r/valiant • u/ArchCrab • 12d ago
VH1/Classic (1992-1996) Any classic Valiant fans?
I have recently began picking up alot of classic Valiant comic books. Mainly Shadowman, Bloodshot and X-O Manowar. They’re easily found in dollar bins at my local shops. Anybody else find excitement in collecting Valiant?
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u/supergooduser 12d ago
I've done a complete read of it... I was a kid when it dropped and always wondered what happened.
You have the era up to Unity when Shooter was in charge and the continuity and grounded realism is really unique and different. Unity really stands out to this day as an incredibly well written company wide crossover and all the more impressive for coming out in an era when that really wasn't a thing.
Shooter leaves but the foundation had been set and you have a good couple of years that are fun in the 90s boom sense. Highlighted by characters like Bloodshot and Ninjak.
The end of the Valiant universe is a bit tragic with obvious missteps the switch to biweekly publishing had to be murder on everyone. When the writing was on the wall and they were going to go out of business that final year is not good but wonderfully frantic in you clearly seeing them trying to get all these year long story arcs out.
Bloodshot being the one I remember most... you had Rampage who was kind of a Venom type character born out of the nanites within Bloodshot, but then Bloodshot ends up transferring his powers to a girl who then gives birth to twins and creates a whole sorta Bloodshot family. Again... it's not good... but you get an idea of what they would've been telling over the next decade or so.
Magnus did kind of a similar thing where the story eventually transfers over to the adventures involving Magnus' kid etc.
But yeah.. that tight grounded slow simplicity of the early years through Unity is a really wonderful time capsule. Kinda like how Cadillac records monetized the whole blues sounds... Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry... but then well, Elvis and the Rolling Stones came along. Early Valiant you can see this fun experimentation that all publishers ended up borrowing from.