Post-Birthquake actually had some great comics

[Ryan]

The idea behind Birthquake was sound. Trim the fat from the Valiant line and re-focus on the most important characters. Get the best creators possible on the books and get back to the consistent high quality that made early Valiant great.

However the first big problem in their execution was that they wouldn't tolerate any short-term pain for a long-term gain. So while they did cut down half the line, they made all the remaining books bi-weekly (twice a month). This meant there would actually be little change to production scale, they would still be producing the same amount of comics per month (18 I think it was).

From a business perspective, this seems like a good idea on the surface. Instead of putting out one high selling Bloodshot and one low selling Secret Weapons a month, you just cancel SW and put those resources into putting out 2 Bloodshots per month.

In reality, it's a bit of a mess as no single team can make comics at that speed. So all of the books get rotating creative teams and eventually a lot of 2 issue arcs that feel like fill-ins. It quickly becomes the opposite of early Valiant; no consistency, no cohesion, no strong guiding vison.

So while acknowledging they don't reflect what made early Valiant great, and BQ ultimately fails at its goals, looking back now there were some really good comics post-BQ comics and in a lot of ways there were some improvements over how stale post-Chaos Effect Valiant had gotten.

Just a few examples off the top of my head-

Turok by Tim Truman is much better when he returns to the Lost Land as BQ begins. Some of the best Turok artwork of all time by Rags Morales. Some fun stories with great artwork by Paul Gulacy. An intriguing subplot with Merlin and a possible second Unity that we never saw before the series was cancelled.

Bloodshot by Breyfogle was awesome art-wise. Vanhook-Chen-Giordano was a great team, and even the Mark Moretti stuff was good fun (I need to re-read those though).

Magnus was better than post-CE. The Giffen-Grey run went off the rails but it was at least interesting at first.

Any others?

[magnusr]

In reality, it's a bit of a mess as no single team can make comics at that speed. So all of the books get rotating creative teams and eventually a lot of 2 issue arcs that feel like fill-ins. It quickly becomes the opposite of early Valiant; no consistency, no cohesion, no strong guiding vison.

This is unfortunately a good summary. I agree there were some great comics and maybe if some things had been different it could have turned out good overall.

/Magnus

[Ryan]

In reality, it's a bit of a mess as no single team can make comics at that speed. So all of the books get rotating creative teams and eventually a lot of 2 issue arcs that feel like fill-ins. It quickly becomes the opposite of early Valiant; no consistency, no cohesion, no strong guiding vison.

This is unfortunately a good summary. I agree there were some great comics and maybe if some things had been different it could have turned out good overall.

/Magnus

Yeah that's the most disappointing part. There are some great books here and there and some of the best art in Vh1. It had the potential to be great and bring Valiant back. If only they would have focused on the writing, developed a really good story then put all the resources into making the 8 books monthly and consistently good with one top creative team.

Bloodshot - Vanhook and Breyfogle
Magnus - Bedard and Chen
Eternal Warrior - Ostrander and Gulacy
Turok - Truman and Rags
Shadowman - Bob Hall with a new top-tier inker (like Bill Sienkiewicz or Klaus Janson)
Ninjak - Abnett and Manley
Solar - Jurgens but written to fit with the other books
X-O - Layton and Sears
extra 9th book - Harbinger - Vanhook and Bernard Chang (replace Visitor)

A year of consistent comics with those creators and written together with a strong creative vision that focused on continuity, realism, real-time progression (like pre-Unity) would have been amazing and maybe put Valiant back on the map. Sales would have grown again. They had all the resources to do that, but just fumbled it again trying to be like Image which makes it all disappointing.

[Ryan]

For those that weren't around for Birthquake or don't remember-

s-l1600.jpg

Not pictured were Magnus which didn't get new creators but merged with Rai and so had some arcs that were more focused on Rai.

And Shadowman that basically continued unchanged from pre-Birthquake with Bob Hall writing and drawing and Tom Ryder on inks.

[ManofTheAtom]

They were some good ones, yeah.

[Ryan]

They were some good ones, yeah.

Any favorites?

[ManofTheAtom]

They were some good ones, yeah.

Any favorites?

None that come to mind on the spot, to be honest.

Shadowman definitely retained the narrative better than the others.

Jurgens ruined Solar for sure, Too Silver Agey.

[The Harbinger]

For those that weren't around for Birthquake or don't remember-

s-l1600.jpg


Not pictured were Magnus which didn't get new creators but merged with Rai and so had some arcs that were more focused on Rai.

And Shadowman that basically continued unchanged from pre-Birthquake with Bob Hall writing and drawing and Tom Ryder on inks.

My username is after this promotional material. I picked that up for free at the comic shop and found the teaser they were using for Visitor (which never made it into the actual comics) able to suck me in to buying the Visitor series, which got me into the other ones.

I also really enjoyed the Brave New World story from Solar, just random how he up and left all the heroes in a terrible situation haha

[Ryan]

They were some good ones, yeah.

Any favorites?

None that come to mind on the spot, to be honest.

Shadowman definitely retained the narrative better than the others.

Jurgens ruined Solar for sure, Too Silver Agey.

Not a Turok fan, eh? I thought the ones with the Campaigner and Lizard Merlin were good and building to something cool.

I've actually never read all those Solars. I liked Jurgens on Sensational Spider-Man though.

What about Bloodshot? Vanhook continues for quite a while and then Moretti. Been planning to re-read those, I still have most of them so I must have liked it back in the 90s.

[Ryan]

For those that weren't around for Birthquake or don't remember-

s-l1600.jpg


Not pictured were Magnus which didn't get new creators but merged with Rai and so had some arcs that were more focused on Rai.

And Shadowman that basically continued unchanged from pre-Birthquake with Bob Hall writing and drawing and Tom Ryder on inks.

My username is after this promotional material. I picked that up for free at the comic shop and found the teaser they were using for Visitor (which never made it into the actual comics) able to suck me in to buying the Visitor series, which got me into the other ones.

I also really enjoyed the Brave New World story from Solar, just random how he up and left all the heroes in a terrible situation haha

That's awesome. The Visitor was a really fun series but I always felt a bit burned by how it ended. I wish they would have done more with The Harbinger. That's what I wish they would have done right after Visitor, The Harbinger ongoing series by Vanhook and Chang focusing on Pete.

[ManofTheAtom]

They were some good ones, yeah.

Any favorites?

None that come to mind on the spot, to be honest.

Shadowman definitely retained the narrative better than the others.

Jurgens ruined Solar for sure, Too Silver Agey.

Not a Turok fan, eh? I thought the ones with the Campaigner and Lizard Merlin were good and building to something cool.

I've actually never read all those Solars. I liked Jurgens on Sensational Spider-Man though.

What about Bloodshot? Vanhook continues for quite a while and then Moretti. Been planning to re-read those, I still have most of them so I must have liked it back in the 90s.

It HAS been a while since I read them, heh.

Yeah, Turok I think was okay, though I'm not a fan of the return of the Lost Land.

VALIANT's Turok was doing dinosaurs in the real world LONG before Jurassic World Fallen Empire. It was a much cooler concept.

I'm not a fan of Proteus, and I think Bloodshot lost the thread fairly early on as a consequence of having to do two issues a month.

[Ryan]

It HAS been a while since I read them, heh.

Yeah, Turok I think was okay, though I'm not a fan of the return of the Lost Land.

VALIANT's Turok was doing dinosaurs in the real world LONG before Jurassic World Fallen Empire. It was a much cooler concept.

I'm not a fan of Proteus, and I think Bloodshot lost the thread fairly early on as a consequence of having to do two issues a month.

Yeah haven't read many of these since picking them up off the rack.

Fair enough, the Proteus stuff definitely pushed Bloodshot into more of an Image/Marvel comic. But it was already tending that way with Rampage.

The Lost Land stuff does get convoluted and contradicts itself at times while contradicting Chaos Effect as well. But to me the Lost Land is integral to Turok and to Valiant, so I liked it.

Shadowman was definitely the most consistent and enjoyable book. Like I said would have been cool to see a better inker that could really help Hall push up the dark vibe like Sienkiewicz. Although looking at it now it looks like only 6 issues of Shadowman came out after Birthquake so it seems they let him keep the monthly schedule.

[ManofTheAtom]

It HAS been a while since I read them, heh.

Yeah, Turok I think was okay, though I'm not a fan of the return of the Lost Land.

VALIANT's Turok was doing dinosaurs in the real world LONG before Jurassic World Fallen Empire. It was a much cooler concept.

I'm not a fan of Proteus, and I think Bloodshot lost the thread fairly early on as a consequence of having to do two issues a month.

Yeah haven't read many of these since picking them up off the rack.

Fair enough, the Proteus stuff definitely pushed Bloodshot into more of an Image/Marvel comic. But it was already tending that way with Rampage.

The Lost Land stuff does get convoluted and contradicts itself at times while contradicting Chaos Effect as well. But to me the Lost Land is integral to Turok and to Valiant, so I liked it.

Shadowman was definitely the most consistent and enjoyable book. Like I said would have been cool to see a better inker that could really help Hall push up the dark vibe like Sienkiewicz. Although looking at it now it looks like only 6 issues of Shadowman came out after Birthquake so it looks like they let him keep the monthly schedule.

Indeed.

[TheFerg714]

I just read all of post-CE Solar, and it wasn't... terrible? The idea of Solar going off and creating his own superhero universe is neat, but the super-team he created was boring, and the designs were lame. Plus, it just felt so disconnected from the mainline universe, which is strange because Acclaim was right around the corner.

[Ryan]

I just read all of post-CE Solar, and it wasn't... terrible? The idea of Solar going off and creating his own superhero universe is neat, but the super-team he created was boring, and the designs were lame. Plus, it just felt so disconnected from the mainline universe, which is strange because Acclaim was right around the corner.

Yeah that was another bad thing about Birthquake, the books lost any sense of connection to each other.

[ManofTheAtom]

I just read all of post-CE Solar, and it wasn't... terrible? The idea of Solar going off and creating his own superhero universe is neat, but the super-team he created was boring, and the designs were lame. Plus, it just felt so disconnected from the mainline universe, which is strange because Acclaim was right around the corner.

Indeed.

VH 2 is pretty much an extension of what Solar did in the Jurgens run.