VALIANT Revival: What We'd Like To See...

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:40 am

How about we post our expectations for what we'd like to see story-wise (not creator-wise) in a revived VALIANT Universe.

For my part, what follows is pretty much all that comes to mind for now.

No reboots.

Take a page out of Alan Moore's ongoing revivals of dead comic book properties (i.e. Terra Obscura, Albion), and of VALIANT's own Magnus #1.

When done right character revivals can be successful regardless of how long a concept has laid dormant.

Bring back the original VALIANT Universe with an "11 years later" outlook on things.

Some people might think that such an outlook can have a negative effect on the VALIANT characters, but nothing could be further from the truth.

In some aspects, such a jump can have a very positive effect, while in others it won't even touch the characters.

Take a look at a breakdown of which characters would be affected by such a change in perspective and which ones would remain untouched:

Magnus:

At the end of Magnus #64, the Destroyer claimed that Magnus was moved through time

Use that, and have him appear in 2006 *.

Being a future book, Torque's era can still be 4021 since temporal movement in the present is irrelevant to the future.

*some might say that the Magnus license is already taken by Ibooks, but who knows? It could be possible to do different Magnus stories at VALIANT.

Look at Captain Marvel (Fawcett's) and Miracleman.

Same character roots, each one going into their own direction.

Solar:

Last we saw Solar he merged with a sun in 1996. Bringing him back is as easy as the conciousness within him to reawake in 2006.

X-O Manowar:

Last we saw Aric, he had been faced with the "reality" that his experiences in the VALIANT Universe had all been a dream.

It's a decade later, what's happened since then?

Harbinger:

The fight for freedom continues.

It's 11 years later and Pete's war with Harada is still ongoing.

Lots of opportunities for new characters and new conflicts to be introduced.

Rai

Same as Magnus. Being a future era book it's not bound by the movement of time

Shadowman

Irrelevant. Book canceled because of death of hero

Eternal Warrior

Gilad is still going strong. Nothing to stop this series from coming back. Absolutely no reboot requiered whatsoever. And he hasn't aged a day

Archer and Armstrong

Same as Turok. They can come back from the Lost Land today.

Bloodshot

This one is a big question mark. Last time we saw him he was under a ton of ice.

Where to start would be an interesting answer.

That takes care of the core books. The following spin offs should be absorbed into them as follows:

H.A.R.D. Corps and Visitor into Harbinger.

Timewalker into Archer & Armstrong.

Geomancer into Eternal Warrior.

Armorines into X-O Manowar.

Ninjak and Secret Weapons into Bloodshot .

Psi-Lords into Magnus and Rai.

Second Life of Dr. Mirage into Solar.

Most of all, a reboot is not likely to bring any added attention to the whole thing.

People are already gonna come into it with some preconceptions regardless of whether it's a continuation or a reboot, and the core audience that's most likely to be interested in this is more likely to want to see the original versions.

Chuck · Post by **Chuck** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:48 am

Well put MOTA. I certainly would like to see stories continue from where V1 left off.

Re-boot would suck.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:59 am

One other thing:

May 2006 is VALIANT's (would-have been) 15th Anniversary.

If this happens, what could be better than bringing back the original VALIANT universe right on the month when it celebrates the release of Magnus #1?

15... could be a lucky number... (just don't do 15 ongoing series

)

Sect · Post by **Sect** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:09 am

I agree. However, one thing is critical IMO is that they continue to work in the time frame as described by Rai #0

However it may be tricky as to what to go in regards to the story so that it doesn't become too stale

Also some things are going to be difficult.

For example Magnus comes to mind. Let's be honest, the premise of the book is that he smashes robots hence the title. However, after all the freewills and then malevs, it gets kind of old.

Shadowman can still be continued but with a different hero. They can select and create a new shadowman.

As far as I can tell the easiest ones would be geomancer, eternal warrior, archer and armstrong (they seem like little mini-tales to me), and time walker.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:25 am

Sect wrote:I agree. However, one thing is critical IMO is that they continue to work in the time frame as described by Rai #0

Definitely.

And the Harbinger Wars would be in their third year, which would be an incredible direction for the Harbinger title.

Nothing too grand, just corporate stuff (as detailed in the timeline).

As for what you say about Magnus:

Careful, it was thinking like that that gave us the stuff we got after Malev War

Magnus should fight robots, it's really that simple.

Bring him into the present and have him fight cyborgs and artificial inteligence, but make sure it doesn't suck like the Peyer version, heh.

400yrs · Post by **400yrs** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 3:01 am

I like your ideas, MOTA.

Definitely need to stick with Rai #0. I think Shadowman could be done, if done carefully with a new character.

This has got me wanting to go back and read my Valiant Bible!

Todd Luck · Post by **Todd Luck** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 7:24 am

Well, we know that there's a 90% chance of reboot in these situations, so I think anything else is just a pipe dream.

And I gotta disagree guys. I wouldn't mind a reboot.

I want Russ Manning's Magnus back with North Am and all the characters that were killed off in the Malev Wars back. I want a Jack Boniface and a Master Darque, and a climatic final battle that isn't in the past tense. I want a Solar who never created a "counter Earth", #%&@ it up, and then left it in a state of chaos because he and Gayle got in fight. I don't want a universe where "future Sting" was Visitor or where Solar split off into a brian-dead Destroyer. I don't want a Harada who has ever been a cliched "Harbinger supremist" whose lame master plan in the 90's was to explore space. I don't want a Lost Land that is created of necromatic energy. Believe me, the list goes on.

In short, I want a universe that's atleast in the same zip code as what Shooter and the gang envisioned when they originally created it.

"11 years later" isn't going to do that.

A reboot is a chance to do all the things right that they didn't do the first time. All the later characters could now have backgrounds, personalities, well thought-out concepts, and all those other things that didn't have time to do because they were too busy trying to churn out 19 books with limited creative resources. Plus, a reboot is the perfect way for new readers to get in on the ground floor of something, just like we all were back in the early 90's.

Just my two cent.

poe · Post by **poe** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 7:35 am

Hey guys I just had a scary thought: VH4 with no Solar, there can be no Erica Pierce. With no Erica Pierce there can be no Turok and the lost land. With no Erica Pierce there can be no Unity. With no Unity there is no Magnus. Left over is preUnity minus Solar it could work! POE

SolarFan777 · Post by **SolarFan777** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:17 am

poe wrote:Hey guys I just had a scary thought: VH4 with no Solar, there can be no Erica Pierce. With no Erica Pierce there can be no Turok and the lost land. With no Erica Pierce there can be no Unity. With no Unity there is no Magnus. Left over is preUnity minus Solar it could work! POE

NO SOLAR!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH (faints)

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:41 am

poe wrote:Hey guys I just had a scary thought: VH4 with no Solar, there can be no Erica Pierce. With no Erica Pierce there can be no Turok and the lost land. With no Erica Pierce there can be no Unity. With no Unity there is no Magnus. Left over is preUnity minus Solar it could work! POE

Well, there can be no Magnus anyway since the rights have lapsed. How about Turok? Is the right to use him still valid? I also wonder what the legal status of Valiant's Magnus stories are. Can they be used even though no new Magnus stories can be written?

There can however be a Phil Seleski and an Erica Pierce. They are pure Valiant characters as long as they don't mimic Gold Key's Solar. What is the legal limit there? I guess any comic book can mention the existence in our world of other comic books?

I agree that some kind of reboot has to occur. One that picks the best stuff from Valiant/Acclaim and ensures that there are no problems with licensed characters. Hopefully based around Rai 0 (in Rai 0 Solar occurs twice, Turok once and Magnus is mentioned once, it should be possible to handle that).

/Magnus

Brother J · Post by **Brother J** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:54 am

There can however be a Phil Seleski and an Erica Pierce. They are pure Valiant characters as long as they don't mimic Gold Key's Solar. What is the legal limit there? I guess any comic book can mention the existence in our world of other comic books?

Magnus' above quote made me think, is there REALLY any reason the Phil Seleski character HAS to be Solar? Isn't he basically Solar because he was a fan of the original comic series, so his mind picked that form when he acquired his powers? Is there any reason he couldn't make himself look different than the red jump suit of the Solar costume when he manifests his powers? Heck, the guy can destroy planets, I think it would be easy enough for him to change his look..

greg · Post by **greg** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:03 am

Brother J wrote:Heck, the guy can destroy planets, I think it would be easy enough for him to change his look..

Interesting...
He could change his "superhero" name and his look...
which would explain why no one had seen "Solar, the guy in the red suit"
for a thousand years in the pre-Unity Magnus stories.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:08 am

Brother J wrote:
There can however be a Phil Seleski and an Erica Pierce. They are pure Valiant characters as long as they don't mimic Gold Key's Solar. What is the legal limit there? I guess any comic book can mention the existence in our world of other comic books?
Magnus' above quote made me think, is there REALLY any reason the Phil Seleski character HAS to be Solar? Isn't he basically Solar because he was a fan of the original comic series, so his mind picked that form when he acquired his powers? Is there any reason he couldn't make himself look different than the red jump suit of the Solar costume when he manifests his powers? Heck, the guy can destroy planets, I think it would be easy enough for him to change his look..

I was thinking along those lines too. Since Phil is a Valiant character then this can be used to wiggle our way around not being able to use the original Solar. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m fine with using Phil without the Solar suit.

Magnus however is a different story. I just hope something can be worked out so this character can be used in VH4. To me, there would be a big void without Magnus in any Valiant resurrection.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:50 am

I want Russ Manning's Magnus back with North Am and all the characters that were killed off in the Malev Wars back.

If he can be brought back, I would like to see this as well. Part of the huge appeal of Magnus was North Am and the futuristic look of the comic.

I would also like to see the original Rai restored to his original glory with him being protector of Japan. The whole "artificial orbiting Moon/ Dragon" concept was a very cool and original idea.

DawgPhan · Post by **DawgPhan** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:02 am

I honestly hope that he does not ask any of us for advice...if he gets the rights he should do with them as he see fit. I dont think that he will get the rights to magnus, solar, or turok so those arent important...their loss leaves big holes in the valiant universe. I think that I might pop my head in tonight for the chat, but I will probably steer clear for the most part...could get a little too fanboy for me...

cjv · Post by **cjv** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:09 pm

Out of curiousity, if you don't have the rights to Solar or Magnus, does that mean you can't make reference to something that happened previously if it involved those characters (since in comics making a reference would generally include a graphical representation)?

Chris

DawgPhan · Post by **DawgPhan** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:15 pm

cjv wrote:Out of curiousity, if you don't have the rights to Solar or Magnus, does that mean you can't make reference to something that happened previously if it involved those characters (since in comics making a reference would generally include a graphical representation)?

Chris

I would say no. You could possibly talk about them doing it, but I dont think that you could flashback bloodshot to unity and have a bunch of solar stuff in the book...But I think that bloodshot could say that solar was cool or whatever he wanted about solar...even mentioning his name...just dont think that you could draw him...of course maybe you could change him into something else..

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:21 pm

I don't think there's anything that could stop Taddeo from getting a new Solar and Turok license.

riftt · Post by **riftt** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:47 pm

I agree with Todd Luck and with Dawgphan.

I dont think there is anything wrong with a reboot. How many people are buying New Avengers? The Ultimates line? How many times has X-men been rebooted? And yet Valiant has *never* been properly rebooted. They should have done it at Birthquake, they should have really done it for vh2. Start out fresh, not necessarily with the origins of the characters bnut rather with the mindset of fans meeting them for the first time (which *most* fans - if this works - will be). The events of "Unity" can be referenced in passing in a title if need be but it shouldnt be necessary to have a working knowledge of vh1 to enjoy the new stories.

I would also not make the same mistake of Rai #0 and paint yourself in a corner with all of the future events. Without Magnus there is no need to have a "future" line to start out with.

I agree with Dawgphan in the sense that I should hope after acquiring the rights that Taddeo surrounds himself with smart people and great creative minds to put a plan into action that will sidestep the pitfalls of vh2.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:58 pm

Let's clarify the terminology a little.

A reboot is when a character and his entire back story is eliminated and replaced by a new one.

So if the line were to be rebooted then no, references to Unity or anything else from the previous continuity couldn't be made since those events and that backstory would belong to the previous line.

If anything, the new VALIANT should be like Marvel's constant relaunching and revamping of their series with a new issue 1.

Over the last six years or so, Captain America has had three ongoing titles, but at no time did any new #1 retroactively invalidate what came before, it was solely a marketting strategy.

If Captain America, a 60+ year old character can get constant number 1 but his history is still the same, why can't the 15 year old VALIANT characters get the same treatment?

A reboot isn't necessary to get attention. Good stories will handle that.

People, both fans of original VALIANT and others, are already gonna go into this with preconceptions about what to expect, and new readers won't care either way since they're new (i.e. ignorant of what came before).

Why pay more attention to the new readers, who won't know the different between a new Bloodshot from an old one, and ignore your real core audience, those that were here the first time around?

Look at Grell's Sable and Truman's (urgh, I forget the name, it's a revival he's doing this year), titles that didn't need a reboot and which are much older than the VALIANT properties.

If Grell and Truman can pay attention to their core audience while still telling stories that intent to pick up new readers, why couldn't Taddeo do the same with VALIANT?

If Grell, Truman, and Moore can bring back much older properties than VALIANT without doing reboots, just telling introductory stories, why can't the same be done with VALIANT?

All Taddeo needs to do is reprint the original material to bring everyone up to speed, which is more than what Moore did/is doing with Terra Obscura/Albion (IPC).

Todd Luck · Post by **Todd Luck** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:01 pm

DawgPhan wrote:
cjv wrote:Out of curiousity, if you don't have the rights to Solar or Magnus, does that mean you can't make reference to something that happened previously if it involved those characters (since in comics making a reference would generally include a graphical representation)?

Chris
I would say no. You could possibly talk about them doing it, but I dont think that you could flashback bloodshot to unity and have a bunch of solar stuff in the book...But I think that bloodshot could say that solar was cool or whatever he wanted about solar...even mentioning his name...just dont think that you could draw him...of course maybe you could change him into something else..

Most companies wouldn't even mention the name or show a character in any form that they don't have permission for. Copyright and trademark law is merky at best and 90% of companies like to be safe in this area. Having just taken a class in mass media law I understand where they're coming from. Long drawn out trials and repeated lawsuits will bankrupt small companies. Bigger companies don't want to chance big damage judgements (and juries love to punish).

But it's not as bad as you think. Rai and the Future Force mentioned a story with Predator in it without mentioning the character's name. In the unlikely event they did keep any old continuity I'm sure they could the same for Solar, Magnus, the Lost Land, ect.

Todd Luck · Post by **Todd Luck** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:12 pm

ManofTheAtom wrote: If Grell, Truman, and Moore can bring back much older properties than VALIANT without doing reboots, just telling introductory stories, why can't the same be done with VALIANT?

I'm not familiar with any of those projects but I doubt that any of them had as much #$%& up, lame, and contradictory things done to the characters as what happened with the Valiant characters.

Their lots of characters that "no reboot" works with. Paul Chadwick just continued his Concrete series a few months ago after a long (5+ years, I think) hiatus. But he's the only one that's ever worked on that comic. It's easier when it's a one man band. Sadly Valiant's case is very different.

ManofTheAtom · Post by **ManofTheAtom** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:19 pm

Not really.

It's just a matter of not dwelling on the stupid ideas.

You don't see Brubaker on Captain America dwelling on Steve's time as a comic book artist, for example.

Writers, if they know what they're doing and use the concepts right, can ignore most of the crap that took place when things went wrong at VALIANT.

An XO writer can use the end of XO 68 to explain everything that happened when Marz took over as just a plot initiated by the original owner of Orb, who Jorge Gonzalez introduced an issue before Marz took over.

Really, when you think about it it was right there that XO became way too comic booky and got dragged down into a world of comic booky rules.

A writer with a good enough plot can dismiss all of it as just some virtual reality trap where Aric's been trapped for 14 years, with Malik being revealed to be a systems operator and what Aric experienced in the last arc could have been a system crash of some kind and the Malik he met was the operator going inside and taking on the persona of a wizard (something Aric can understand) to distract Aric while the system is fixed and then put him back on track in a new scenario.

There are countless other explanations that can help fix the mess the VALIANT heroes were left in without having to resort to a cosmic reboot where everything that came before never happened.

It's just a matter of getting writers who are inventive enough and know enough about the concepts to figure out what to do.

A reboot is an action of last resort, when there are no possible fixes to relly on, and VALIANT is no where anywhere near that, not when half-assed, yet credible and viable explanations as the one above are within reach.

riftt · Post by **riftt** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:40 pm

ManofTheAtom wrote:
An XO writer can use the end of XO 68 to explain everything that happened when Marz took over as just a plot initiated by the original owner of Orb, who Jorge Gonzalez introduced an issue before Marz took over.

but what's the point?? What's the point of wasting time trying to explain away events that took place in books no one read? It will only serve as a roadblock to bringing in new fans. Do you really want to remind people of the end of vh1?

cjv · Post by **cjv** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:54 pm

IMO, while it would be great to see the characters we like, I don't think that is absolutely required. I would just like to see the return of the universe - where super power beings aren't a dime a dozen, where alien races don't exist on every other planet, where there aren't multiple universes, where technology is basically at the same level it is here, etc.

That, and a return to the character/plot driven stories, and tight continuity.

Chris