Joshua Dysart’s reboot of Valiant’s popular Harbinger series has a brain, but may lack a heart. But while the book is uneven, I’d still say it’s worth checking out for anyone interested in a smart new take on the grim ‘n gritty anti-hero tropes.
A fairly nondescript cover for a surprisingly dark title.
A year ago, I had never heard of Valiant. I suspect that’s true of plenty of current comic readers. But after a high-profile launch last year that came complete with solid sales and rave reviews, I suspect there are very few regular readers who haven’t heard of Valiant now. With a couple high-profile storylines finally hitting (X-O Manowar’s “Planet Death” and theHarbinger Wars crossover) in the coming weeks, I thought now would be a good time to check out what’s going on with Valiant.
From its broad description – superpowered-but-emotionally-tortured teen on the run is found and mentored by a mysterious but powerful older man – Joshua Dysart’s Harbinger sounded like the most traditional offerings on Valiant’s slate, and while Dysart takes the ‘emotionally tortured’ part of that sentence a little bit more seriously than most modern gritty reboots, I’d say it still qualifies, in the broad strokes, as a fairly typical super-hero story. Collecting the first 5 issues of the series, Harbinger: Omega Rising follows an immature super-powered teen who slowly comes to realize that, say it with me, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
read/RANT! 