Valiant's "Harbinger" returns

Valiant Entertainment, which has obtained the rights to the long-defunct Valiant Comics line, has announced a deluxe hardcover collection of "Harbinger." The book, set to be released in August, will collect the origin story from issues #0-7, written by Jim Shooter and drawn by David Lapham. The book will be recolored, and will feature a new story written by Shooter and drawn by former Valiant mainstay Bob Hall.

For those of us who read those comics when they first came out, this is great news. Valiant was the company that stepped in and filled the need for new, quality superhero content in the days when Image got all the attention but was chronically late. Shooter, the former editor in chief at Marvel, wrote a realistic and thoroughly modern tale of teenage superheroes, complete with bad judgment and raging hormones. This was the book that launched Lapham's career and laid the groundwork for "Stray Bullets" and his more recent graphic novel efforts, such as the upcoming "Silverfish" for Vertigo. Shooter remains a controversial figure within the industry. A conflict with the management at Valiant led to his ouster from the company, after which it began a long decline in quality. Shooter tried unsuccessfully to replicate Valiant, first with Defiant and later with Broadway Comics. He wrote an attempted revival of the Valiant characters in a series called Unity 2000 that was never completed.

Valiant fans will certainly be thrilled to see this story back in print, and seeing those characters return in new stories is a tantalizing prospect.