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Alex Jones examines Gilad's "new Status Quo."

Robert Venditti, the first writer to ever grace the 2012 relaunch of the Valiant Universe with his writing talent is taking on a publishing icon in the upcoming ongoing series from Valiant entitled Wrath of the Eternal Warrior. The comic spins out of the Valiant’s newest event called Book of Death. The author is set to explore the life […]

Writer: Robert Venditti Artists: Robert Gill  Doug Braithwaite Colors: David Baron Allen Passalaqua Brian Reber Letters: Dave Lanphear Convinced the unnatural disasters tearing our world apart are a direct result of the new Geomancer’s arrival, the combined forces of the Valiant Universe are forced to confront the Eternal Warrior about his new charge. But to […]

With the immanent release of Valiant’s Book of Death crossover story this week and the announcement of the Wrath of the Eternal Warrior series set for November, author Robert Venditti is one of the busiest writers in comics (not to mention that he’s also cooking multiple titles in the DC Universe). The Eternal Warrior, one of Valiant’s strongest and most weathered characters in the publishing slate is set to star in the latter series. Venditti initially chose between X-O Manowar and The Eternal Warrior to get ready to launch the Valiant Universe way back in 2012’s Summer of Valiant, but now the author has the opportunity to go back and chronicle the ongoing adventures of The Eternal Warrior. The hero is a key piece of Valiant at the center of Unity, the publisher’s premiere superteam, he is also the protector of the Geomancer — another important player in the landscape of the Valiant world. The Beat sat down with Venditti to get briefed on our mission assignment with Wrath of the Eternal Warrior and to congratulate the author on the first completed issue of Book of Death.

How are you feeling now that the first installment of Book of Death is in the can?

The whole thing isn’t done, I’m still working on the last issue of it. The comic has been a lot of fun to work on. It’s definitely unlike any story I have ever done before, not just in terms of characters, but also the content. It has much more of a horror bend to it than anything I have done, which is part of the reason why I wanted take on the project. With everything that I take on, I try and do something different than what I have done before, so hopefully I am always growing and challenging myself. It’s just been a lot of fun because there are a lot of surprises coming up in the story. The nature of the event has allowed me to introduce a lot of concepts into the Valiant Universe and show a lot of characters from the previous Valiant Universe for the first time. You don’t get opportunities to do that kind of stuff too often.

Does it excite you to have the opportunity to reintroduce concepts from the last Valiant incarnation in Book of Death?

To me, the great fun of working in a shared Universe with Valiant or DC is the idea that you can sort of become part of the tapestry because there is a line of writers that will come before you and a line of writers that will come after you. You know the extent to which you could contribute to it — it’s kinda like bringing some toys to the party and leaving some of the toys in the toybox so somebody else can play with them later. No matter what happens, I will have always put those toys in the box, and in some senses you are leaving a legacy behind.

I heard you mention that you initially pitched an Eternal Warrior series to Valiant in 2012. Did you take any sort of plot threads or pieces that you had and weave them back into the new story you were telling?

I didn’t actually pitch Eternal Warrior, what you probably heard is that when Valiant reached out to me about pitching for their characters back in 2011, they sent me Bibles on all the main characters. The two that appealed to me were X-O Manowar and The Eternal Warrior. I could only pitch on one, but have always wanted to pitch on The Eternal Warrior. I never put anything down on paper, but he’s certainly someone that I have thought a lot about. He showed up briefly in X-O Manowar for a couple of issues and I wrote him a little bit in Armor Hunters. This is something that I have been talking to Valiant about for a really long time. A lot of that stuff is definitely making it into Wrath of the Eternal Warrior series.

Can you talk about what the series will be comprised of tonally?

Gilad the Eternal Warrior is immortal. This is going to be a different take on that concept. The series is about what he has to endure and what he has to sacrifice in order to be immortal. I think that we live in what can be a lot of times a really pessimistic world, but I don’t think Gilad would get out of the grave and fight for us if he didn’t believe that we were inherently good and worth fighting for. If he thought that the world was inherently evil, he would just stay dead and let us all fall to our own devices. What appeals to me about him is despite the millennia that he’s been alive, and despite the things that he’s seen, he still remains an eternal optimist in some ways — which I find fascinating.

It’s the romance of the character that you are drawn into in that sense?

That’s certainly one aspect of it. I also love the aspect that because of his age, he hasn’t read about history. He’s lived it…you know. That sets him apart from the rest of the Valiant Universe, just the way that he views the world is different from everybody else. One example of that that I always use is his axe. A lot of people would say he’s supposed to be a master tactician and he’s a great warrior, why would he carry around something primitive like an axe? That’s because to us an axe is just a blade and just a weapon. To him, seeing what the axe is capable of, it’s an extremely versatile tool. He can turn it over and use the heel as a hammer, he can heat the blade in a campfire and fry an egg on it, he can polish it and use it as a signal mirror, he can use it to chop down trees and make shelter. There’s all these uses and even the way he fights with it. He uses not just the blade, but the sharp edge, the curve of the blade and the heel. Whereas today, we think the gun is the more obvious choice because we know that the gun can shoot a bullet, but that’s all it’s gonna do for you — you’re not going to build a shelter with a gun!

Would you say that with Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, you’re utilizing some of those more wild elements of the character and weaving them back into the hero’s mythos in a more practical way?  The axe, for example.

Yeah, I would say that there are things we would perceive from our modern view and certainly the rest of the Valiant Universe as something that would be primitive or wild, but for him they are actually extremely cultured. That’s the inversion that makes it so interesting, we might think that he’s primitive, but really that’s because we are too primitive to discover how cultured he actually is.

This might be a sort of heady question, but in a lot of ways, The Eternal Warrior is in the middle of the Valiant Universe whether it be Unity, that tie to X-O (Manowar) and the role in protecting the Geomancer. I was wondering how you balanced this really connected character of the Valiant Universe within your series that is also nestled in the scope of a shared Universe?

Yeah, I think that those are different books and that those are different roles. I don’t know…in a way it would just make sense in whom it would be. It’s his mission to be at the center of everything, and that’s why he gets down out of the grave and he keeps doing what he does, because he’s at the center of things. It would be a harder book to write convincingly to have him be someone who wasn’t in the middle of everything, because why else would he do what he does? It’s just part of his DNA.

We saw The Eternal Warrior: Days of Steel mini, and we saw the Greg Pak (The Eternal Warrior) series. Have you sort of studied those elements and took the lens of that and sort of applied it to your upcoming book?

I have certainly read all that stuff, as well as the original Valiant run on the character as well. Much like X-O, we are really building on those things, trying to do it in a way that’s really different for the reader so it doesn’t seem like it’s anything that they haven’t seen before. He’s still gonna stay true to who his roots are as a concept — it’s going be a completely different take on those things.

Can you tease some thematic elements of how Book of Death is going to segue into the series?

That’s a tough one, that gets a little spoilery. Book of Death definitely sets up a lot of what we are going to be doing in Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, but Book of Death is completely self contained. If you pick up Wrath of the Eternal Warrior you can see how the foundation was laid in Book of Death, but it’s not going be a requirement to read Wrath of the Eternal Warrior.

Raul Allen has been making a splash in the Valiant world. What is it like for you to have the opportunity to work with him on Wrath of the Eternal Warrior?

Is there a way for you to communicate my smile? (Robert Venditti smiles.) I am super excited about it, he is a really talented guy. My first interaction with his work was when he was doing the covers for X-O Manowar, you just immediately see how he’s such an outside the box thinker. Not in a way that’s complex or alienating, but in a way that’s wholly unique.

Aric and Gilad had a really interesting relationship stemming out of the fight between the two characters in the pages of X-O Manowar. I really thought that in Unity, we saw the relationship go full circle, I don’t know if you are writing the two heroes in Book of Death, or if you are covering how the relationship has changed overtime?

They have a long history with each other. Aric didn’t know Gilad was The Eternal Warrior. Gilad was his mentor in a lot of ways when he was a child. He taught him how to fight with a sword, and was sort of a male role model for him as a Visigoth. At the surface, I think what people will find similar with them is that they have a man out of time aspect. They are actually polar opposites. Aric was actually someone who freed himself from the captivity of the Vine, the alien race that took him, then he came back to Earth from the modern day. Gilad has lived every single day. Aric has no constant in ethics and culture, while Gilad has witnessed all of that. So that’s obviously a big strain on their relationship in the modern day. There’s also a deep bond between them– a mentor and student bond. They have known each other and can relate to each other in ways that nobody on else can. They can become very antagonistic with each other as well — which I think is true of a lot of really deep friendships or brotherly bonds or things like that. They are inextricably bound to each other.

Correct me if I am wrong, but these are all thematic elements that are going to be covered in Book of Death?

Yes, a lot of what I was just discussing is going to be in the second issue in Book of Death #2. They are also things covered in X-O Manowar and in Wrath of the Eternal Warrior as well.

Book of Death #1 is on sale this Wednesday and Wrath of the Eternal Warrior #1 is launching in November at your local comic book shop.

BOOK OF DEATH #1 (of 4)
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI
Art by ROBERT GILL & DOUG BRAITHWAITE
Cover A by ROBERT GILL (MAY151586)
Cover B by CARY NORD (MAY151587)
Cover C by CLAYTON CRAIN (MAY151588)
Cover D by JELENA KEVIC-DJURDJEVIC (MAY151589)
Character Design Variant by PAOLO RIVERA (MAY151591)
Valiant Icons Variant by PERE PEREZ (MAY151592)
Artist Variant by PAOLO RIVERA (MAY151593)
Blank Cover also available (MAY151590)

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.”

The Valiant heroes. X-O Manowar. Bloodshot. Ninjak. The Harbinger Renegades. Unity. This is how they lived. This is how they died.

Now we know. The Book of the Geomancer has recorded it all. But only a young girl – the last in a line of the enigmatic mystics who protect the Earth known as Geomancers – has seen this future come to pass, from the coming cataclysm to the dawn of the 41st century. Alone with her sworn protector, the Eternal Warrior – a soldier battle-forged across five thousand years of combat – the duo must defy their allies to stop the Dark Age that now threatens to eclipse our world.

Together, they are the number one target of every hero and villain on Earth. Either the Eternal Warrior hands her over…or they take him down. But can even he single-handedly protect one child when the entire Valiant Universe wages war against him?

The blockbuster Valiant event of 2015 starts here as New York Times best-selling writer Robert Venditti (X-O MANOWAR) joins superstar-in-the-making Robert Gill (ARMOR HUNTERS: HARBINGER) and visionary artist Doug Braithwaite (ARMOR HUNTERS) to begin a thousand-year journey into the future of the Valiant Universe…and rain, fire, blood and war on the heroes of today.

$3.99 | 40 pages | T+ | On sale JULY 15

WRATH OF THE ETERNAL WARRIOR #1
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI
Art by RAUL ALLEN
Wraparound Cover by DAVID LAFUENTE
$3.99 | 32 pgs. | T+ | ONGOING SERIES | ON SALE IN NOVEMBER!

X-O Manowar has been an instrument of war over the past 30+ issues that has seen Aric of Dacia dismember and kill others with the X-O suit of armor. Then, he started to change. As a king of his Visigoth people that are once again reunited — Aric was thrust into a survival role, and is now constantly attempting to keep the fighting away from his home in the Valiant Universe. The upcoming X-O Manowar storyline entitled ‘Exodus’ stays in that same tradition, as the tale see’s Aric attempting to once again keep the peace. When the Vine and one of Aric’s old enemies come back to Earth, he’s going to have his hands full over the next couple of issues. The creative team on Exodus features none-other-than Robert Venditti alongside the excellent Rafa Sandoval, formerly of DC Comics, now a Valiant exclusive.

X-O Manowar spent so much of his life fighting the Vine and now he must be their champion – how will Earth react, said editor Valiant Editor Tom Brennan. Or his fellow survivors of Vine enslavement for that matter? We’re going to answer those questions and more, and Rafa Sandoval’s ability to brilliantly blend character drama and widescreen action is the perfect compliment to Rob’s story of what it truly means to be a hero.

X-O MANOWAR #39 (NEW ARC! “EXODUS” – PART 1)

Written by ROBERT VENDITTI

Art by RAFA SANDOVAL

Cover A by RAFA SANDOVAL (MAY151599)

Cover B by ROBERT GILL (MAY151600)

Variant Cover by CAFU

Variant Cover by BRENT PEEPLES

$3.99 | 32 pages | T+ | On sale AUGUST 12 (FOC – 7/20/15)

The issue comes right after X-O Manowar #38, which is Aric’s big wedding issue that also features a cadre of excellent artists and writers.

X-O MANOWAR #38 (WEDDING SPECTACULAR!)

Written by ROBERT VENDITTI with AMY CHU, ANDY RUNTON, and RAFER ROBERTS

Art by RAFA SANDOVAL with CLAYTON HENRY, CAFU, ANDY RUNTON, and RAFER ROBERTS

Cover A (Wraparound) by RAFA SANDOVAL (MAY151599)

Cover B by CARY NORD (MAY151600)

Cover C by CAFU (MAY151601)

Variant Cover by JAY FABARES (MAY151603)

Variant Cover by TOM FOWLER ((MAY151604)

Blank Invitation Variant Also Available (MAY151602)

$4.99 |48 pgs.| T+ | On sale JULY 1 (FOC 6/8/15)

The Valiant, Valiant’s own massive event series shifted everything in the publisher’s shared universe around to bring forth a new era in the history of the company. Now the publisher is trying to evoke a new direction for the Valiant Universe via the Book of Death. This title is the next big Valiant event crafted by the first author to ever create material in the 2012 relaunch of Valiant: Robert Venditti, who’s working alongside illustrators Doug Braithwaite and Robert Gill. Here, the author is set to take on more characters, concepts, and ideas than ever before (almost every character from the new Valiant world was featured on that previous teaser poster seen below!) We sat down with Robert Venditti to pick his brain about the upcoming event before the first issue goes on sale.

Here’s a SPOILER warning for The Valiant before we dive into our conversation below:

Comics Beat: Can you give fans a primer for the Book of Death in the wake of The Valiant?

Robert Venditti: Yes, the Book of Death is about the new Geomancer, Tama, who we met at the end of The Valiant. Tama is a Geomancer that has come back from the the present. She is a young child, Tama was sent back by Gilad: the Eternal Warrior. He’s meeting her for the first time. He knows she’s a Geomancer, but he doesn’t know her on any personal level. Meanwhile all these things are going on in the Valiant Universe that I am almost hesitant to describe as natural disasters because they are far more horrific than that, but they are driven by nature and the environment. Gilad and Tama are wondering why now? What is the cause of it? Is the Earth acting out? What is the story? Meanwhile, Unity is wondering on some level if Tama is going to be causing this voluntary, or involuntary, or if she maybe the key to stopping it all. They want it back but Gilad doesn’t trust all of them because Geomancers have been killed before, most recently Kay McHenry in The Valiant. It’s his responsibility to protect Tama and find a solution for the problem.

I’m almost curious structurally if this story is almost the inverse of The Valiant, with the Geomancer character dying at the beginning — it seems as if Gilad has a completely different perspective now?

I think perspective is a great way of looking at it — perspective is what’s driving the entire story. You know, Gilad is someone who has been around for ten thousand years. He’s seen dark ages come and go — he’s seen all manner of things. He’s viewing the current events though this very long-term perspective that he has in the background of history, and of the planet, and of the Geomancers. Where the rest of the Valiant Universe is looking at this through the normal lifespan of the short-term perspective — I think the difference of those two perspectives is at the heart of the conflict. Whether you look at things from sort of a long term or short term point of view. In terms of picking up from The Valiant, or how it’s structured differently, I guess on some level The Valiant was the end of the relationship with Gilad and the Geomancer being Kay McHenry who we see dead at the end of that series. Spoilers! (Laughs.)

This is more the beginning of the relationship between Gilad and Tama, so I would say that they are opposites in that regard.

Can you elaborate on the themes and concepts of death in the Book of Death?

Let me think about that for a minute, I don’t want to give anything away! With the concept of death and the natural course of life, you might want to call it the circle of life? Obviously, death, life, and rebirth are the kinds of things that we have established with Kay McHenry dying at the end of The Valiant. Now you have a new child Geomancer, in terms of how nature is acting out the specific force that Gilad and Tama are fighting adjacent are all heavy themes that are playing into it. These are all themes that are much larger in how it plays a role in the event with some of the tie-in stories we are going to see. We’re going to see a lot of what the future of the Valiant Universe holds and births of characters. There’s going to be a lot of new concept and old concepts. There is also going to be a ton of content in every single issue, this is the most content heavy story that I have ever written.

How does the concept of death work in this shared Universe that Valiant has established?

In terms of the Valiant Universe as far as the DNA that the company was built on, you know there’s a maxim that goes back to the old the original 90’s incarnation of the Valiant Universe that dead means dead. That means when a character dies in the Valiant Universe, that means a character is dead. In that regard, Valiant is sort of a pioneer in that storytelling approach.

“That means when a character dies in the Valiant Universe, that means a character is dead.”

With all the characters featured on the teaser with Robert Gill, is it safe to assume that there is going to be a very large roster of characters in this event?

Oh man, I cannot even…I honestly don’t even know the amount of characters that are going to be in this event. You’re going to have all the characters that readers want to see, you’re going to have X-O and Eternal Warrior, and all these characters that readers are already familiar with. Their will be a ton of ‘new’ characters ‘new’ ideas, as well as a lot of mystery surrounding these ‘new’ things. We’re hoping to whet the appetite of the readers and give them that perfect balance of everything that they know and are familiar with. We want to give them a lot of new things to really peak their interest — and want to read Valiant books for a long time to come. Soon, they can see how those concepts and characters play out in future stories.

Hopefully this is another question that isn’t too spoilery, but along with some of those new concepts can we expect to be returning from the previous Universe that we haven’t seen yet.

Yes, (laughs.)

Yes, that’s all I want to know on that topic.

I also was wondering if you could elaborate on the inception of the event and how it came to be. For instance, did the creative team plan this story immediately following The Valiant?

It’s something that has been in the works for a very long time. Eternal Warrior is a character that has always been very interesting to me back in the original pitch phase, when Valiant first approached me about writing for the company with the two characters. I had to decide if I was going to put all my energy in writing a pitch for between Eternal Warrior and X-O. I chose X-O just because I felt that he was so unique, that blend of sci-fi, history, Visigoths, aliens and all this kind of stuff. I have always had an affinity for Gilad, and always wanted to write him. I got a chance to do him for a couple of issues in X-O, which are some of favorite issues that I have written. He’s a character that I have talked about for a really long time and always wanted to do a story with him. A lot of this has been in the works for a while. Now in terms of how it dovetailed in the end of The Valiant, that certainly informed the story and made it feel like the right time to turn this story in place. So it isn’t like Jeff and Matt were working for anything that I did, they totally came up with The Valiant on their own, but it seemed like a nice springboard to tell this story with Eternal Warrior in the lead.

I was also smitten with the idea of you sort of kicking off the Valiant Universe with X-O Manowar #1, and wondered if there was any correlation with Book of Death: The Fall of X-O Manowar #1 being the last tie-in issue to launch in October.

It’s not coincidence necessarily — I’m the current writer of X-O — it was my title to do in the same way that Jeff Lemire is writing Bloodshot, (Joshua) Dysart will be writing Harbinger, and (Matt) Kindt will be writing Ninjak. They are the writers of those titles. Those (Book of Death) tie-in issues are additional titles, so there will be a regular issue of X-O Manowar that will also launch that month in addition to ‘The Fall of’ issues for each of the characters. They are not replacing the issues that are regularly shipping in that month, they are additional content on top of that, but I think it’s more of a matter of the current writers on those characters handling these issues as opposed to: I wrote the very first issue of the Valiant Universe, and I’m going to murder the Valiant Universe (laughs.) I don’t think I’m the alpha and omega or anything along those lines.

I really take a lot of pride in the fact that by the time that October issue comes out, I will probably be on X-O Manowar #42 or #43 at that point. When I took this book, I didn’t know how long I would be on it. I hoped it would be a year, I really hoped it would be for two years. Now I’m going on four, and that’s a really long run for something that is my first monthly series. It could very easily be someone else writing the X-O Manowar tie-in issue.

*It was brought to our attention during the interview that Robert Venditti has written more issues of X-O Manowar more than any other writer in the history of Valiant.*

That’s incredible and with the shape of the market the way it is, it’s great for you to be able to really sink your teeth into a character like that.

It’s always a push and pull, you always want to make sure that you have long term plans with your character, but that you have more short term planning — because you don’t know if you are going to be around for the long term plans. This is the first monthly series I ever took on, so it’s almost like beginners luck or I got spoiled. This being my first experience, I feel very fortunate about it.

Can you compare the differences and similarities with working with both Doug Braithwaite and Robert Gill on the series?

This is my first time working with Robert Gill. In terms of similarities, they are both great professionals, they are both great collaborators. They are the kind of people that have a lot of great ideas, and are both excellent storytellers. I trust both of them implicitly. I trust them to deviate from my scripts where they see fit. I rely on them and know whatever they come up with will be an improvement upon how the page is layed out or any of those things. In terms of differences, I don’t know. Robert just has such a great grounded grittier down-in-the-mud style that is great for this horror type story than what we are doing. It’s much different than Armor Hunters, which had a cosmic-type background, and space settings, and giant robots and aliens — it was much more science fiction fantastical if you will. Gill is really able to dig all around that, with things like the emotions of characters. Doug is amazing at design. A lot of stuff that he is doing is similar to what he drew in Armor Hunters, but in Book of Death he’s working with some of the designs for the new concepts that we were talking about. He’s also an amazing storyteller, and he’s great with emotions. He turned in a double-page spread with Eternal Warrior upfront and with the expression on the Eternal Warrior’s face, you can feel the 10,000 years Gilad has fought through. I really feel super fortunate to work with the people from Valiant.

You hinted at a new status quota shift for Unity before, but could you tease anything else about the new developments for the team?

That’s really one of the central concepts of the story, it’s Gilad against the Valiant Universe. He’s one of the founding members against the team. If you go back to X-O Manowar in the ‘Homecoming’ arc, he’s actually the one that tried to talk to Aric in order to speak reason. The result of that conversation is what actually led to Unity in some ways. In some aspects, he even predates the Unity team. He’s been there for a very long time. It’s not a casual decision to break from that team and go off on his own direction. As much as he has friends and has fought alongside of the other Unity members — they still have a job to do. They still have other things that they have to consider beyond their friendship. It is a status quota change — and it’s nothing that anybody looks forward to with the possible exception of Ninjak. It’s a different mindset for all of them.

Would it be safe to assume that the relationship between Ninjak and the Eternal Warrior might have a special bond within the pages of Unity?

They certainly have spent a lot of time together in the Unity series. They have what Ninjak would classify with as a friendship — which is more like: we’re on the same side until we’re not anymore. That is how I sort of look at their relationship. Matt Kindt is really developing that a lot more than I have.

With Eternal Warrior going ‘rogue’ per see, could that effectively compromise their close relationship?

Oh, absolutely, we are going to see that for sure.

Thanks to Robert Venditti and Valiant for letting me to interrogate their team for 30+ minutes. For more on Valiant and the Book of Death stay tuned to The Beat!

By: Alexander Jones

“Venditti’s cooked up a good one”

In 2015, Valiant Entertainment is gearing up to send Aric of Dacia, the greatest, most butt-kicking 15th century Visigothic that was ever placed out of time in a brand new storyline entitled Dead Hand. The creative team features the usually spectacular talent of Robert Venditti and Diego Bernard, and kicks off after Enter: Armorines concludes. The story begins in March’s X-O Manowar #34 in 2015.

Author Robert Venditti himself chimed in via a press release from Valiant on what he has been brewing for the series:

“DEAD HAND is going to take the mythology surrounding the X-O Manowar armor, and the entire Valiant Universe, in a direction not seen before,” said Venditti “As formidable as the adversaries in the series have been to date, none of them measure up to this single-minded, doomsday threat. X-O Manowar has made a habit of taking what readers expect and turning it on its head. We’ve challenged ourselves to do that again.”

After exploring space for a little, the Visigoth seems to have gone too far into the unknown. He accidentally stumbles across a squad of bloodthirsty robots known as the Dead Hand, whose creators have been proclaimed long dead (pun intended). Aric has activated these robots in the storyline who have been created to combat an unknown enemy.

Valiant’s Editor-in-Chief Warren Simons had the following to say about Aric’s predicament:

“Last summer, X-O Manowar went up against the Armor Hunters for a full-metal throwdown between Earth and alien life. Well, we won the battle, but that doesn’t mean we’ve won the war,” said Simons. “Somewhere out there, something colder, grimmer, and more calculating is about to come online. And it won’t concede that war, even in death. An extinct world has saved a nasty treat for the Valiant U – something insanely effective that could only exist in the wake of their failure – a dead hand. Venditti’s cooked up a good one, folks.”

The first issue hits finer comic book shops in March with covers from both Lewis Larosa, and Jorge Molina. Take a look at the solicitation copy from Valiant:

X-O MANOWAR #34 (NEW ARC! “DEAD HAND” – PART 1)

Written by ROBERT VENDITTI

Art by DIEGO BERNARD

Cover A (Overlay Wrap) by LEWIS LAROSA

Cover B (Wraparound) by JORGE MOLINA

Variant Cover by DAS PASTORAS

Dead Hand Design Variant by JORGE MOLINA

Artist Variant by BUTCH GUICE

$3.99 | 32 pgs. | T+ | On sale MARCH 4 (FOC – 2/9/15)

Valiant will be set up at NYCC at booth #2028 with exclusives and signings by Jeff Lemire, Matt Kindt, Fred van Lente,  Michael Walsh, Robert Venditti, Robert Gill and Paolo Rivera. They also will have an exclusive X-O Manowar toy!

From Thursday, October 9th through Sunday, October 12th, join Valiant at Booth #2028 inside the Javits Center in midtown Manhattan to shop a brand new selection of NYCC-exclusive offerings – including the limited edition X-O Manowar Urban Vinyl Figure by CKRTLAB Toys! The first in a new line of Valiant Urban Vinyl figures set to debut in 2015, the first-ever X-O Manowar stands 5.5 inches tall with 6 points of articulation and comes enhanced with a luster-rich metallic finish, “lightning sword” weapon accessory, and collectible packaging that is perfect for display.

Plus: pick up the X-O MANOWAR #0 NYCC Exclusive Variant, featuring an all-new cover by rising starMichael Walsh (ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, Secret Avengers)! Jump on board here and discover the untold origins of Valiant’s armored Visigoth hero with Valiant’s latest essential zero issue by acclaimed creators Robert Venditti and Clay Mann!

And that’s not all – look for signings and appearances all weekend long from some of Valiant’s biggest talents, including Robert Gill (ARMOR HUNTERS: HARBINGER), Jeff Lemire (THE VALIANT), Matt Kindt (THE VALIANT, RAI, UNITY), Paolo Rivera (THE VALIANT), Michael Walsh (ARCHER & ARMSTRONG), Fred Van Lente (THE DELINQUENTS, ARCHER & ARMSTRONG), Robert Venditti(X-O MANOWAR, ARMOR HUNTERS), and many more!

Then, on Friday, October 10th at 12:15 PM, join an all-star panel of guests for the VALIANT COMICS: THE VALIANT, RAI, X-O MANOWAR AND BEYOND panel presentation! This winter, superstar creators Jeff Lemire, Matt Kindt, and Paolo Rivera launch the year’s most anticipated new series withTHE VALIANT…but what happens next? Find out here as Jeff Lemire (THE VALIANT), Matt Kindt(THE VALIANT, RAI, UNITY), Paolo Rivera (THE VALIANT), Fred Van Lente (THE DELINQUENTS, ARCHER & ARMSTRONG), Robert Venditti (X-O MANOWAR), Editor-in-Chief Warren Simons, and Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani lead off an exclusive round of news and announcements, right here at New York Comic-Con! Plus: RAI, X-O MANOWAR, UNITY, ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, QUANTUM AND WOODY, and much, much more!

And the action continues on Saturday, October 8th at 8 PM as Valiant brings the superstar creative team behind THE VALIANT – Jeff Lemire, Matt Kindt, and Paolo Rivera – to New York’s famous St. Marks Comics for an exclusive post-show signing, featuring free THE VALIANT: FIRST LOOK preview editions, and more!

By Alexander Jones

Valiant is an incredibly dynamic and interesting superhero publisher that isn’t afraid to take risk after risk with their properties. Comics Beat had the opportunity to sit down with some of the brightest minds working at the comics company including Joshua Dysart (Harbinger: Armor Hunters & Harbinger: Omegas), Robert Venditti (X-O Manowar & Armor Hunters), Matt Kindt (Unity, Rai, & The Valiant), & Valiant Editor-in-Chief Warren Simons.

Comics Beat: The Valiant Universe is in a big place of transition right now with Armor Hunters. How do each of you manage to keep the tone of your own books, while still involving the individual characters in the event space? For instance, Harbinger still feels like Harbinger with or without Armor Hunters.

Joshua Dysart: I mean I just don’t read Rob’s scripts. It allows me to really keep my tone [laughs].

Warren Simons: They’re too intimidating for him.

Robert Venditti: You will paralyze in fear if you read my scripts.

Dysart: No, I actually think it’s because we all work together. We have a central vision and editorial team. I think that we are all valued for our voices and effort that we put in towards making these titles unique.

Venditti: It was never about we’re going to do this story, and he’s going to have to be in it. We’re going to do a story in other ways that your books are going to tie in and if so, what are your ways and let’s talk about them.

Dysart: Yeah, and you know when Rob and Warren came to me, they didn’t come to me with anything that I had to do. They were like ‘these are the parameters we have to keep in places, and there are some pieces in play here that are interesting’. That helps a lot, that’s a great way to work.

Venditti: When we came up with the premise for Armor Hunters, we were curious how these books were going to react to each other.

Dysart: And, I think that the truth of the matter is that conceivably, it would be exhausting to us and it would stretch the marketplace; but we have such a tightly integrated universe right now. We could conceivably make every storyline a crossover–it would be exhausting and terrible. I think our books could easily respond to each other right now in that way without it being forced.

Simons: I think that I have tried to make sure that the guys are all in clear and close contact with each other about what’s coming up. Rob just did a great job on the Armor Hunters: Aftermath issue, and that’s going to have and that’s going to cross into what’s happening with the Unity team. We want to make sure that nobody is stepping on one another’s toes. So that as Josh said, we are preserving their voice that we hired them for instead of forcing everyone to write a certain way.

Comics Beat: The next thing that I wanted to do was try to get a question for each of you. Rob I want to know with Armor Hunters,is Aric’s empire crippling? Or, is his time with the Visigoth people is coming to an end, or perhaps, is there a status quo shift coming up for the book? 

Venditti: Yeah, I mean I think we have done status quo shifts almost every four issues since the series started. It’s something we have always tried to do. As far as him being a leader of the Visigoth people, when he came back with Rome, they got hit pretty badly after that fight–this is very long form story that we started with from the first issue. He comes from a group of about 40,000 people that were traveling around Europe. As he travels back to Earth with a suit of armor in the modern day and see’s what the world has become now, I think we start to see Aric evolve as a character that bears witness to the planet in a much different way now. The transition from him as being the leader of a small group of people to him being a leader of the globe. This is a global community now. Even the idea of the globe is a concept that is completely foreign to him.

Comic Beat: Now, Warren, as Valiant’s Editor-in-Chief, have your tasks changed at all?

Simons: A little bit. The company is growing, we are expanding. We just hired another Editor, Kyle Andrukiewicz.

Simons: Everything is heading in the right direction. I am still going to continue to edit and work on the books with the guys. Josh Johnson is an Editor up there working on Archer & Armstrong and The Delinquents. Associate Editor Alejandro Arbona is working on The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage, he’s just killing it, and he’s working on a bunch of other titles as well. We’re getting bigger, but I am continuing to edit many of the books that we are putting out.

Comics Beat: We just saw Bloodshot join Unity, how is that going to affect the greater team?

Kindt: Not that much really, we just have a killing machine on the team now. He’s going to come in handy I think at the end. I thought the interesting thing about having him join the ranks, was seeing his interactions with Livewire. Especially when keeping in mind the fact that she can talk to machines. She is the only person that can really stand up to X-O. Livewire can take control of his armor as well. This is especially interesting when keeping in mind that Bloodshot is a machine. Seeing them interact is going to make the comic engaging. They have tonal similarities as well. Livewire is continuing to question his humanity. Even though they are opposite in many ways, they have a lot of similarities.

Simons: The first eleven pages of Unity #10 are absolutely awesome. It’s extraordinary stuff!

Comics Beat: One of the things that I wanted to clarify for your books….

Dysart: And for Josh, I needed some clarification!

Comics Beat: So we have Armor Hunters: Harbinger, but how does it line-up with the Harbinger title proper, and Harbinger: Omegas coming up?

Dysart: The Armor Hunters: Harbinger book is primarily for the Generation Zero kids. If anyone is caught up on Harbinger, they moved from being lifelong prisoners of rising spirit to being prisoner to Harada, Now they are free. They are the protagonists of the Armor Hunters series. Their last big moment in the sun was Harbinger Wars, our last big crossover. Omegas is predominantly concerned with and Harada not necessarily that they come into contact with each other. Harbinger #25 happened, and these two series are sort of happening at the same time after Harbinger #25.

Comics Beat: After the announcement of the Archer & Armstrong movie, how do all of you feel about the prospect of having these different Valiant characters that may be coming up on screen one day?

Simons: I think it’s great. I think that first and foremost we are a comic book publishing company; and we are really concentrating on the comics themselves and making the books as a good as possible, and not necessarily worrying about whether or not this will play into a movie, or whether or not this particular character will translate to the big screen. As you can probably confirm by reading the first 11 pages of Unity #10. [laughs] That said, I think it’s great. I think it provides us with the opportunity to expose our characters to a wider audience which is always important with a young company like ours.

Comics Beat: What new layers do X-O Manowar #0 and Unity #0 add to the mythology of both books? 

Simons: You should tell them the story. It’s freaking awesome, a little bit of it.

Venditti: In the Armor Hunters X-O Manowar tie-in issues we are seeing the armor from the opponents’ perspective. We’ve gotten a lot of information about the armor recently in the X-O Manowar #0 Issues, I thought it would be a good time to focus on Aric as a character and what his origins were being a Visigoth. Which we got a sense of with X-O Manowar #1 in Rome with 402 A.D. Aric rallies armies behind him and he’s fierce, and he’s killing the Romans like crazy. What was the character like before all of that? We dealt some of that information in the earlier issues of X-O. The idea is that he is just a boy. We were all just kids at some point in our lives. We aren’t born amazing swordsman. The upcoming issue opens with a page one, panel one image of a 16 year old Aric throwing up behind a tree. Then you pull back and see that a huge battle has just taken place. All the Roman bodies are on the ground from the battle. The Visigoths are taken away to be buried, but the Romans are still there. His job, and the job of his friend Gafti, is to kill the mortally wounded Romans and put them out of their misery. Aric is struck by the violence of it, and so horrified, that he is actually throwing up. He doesn’t want his friend to see it. Like he had something bad to eat, but he doesn’t want his friend to see that he’s barfing his guts out.  It’s so horrific to him because he wasn’t born as that type of warrior. The book looks at him from that perspective. How do you get tested by battle, and how does this really hard conflict reveal things about you that you didn’t really know were even there–both for him and for Gafti?

Comics Beat: What about Unity #0?

Dysart: It starts with Livewire vomiting behind a tree.

Kindt: She is upset about everything that Aric did. (The room laughs.) Unity #0 is basically the first iteration of a super team set during WW1 lots of great parallels between that team and modern Unity. It’s interesting to see what events would happen to see making a modern Unity team necessary. I think we are going to do something interesting with the beginning and the end. We are going to do some of the inside cover stuff. There is a letter between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister that grounds the story in reality and sort of shows the politics behind getting this team together. There is also the idea of how this team is being assembled within the issue. In that era, the baseball cards were like little tobacco cards. I am going to have a little portrait of them in their backgrounds. I am going to do portrait cards for each member of the Unity team. It has information on them in the background. These are going to be giveaways for the comics.

Venditti: Are you going to put on the monkey suit?

Kindt: I used to wear a sock monkey suit.

Venditti: I have known Matt for ten years at least now. I was working for Top Shelf packing boxes for years. He was one of the creators. His first book, Pistol Whip was brand new when I started working there. Over the years, I would see him all the time at conventions as he was going through doing more books. He always did World War Two -era stories back then so he had this merchandising idea back where he created a cigarette case called Red Heine cigarettes, and the little logo was like a monkey. He had a cigarette tray that he wore around his waist, and he actually wore this to Wizard World Chicago and gave it away. The cigarette cases contained artwork. His face was cut out, but the rest of his outfit was the Big Heine monkey.

Kindt: The funny thing is, is that book is a really sad World War One story.

Comics Beat: Are any of your books tying into The Valiant?

Simons: That’s a great question. I think that Armor Hunters will be a bit of a delineating point in the way that we, the universe operates with the giant aliens who basically have come down and attacked the earth. We have superheroes in our universe, so our response to what I have talked about with Matt and Josh with what the trajectory of the universe will be after that, I have seen a lot of it expanded with the Armor Hunters: Aftermath title that Rob is working on–Unity #12, #13, and #14 and another book with Josh that we haven’t announced yet.

Dysart: That and the world is in a really interesting place. It’s not just a mass scale invasion that happened right on the tail end of the outing of the pilot, so there’s this whole sub-group of human beings that have been manipulating markets and essentially controlling human affairs since World War II. It’s a bit of a shell shocked world–it’s not just the alien invasion, it’s not just out there anymore, it’s also in here. Everything has changed. So humanity is in a pretty frail interesting place.

Simons: How would our fictional Valiant Universe respond to something along these lines? The Valiant will be four issues, it will be in-continuity, and it will have a direct impact on the world after the story ends. It will have massive reparations for the universe.

Comics Beat: Is it safe to classify The Valiant as an event series?

Kindt: If it’s an event, it can only be classified as such because the scope is so big. It’s going to involve the entire Valiant Universe you know. So we are basically taking this small story as a mine cart that we are going to ride through the entire Valiant Universe and you are going to see everything–you are going to see it’s a great place to start if you have never read a Valiant book. You are not going to see the origin of every character, you are not going to know what Ninjak is all about; but you are going to see him, and you are going to be like that guy is awesome you know for like the little bit he is in, it’s a small story with a large scope

Simons: It will be accessible, it will be an entry point, but it will take a look at really the entire universe and wit will have bloodshot eternal warrior Armstrong, Kay, The Geomancer. They will come out of this changed for the most part.

Comics Beat: Because it is billed as a prestige format, do you think it could even last longer than the typical event if it has an era of nuance about it like something in the style of Kingdom Come?

Simons: Possibly, but we try to bill all our books like that to be honest with you. I hope Josh’s run on Harbinger is the defining run on Harbinger that’s on the shelf in 25 years. I hope the same thing about the first run of X-O or the first 12 issues of Unity. I really want all the books to feel special. We aren’t treating this one to feel more special. We want all the books to kind of have that feel that this will be the defining run. The scope of this along with Paolo’s extraordinary art that’s coming the pages just looks absolutely amazing. It will be something that will stand the test of time, but I am not walking into this project thinking that we are absolutely going to hit grand slam and that this will be on the shelves in 25 years’ time. I just want it to be as good as Unity, Harbinger, and X-O Manowar and that’s where we are starting at.

Kindt: There are so many superhero comics on the market. What’s the point of putting another in the one world if you aren’t trying to do something different with it? Like I love coming into this universe, and I can come up with a creative way to tell the story maybe you have seen something similar, but you’re not going to see it being told this way with comics. These are things that I have never seen comics do before you know, that’s just what I love most about comics instead of just panel panel panel panel story. It’s more about what makes you think of comics as a medium you know, as much as the story.

Simons: I feel like everyone is bringing their A-game and that everyone is putting their heart into it.

Comics Beat: Thanks!

The first issue of X-O Manowar featured a talking comic book cover (video embedded above).

With a smartphone and QR codes, the comic book company actually made the main character speak through the comic cover in a short video. Do you think more authors should experiment with this cover technology? The comic was written by The Surrogates author Robert Venditti with art by Eisner Award-winning Conan artist Cary Nord.

Here’s more about the comic: “Born into battle, Aric of Dacia — heir to the throne of the Visigoth people — has never known peace. After a brutal encounter with a mysterious enemy known as The Vine leaves him a prisoner on an alien world, the only hope Aric has of returning to his family and saving them from slavery is to seize a weapon of incalculable destruction and become X-O Manowar!?

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