Hello.
Moderators: Daniel Jackson, greg
-
Destro777
- Working on the first full appearance of me
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:17 am
- Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Hello.
Hello.
Let me first begin by thanking the creators and contributors to this website. Its seems its said a lot by first time posters, but I’ve been lurking these pages for a few years now and the information here has been invaluable. Thank you!
I apologize in advance if this is too long but I figure what the heck…
My Valiant story:
My first memories of Valiant were in the early days when it was covered by Wizard and those first limited issues were all the rage (Harbinger, zero issues, Pink covers, and gold text). I was in middle school at the time. Im pretty sure my first actual Valiant issues I owned were Bloodshot #1, Hard Corps #1, and Turok #1 along with the random higher numbered X-O.
Those earlier Pre-Unity comics seemed too expensive and so far out of reach for a young teenager. From what little Valiant I read of what I had, things seemed pretty hard to follow missing the origin stories. Basically I felt lost. Also, I was so caught up in the fuss of early Image comics at the time that Im sad to say I overlooked Valiant. It seems so stupid looking back but for some reason in my school and among my friends it was actually deemed un-cool to like Valiant. As a kid looking at a Valiant comic, part of me said it looked too old fashioned in the colors and drawings, but another part of me said this looks entirely unique and the characters sure are different – plus those Valiants I had were surprisingly dang violent! That’s gotta earn some cool points right there. I guess I filed those good memories away to when I was finally able to afford and have the means to track down those books…
In the mid to late 90s I dropped reading comics altogether – a story all too familiar with the comic industry of that time. I got back into the scene 2003ish when Grant Morrison was on New X-Men – loved every second of that and tracked down all his past works. That stuff was unlike anything ive ever read or seen before in any medium. These were exactly what I was looking for. Highly original, high concept, and took risks. I re-discovered my love for comics.
Around that same time, every few months I ran into and bought some of the early Valiant Tradepaper backs and single issues (X-O, Harbinger, Rai, Eternal Warrior #1, and Solar: Second Death). There was a lot of nostalgia for me in the art styles – I remember seeing those covers and images in the old Wizard articles. I thought, maybe its time to finally give these books a read – finally learn what these characters are all. Its been a long wait.
To be honest I wasn’t expecting too much. I was expecting something somewhat dated, like trying to go back to early Clarmont X-Men for the 1st time. Boy was I wrong. So I crack open the X-O trade, read issue 1 – and I was blown away. 100% blown away. Issue 2 – even more so. Those were 2 of the all-time best comics I’ve even read/seen in my life, right off the bat. Surely they cant all be this good? I move on to Eternal Warrior next. Unbelievable. I move on to the Harbinger trade next. Ditto. Solar trade. Holy *SQUEE*. It was like watching the original Star Wars films for the first time – but 15 years late. Man this Shooter guy really can tell some good stories. Everything I said I loved about Morrison’s work was present here – but in different ways. Valiant was and still is, to this day, very unique. The artwork that I thought looked too old fashioned as a kid – I now had a newfound appreciation and admiration for. I’m not sure what I or most others ever saw in half of that Image comics dreck of the same time frame in hindsight. The coloring to me is part of what makes Valiant, Valiant (something that’s missing from the hardcovers – but ill save that for another time). Maybe it was finally time I tracked down those original Valiants…
So finally after a couple years of setbacks, I’ve always wanted to build up my earlier and eventually complete VU1 collection. Now is finally the time. I just recently nearly completed my Pre-Unity/Unity collection - and am now reading most of this stuff for the first time (mainly the Magnus, Solar, Shadowman, Unity event, and post-trade Harbinger stuff). In fact, I just read Magnus 1-4 for my first time in July 2009. An amazing piece of work top to bottom. Its not everyday you can escape reality for a few moments and truly jump back into your childhood past memories, but for the first time. I’m taking my time and soaking it all up.
I read it a lot of these forums - but these issues truly do have a magic to them. There is so much depth and originality, and most important, re-readability here that makes everything so worthwhile, and in my case, worth the wait. I will be reading these over and over for years. There is so much content packed into each issue – every Magnus I’m getting a good 20-30 minutes of reading time compared to the 5 minute reads of today. In Harbinger, you are thrust into so many locations in a single issue it truly feels like an adventure. Both of these elements have damn near disappeared in modern books. They just don’t make’em like these.
It just saddens me that the best of Valiant had to end so soon – as you could tell these gals and guys had every ounce of their hearts into these early issues looking to truly stand up and go beyond the other “Big two”. With the original creators getting up there in years – I hope they can work something out and return to make Valiant what it has always deserved to be.
Thanks for reading.
Let me first begin by thanking the creators and contributors to this website. Its seems its said a lot by first time posters, but I’ve been lurking these pages for a few years now and the information here has been invaluable. Thank you!
I apologize in advance if this is too long but I figure what the heck…
My Valiant story:
My first memories of Valiant were in the early days when it was covered by Wizard and those first limited issues were all the rage (Harbinger, zero issues, Pink covers, and gold text). I was in middle school at the time. Im pretty sure my first actual Valiant issues I owned were Bloodshot #1, Hard Corps #1, and Turok #1 along with the random higher numbered X-O.
Those earlier Pre-Unity comics seemed too expensive and so far out of reach for a young teenager. From what little Valiant I read of what I had, things seemed pretty hard to follow missing the origin stories. Basically I felt lost. Also, I was so caught up in the fuss of early Image comics at the time that Im sad to say I overlooked Valiant. It seems so stupid looking back but for some reason in my school and among my friends it was actually deemed un-cool to like Valiant. As a kid looking at a Valiant comic, part of me said it looked too old fashioned in the colors and drawings, but another part of me said this looks entirely unique and the characters sure are different – plus those Valiants I had were surprisingly dang violent! That’s gotta earn some cool points right there. I guess I filed those good memories away to when I was finally able to afford and have the means to track down those books…
In the mid to late 90s I dropped reading comics altogether – a story all too familiar with the comic industry of that time. I got back into the scene 2003ish when Grant Morrison was on New X-Men – loved every second of that and tracked down all his past works. That stuff was unlike anything ive ever read or seen before in any medium. These were exactly what I was looking for. Highly original, high concept, and took risks. I re-discovered my love for comics.
Around that same time, every few months I ran into and bought some of the early Valiant Tradepaper backs and single issues (X-O, Harbinger, Rai, Eternal Warrior #1, and Solar: Second Death). There was a lot of nostalgia for me in the art styles – I remember seeing those covers and images in the old Wizard articles. I thought, maybe its time to finally give these books a read – finally learn what these characters are all. Its been a long wait.
To be honest I wasn’t expecting too much. I was expecting something somewhat dated, like trying to go back to early Clarmont X-Men for the 1st time. Boy was I wrong. So I crack open the X-O trade, read issue 1 – and I was blown away. 100% blown away. Issue 2 – even more so. Those were 2 of the all-time best comics I’ve even read/seen in my life, right off the bat. Surely they cant all be this good? I move on to Eternal Warrior next. Unbelievable. I move on to the Harbinger trade next. Ditto. Solar trade. Holy *SQUEE*. It was like watching the original Star Wars films for the first time – but 15 years late. Man this Shooter guy really can tell some good stories. Everything I said I loved about Morrison’s work was present here – but in different ways. Valiant was and still is, to this day, very unique. The artwork that I thought looked too old fashioned as a kid – I now had a newfound appreciation and admiration for. I’m not sure what I or most others ever saw in half of that Image comics dreck of the same time frame in hindsight. The coloring to me is part of what makes Valiant, Valiant (something that’s missing from the hardcovers – but ill save that for another time). Maybe it was finally time I tracked down those original Valiants…
So finally after a couple years of setbacks, I’ve always wanted to build up my earlier and eventually complete VU1 collection. Now is finally the time. I just recently nearly completed my Pre-Unity/Unity collection - and am now reading most of this stuff for the first time (mainly the Magnus, Solar, Shadowman, Unity event, and post-trade Harbinger stuff). In fact, I just read Magnus 1-4 for my first time in July 2009. An amazing piece of work top to bottom. Its not everyday you can escape reality for a few moments and truly jump back into your childhood past memories, but for the first time. I’m taking my time and soaking it all up.
I read it a lot of these forums - but these issues truly do have a magic to them. There is so much depth and originality, and most important, re-readability here that makes everything so worthwhile, and in my case, worth the wait. I will be reading these over and over for years. There is so much content packed into each issue – every Magnus I’m getting a good 20-30 minutes of reading time compared to the 5 minute reads of today. In Harbinger, you are thrust into so many locations in a single issue it truly feels like an adventure. Both of these elements have damn near disappeared in modern books. They just don’t make’em like these.
It just saddens me that the best of Valiant had to end so soon – as you could tell these gals and guys had every ounce of their hearts into these early issues looking to truly stand up and go beyond the other “Big two”. With the original creators getting up there in years – I hope they can work something out and return to make Valiant what it has always deserved to be.
Thanks for reading.
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comicsyte95
- It's Porktastic!!!
- Posts: 9572
- Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:30 pm
- Location: somewhere in the valiant universe
Welcome!Glad you started reading Valiant! 
To this day i still can't see what the big fuss was about image in its day.The artwork wasn't that good(Liefeld)and the storylines didn't make any impressions to me of being anything but rubbish.Well enough about that.
Well good luck on getting your collection more complete,and hope you enjoy the rest of Valiant!
To this day i still can't see what the big fuss was about image in its day.The artwork wasn't that good(Liefeld)and the storylines didn't make any impressions to me of being anything but rubbish.Well enough about that.
Well good luck on getting your collection more complete,and hope you enjoy the rest of Valiant!
Last edited by comicsyte95 on Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Daniel Jackson
- A toast to the return of Valiant!
- Posts: 38007
- Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:33 pm
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JustCallMeAric
- ...remember that they are just paper.
- Posts: 3681
- Joined: Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:30 pm
- Location: Where the Wild Things are
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96Valiantfan
- You gotta have Faith!
- Posts: 817
- Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:06 am
- Location: Waterbury CT.
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Draco
- Well I think I talked enough poop...
- Posts: 10178
- Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:44 pm
- Valiant fan since: preordered vh1 from start
- Favorite character: X-O from vh1
- Favorite title: X-O vh1
- Favorite writer: Good question?
- Favorite artist: ooooh another good question
- Location: Dead Universe Comics, Buckinghamshire, England
Welcome to the Madhouse.
Just thor.
Just thor.
I trade as Dead Universe Comics in the UK, which is no surprise to those who know of my legendary Dead Universe habit.
140 boxes and counting !!!
Follow us on facebook
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140 boxes and counting !!!
Follow us on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dead-Uni ... 1695270458" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Lightning Strike
- Silent from '04 to '07, then he strikes!
- Posts: 8008
- Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2004 9:58 pm
- Location: Physically: USA---Spiritually: Ireland
Re: Hello.
welcome
-
Rufusharley
- donkey-shorts!..uhh i mean..danke schön!
- Posts: 6431
- Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:49 am
- Location: Charleston, SC