonsense. 7/10

#17-18: Archer & Armstrong overlap. This is where it actually gets cool as a storyline. Shadowman is compelled back home by Nettie. A&A are compelled there as well, and Armstrong knows Nettie from a lonnnnng time ago. Nettie hides from Darque but she's getting some ritual going to make Shadowman so his anger or darkness or whatever doesn't control him. My only complaint really on Shadowman is there's a little worldbuilding and powers that I wish was slightly better defined, but I roll with it. They end up beating up some literal nazis who get in on the action. 9/10

#19: The Aerosmith issue. I think everyone knows this one. It's got Aerosmith. lol 9/10

#20: We finally get into a bit of Shadowman's backstory and meet his parents. There's cool demon possession, or rather Darque manipulation, who seems obsessed with getting Shadowman to agree to something. I was a little upset that there wasn't an actual fight with a giant snake like the cover implied (was a dream), but there was still enough awesomeness that this issue was good. I think Hall realized he'd already just done an issue of Shadowman getting manipulated into agreeing something, and added in some dialogue to make the agreement "more firm" this time, for the one negative plot point of the issue. Ahh well. Didn't detract from the awesomeness. This is a high point in the series. 9/10
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otomo
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Shadowman #21-22: Shadowman gets his Darque errand... to go through a time portal? Why, I still haven't figured that out. But he goes through. From past to future, and we get to see Elya again...except he's come back too late. I was looking forward to his seeking her out since the Unity storyline, and I gotta say this disappointed me a lot to see her married to a nerd dude and it being too late. Some good battles, good emotional moments though. I get the story just, would have written this one a lot differently. He goes back in time to see the OG Shadowman from issue 0 and Nettie and is thrust forward again and meets himself in the cliffhanger. Despite my not WANTING the story choices, I do recognize it was impossible to put down. Fine comic. 10/10.

However, the next issue says it starts in Dr. Mirage #5.... so I have decided to go back and read these.

Dr. Mirage #1-2. This establishes the characters who are a lot of fun. Mirage and his wife are awesome in this book and I like them a lot better than the VEI universe which is so dark and serious. They get caught up in finding strange things happening and mindless zombies coming back to life to discover a Darque plot in tibet, where he wants the bones of an old geomancer. They get them but at the cost of Mirage's corporeal form! He's pretty much a ghost, untouchable, and they go on the run from Darque. Actually might be a couple of my fav valiant issues right here. 10/10

Dr. Mirage #3: Domestic issues! It gets hard for Carmen to live with someone unable to touch her. She gets rather cranky. Very good relationship drama, unexpected to spend a whole issue on it but enjoyable. 9/10

Dr. Mirage #4: one of the most ridiculous comics i've ever read. Cowboy rodeo circuit dudes steal a bull from India. They get into hijinx with magic with a bull who literally absorbs people's souls. It's the biggest load of bull I've ever read (and they made that pun like 5x in the issue). But I was amused nonetheless. 8/10

Now all caught up for the crossover :)
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otomo
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Alright, back to Shadowman!

Dr. Mirage #5 and Shadowman #23: These both complete the arc of Shadowman traveling in time. Mirage goes to Darque, gets duped into bringing Shadowman back so that Sandria can be saved, nice conclusion to the storyline. Very fun overall even tho I wanted Elya to end differently. 9/10

Shadowman #24: H.A.T.E. It's kinda over the top ridiculous as the villains from the A&A crossover come back. There's this really weird dude Rotwak in it (who's kinda interesting). Really good storytelling and character work within the framework of this story though, I had fun. 9/10

Shadowman #25: Fill in issue, different writer. I think this guy did a few on secret weapons and his work is meh. Not a terrible story, but it also didn't fit with most of shadowman's established power sets so far. Ghost-traveling and all that, astral projection, whatever you want to call it. Weird but out of place. 6/10

Shadowman #26-28: Shadowman's back fighting pushers on the street. Things get kinda crazy as he meets kinda a Bullseye type of villain who runs him through. He heals, but barely, gets attacked again in a hospital. Most important stuff in these issues is Marcia, a new redhead love interest that they're developing over these issues. It's a nice storyline there. Personally, Jack is going a bit broke and struggling for gigs -- it's a nice development showing how his secret life is interfering with his real one. 28 gets back into some Darque hunting (on that level, darque is kinda starting to feel like a "I'll get you next time gadget!" and I wish they'd develop a few more villains) and is a lead-in to the 29 Chaos Effect storyline I've already reviewed. Solid work all around here. 8/10
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by jmatt »

:popcorn:

otomo
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

After Chaos Effect. Darque is vanished. Shadowman finally has a bit of a supporting cast with Nettie and Marcia (aunt may and mary jane lol).

Shadowman #30: Shadowman is down on his luck kinda, since he could just stay with Marcia, but he hangs out with hobos. His sax gets stolen and pawned, Shadowman beats up some bad drug dealiers. Something is lurking in the deep. Good character development. 8/10

Shadowman #31: The lurk int he deep shows up THE NIGHT MONSTER. He gets his sax back but gets sucked into like the soul-eating monster. Cool and weird, I like this kinda thing and am a bit happy to see a supervillain who's not Darque as that was played out a little bit much. 9/10

Shadowman #32: Shadowman inside the sucked in souls, its own world. Sandria and Marcia and Nettie try to save him. He meets some characters tied into the old past with Darque, including a weird due called The Baron. They plan escape 8/10

Shadowman #33: Escape with Sandria's help and finish off the night monster. Nettie tries to get some voodoo stuff going, she's captured by drug lords who bring her back and make her dance. It's kinda similar to the way these rituals get done in the Bayou and armed dudes of some type show up...this is maybe the third time Bob Hall has used that and it's starting to get a little old. 7/10

Shadowman #34: Shadowman vs. drug lords in a weirdly formatted issue. Nettie keeps the main one hypnotized with dance, it's really drawn out and kinda filler. They wave goodbye to Baron when they're done. 6/10
Like XO Manowar or Conan The Barbarian? Check out my new graphic novel, DEUS VULT on IndieGoGo now: Deus Vult: http://igg.me/at/deusvult.

otomo
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by otomo »

Shadoman #35-36: Fill in issues with Mike Baron writing and different art. Bob Hall really makes for interesting layouts and interesting dialogue boxes framing a story, it's lost here. The story's fine -- Ishmael the mega assassin who never misses like Bullseye from Daredevil is back. Marcia has info on crime bosses, there's a witness protection thing going on. Eventually there's a confrontation and Shadowman burns Ishmael alive, pretty cool ending. It was fun overall but just not the emotional impact of the Hall issues. 7/10

X-O Manowar #42: Finally! Part of catching up on shadowman was for this crossover. It was good to read it all for familiarity though less is needed on the XO side if you're up on shadowman -- Aric is pining over Randy, and frustrated, so they take a trip to New Orleans. He ends up seeing Jack play, fight ensues, ARIC RULES! But then Shadowman does something to mess with the good skin. Ishmael's angry and works with the stupid villain from the future Blister, who shows up at the end as they wait for Aric/Shadowman to hash it out. 9/10

Shadowman #37: All action! Starts in a fight. Shadowman gets into a confrontation with blister. Aric... gets it on with Nettie? ew. It's awkward, but I guess Aric is down. I laughed. Fun issue all around. Left unresolved with Blister wanting a rematch for a fight and Ishmael not taken care of. 9/10.

Shadowman #38: Aric goes home. Shadowman fights Blister again. Nettie does some voodoo ritual on Ishmael to remove his burns, but makes him promise not to kill Jack, and makes him promise he will kill another for her when the time is right, what a mystery. Nice development. Says "BIRTHQUAKE" on the cover but I don't see anything different outside the regular storyline. 9/10

I think I'm gonna finish off the Shadowman series since I'm almost there before returning to XO. Should be able to do so this week :)
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by Keith »

Ah yes... you've hit Birthquake.

Birthquake was not a crossover, but rather an initiative to bolster sales by a) shrinking the line and b) bringing in some big name talent of the time. So titles like Harbinger, H.A.R.D. Corps., Dr. Mirage, Rai, etc. were cancelled, while Shadowman, Ninjak, X-O, etc. continued on. Shadowman came through pretty much unscathed with Bob Hall still at the helm, but other titles received whole new creative teams (Solar written and drawn by Dan Jurgens, Ron Marz and Bart Sears on X-O, Norm Breyfogle and Sean Chen alternating art on Bloodshot).
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Re: Discovering the Valiant II (VH1 Reviews)

Post by superman-prime »

ya it cleaned up stuff but then xo went weekly later on and then it all went down hill fast


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