Valiant Comics, or...
Valiant Entertainment Industry
or... Valiant 2012
Or... Valiant
The Book of Death
Valiant Comics - a brief and complicated history
Valiant Comics is a comic book company founded in 1989, acquired in 1994 by video game company Acclaim Entertainment, and acquired by Valiant Entertainment in 2007.
Voyager CommunicationsIn 1988, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics Jim Shooter, former manager of the Allman Brothers Band Steven J. Massarsky, and a group of investors attempted to purchase Marvel Entertainment. They submitted the second highest bid, with financier Ronald Perelman submitting the highest bid and acquiring Marvel.
Shooter and Massarsky instead formed Voyager Communications in 1989 with significant venture capital financing from Triumph Capital. After publishing licensed comics withNintendo and the World Wrestling Federation, Voyager repositioned itself to focus on its initial plan – creating original superhero comic books under the Valiant Comics imprint.
Valiant recruited numerous writers and artists from Marvel, including industry legend Barry Windsor-Smith, creator of Wolverine's acclaimed Weapon X storyline, and Bob Layton, architect of many of Iron Man's key stories.
Cover image of Harbinger#1 from Valiant ComicsShooter, Windsor-Smith, and Layton served at the creative helm of Valiant, and they recruited a diverse group of both veteran and young creators to complete their team. Valiant launched an interconnected line of superhero comics with Western Publishing licensed characters and then turned to creating an original universe of characters.
In 1992, Valiant released original titles, including Harbinger, X-O Manowar, Rai, and Shadowman, followed by a major crossover event calledUnity, during which Eternal Warrior and Archer & Armstrong were introduced. Harbinger #1 was listed on the top ten List of Wizard Magazine, the industry's leading trade magazine, for a record eight consecutive months and was eventually named "Collectible of the Decade," while Rai#0 appeared on Wizard's top ten list for a new record nine consecutive months. In 1992, Valiant's Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for co-creating the Valiant Universe.
Valiant also pioneered a number of marketing innovations, such as the zero "origin" issues, the gold logo program, coupons redeemable for original comic books, and chromium covers. Following the popular Unity crossover, Valiant released Bloodshot, Ninjak, H.A.R.D. Corps,Second Life of Dr. Mirage, and Timewalker, among other titles. Valiant's market share reached a level almost identical to DC Comics, a company whose characters were created 50 years earlier, and in 1993 Valiant was named Publisher of the Year ahead of Marvel Comics and DC Comics. In terms of sales, Valiant's comics rivaled those of the industry leaders Marvel, DC, and Image. During this period, comics based on Valiant's characters regularly occupied numerous spots in Wizard Top 10 hottest comics of a given month. Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, Rai, Shadowman, Ninjak, Eternal Warrior and others would compete with Batman, Spider-Man, Spawn, X-Men and others for the top rankings. A series of highly successful characters cemented Valiant's place as an industry heavyweight, for example — Bloodshot #1 sold 900,000 copies,X-O Manowar #0 sold 850,000, Rai #9 sold 800,000, Secret Weapons #1 sold 650,000, Ninjak #1 sold 500,000, Second Life of Dr. Mirage sold 500,000, etc. At this point, Valiant characters had sold more than 50 million comic books.
Acclaim ComicsIn 1994, Triumph Capital decided to exit their investment, and Valiant was sold to video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment. Acclaim later discontinued publishing Valiant comic books and focused on developing Valiant action adventure video games targeting a younger demographic than Valiant comic book readers. From 1996 to 2002, Acclaim created a number of successful multi-platform released Valiant video games, such as the Shadowman franchise and Iron Man X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal (which featured Valiant's X-O Manowar alongside Marvel's Iron Man) with Valiant video game sales exceeded 8 million units and grossed over $300 million.
In 2003, Acclaim Entertainment's video game business was taking significant risks, including limited diversification. After losing a major sports video game license and without any new hits, Acclaim became financially insolvent and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2005.
Valiant EntertainmentIn 2007, a group of professionals led by Jason Kothari and Dinesh Shamdasani acquired all the rights to the Valiant Comics library from AcclaimEntertainment's estate and formed Valiant Entertainment (VE).
Legal battles for the rights to Valiant trademarks occurred as a rival group, Valiant Intellectual Properties LLC (VIP), made filings for some titles, due to a belief that Acclaim Entertainment had failed to renew the trademarks correctly. This held up distribution of titles by Diamond Distribution. Valiant Entertainment eventually won, with former Valiant Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter continuing to write new stories for hardcover reprints.
In late 2008, Jim Shooter was hired as Editor-In-Chief but only lasted until the summer of 2009. In October 2009, Valiant sued Jim Shooterfor breach of contract, after he accepted a writing contract with Dark Horse's relaunch of the Gold Key characters while still a full time employee of Valiant Entertainment.
In August 2011, Cuneo & Co. invested in Valiant Entertainment with Cuneo and Co.'s principals, Peter Cuneo and Gavin Cuneo, joined Valiant's board as chairman and director, respectively.Peter Cuneo is the former CEO of Marvel Comics
Valiant Entertainment have announced the Summer of Valiant in which they began publishing four new monthly comic books based on the Valiant Comics universe of characters. X-O Manowar began in May 2012 by writer Robert Venditti and artist Cary Nord. Harbinger began in June 2012 by writer Joshua Dysart and artist Khari Evans. Bloodshot began in July 2012 by writer Duane Swierczynski. Archer & Armstrong began in August 2012 by writer Fred Van Lente and artist Clayton Henry.
Valiant Entertainment revealed plans to release the world's first "talking" comic book cover, featuring QR code technology that allows the reader to use their smartphone to hear X-O Manowar speak.
Valiant Entertainment have also created the Pullbox program which encourages readers to start a pullbox subscription with their comics store in order to obtain an exclusive version of the comic.
UniversesThe Valiant Universe, drawn by Bernard Chang, inked by Bob Layton, Tom Ryder and variousThe Valiant Universe is the fictional shared universe where all comic stories published by Valiant Comics take place.
In the beginning, the Valiant Universe was a reflection of Jim Shooter's vision for an ideal comic book universe: character-driven, strong continuity with emphasis on science fiction, long-reaching consequences and internal consistency. Valiant was the first company to attempt to follow a real-world timeline, in which events in the comics occurred at a pace similar to their publication schedules. The company writers adhered to real-world science as much as possible. No matter how powerful the characters became, they were still affected by friction, Newton's Laws of Motion, Einstein's laws of relativity, etc.
While the Valiant Universe had its share of aliens, the writers never employed such popular science fiction conventions as universal translators or faster-than-light travel. All Valiant Universe superheroes had powers derived from psionic awareness (the "power of the mind"), energy manipulation or technology. Valiant Comics's writers tried to emphasize the human aspect of superpowers, as well as how the actions of various super-powered individuals affected average human beings. Most Valiant heroes were not as moral as average comic book heroes with many having more in common with 1940's pulp adventurers than traditional superheroes. Valiant Comics titles were set in a tight, carefully integrated fictional universe, where events in one title could have indirect effects on other titles. In several cases, major characters debuted in established titles before their own titles were launched.
The Valiant Universe was created by Solar as the result of his attempt to recreate his universe after he accidentally destroyed it. As a result, a universe similar to his own emerged. Solar's psychological tendencies manifested themselves in his recreation of the universe. It was eventually discovered that several times during Valiant Universe's history, Earth was attacked by a race of spider-like aliens, who sought to use the human race for slave labor and food. Their efforts were indirectly responsible for the creation of several heroes, most notably X-O Manowar and Shadowman.
The early 1990s saw the rise of psionically empowered humans called Harbingers. They were led by Toyo Harada, a powerful psionic businessman with a Messiah complex. While on the surface he operated in a manner similar to Professor Xavier of the X-Men, he actually sought to use Harbingers to take over Earth, in order to "save the world from itself", with himself as leader. The history of the Valiant Universe's super-powered community was greatly influenced by Geomancers, human beings who had an ability to listen to psychic impressions left on most everyday objects.
From the beginning, all Valiant Comics titles were divided into two groups:
Following Jim Shooter's departure, the Valiant Universe changed under the creative direction of Bob Layton and Kevin VanHook. In 1994, Valiant trimmed their comics line while moving to a two-issues-per-month schedule for their more popular titles (Bloodshot, Harbinger, Ninjak, Shadowman, X-O Manowar etc.). Soon after, Acclaim Entertainment, who had bought Valiant several months before, restarted the comics line with new versions of the heroes which could be used as video game properties.
Armada and Windjammer divisionsIn 1995, Valiant Comics created two new division imprints, Armada and Windjammer. Armada focused on the publisher's line to publish licensed properties. Properties licensed to the Armada imprint included a series of various original Magic: The Gathering comic books, based on the popular collectible card game.
Windjammer was established as Acclaim's creator-owned line, for comic book writers and artists to publish their own material without giving up the copyrights to their creations. Titles published under Windjammer included Neal Adams' creator owned Knighthawk, Samuree, Valeria the She-Bat, and Mike Grell's creator owned Starslayer and Bar Sinister.
[edit]Acclaim Universe (VH2)When Acclaim Entertainment bought Valiant Comics, the universe was completely restarted. In 1996, with all previous Valiant Universe (VH1) titles canceled, Fabian Nicieza, a former editor and writer from Marvel Comics, was hired as senior vice-president and editor-in-chief and given the task of revamping Valiant Comics properties.
As editor, Nicieza oversaw the new version, dubbed VH2 by the company, which re-imagined all of the Valiant characters such as Shadowman, X-O Manowar and Ninjak, using the top comic book writers of the period including Warren Ellis, Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek and Garth Ennis. The line also introduced new titles such as Troublemakers, Trinity Angels and the hit comedy Quantum and Woody.
The most successful titles during this period were the re-imagined Turok and Shadowman, which sold well. The characters were later developed into successful video game properties by Acclaim's parent company, Acclaim Entertainment.
Originally, this new universe appeared to have little to do with the original Valiant Universe, or VH-1. However, later crossovers revealed that the Acclaim Universe was the result of a time paradox caused by Solar.
The Acclaim Universe was similar to other superhero-based universes, but wasn't as interconnected as the Valiant Universe that preceded it. Writers began to experiment with the scientific aspects of Valiant Universe and moved away from scientific fact and theory, towards science fiction.
Acclaim Comics met with initial success but by early 1999 most of the line had been cancelled. Acclaim Entertainment suffered huge losses on a number of video game titles and were cutting costs on their non-core businesses. Nicieza eventually left and staff levels were cut. The next year Acclaim attempted to merge the two universes with Unity 2000.
In 2000, during Acclaim's Unity 2000 crossover, writer Jim Shooter introduced yet another alternate universe, unofficially called VH-0 by fans. In essence, it was his vision of what the Valiant Universe would have been if he had stayed with the company. According to Jim Shooter's plot, at the end of the crossover the VH-0 universe was destroyed and most of its characters killed; VH-1 and VH-2 were fused together into a new universe. However, Acclaim continued to suffer losses on their video games while the series suffered a number of administrative problems (art return and payment issues) and were forced to cancel the series after only the third issue.
In 2005, the rights to the Valiant and Acclaim original characters (such as Archer and Armstrong, Rai, Quantum and Woody etc.) were auctioned off. The rights to the three licensed characters (Solar, Magnus and Turok) reverted to Random House, which currently owns Western Publishing and Gold Key Comics properties.
Valiant Entertainment is a character-based publishing and licensing company that owns and controls some of the most cherished comic characters ever created across all media worldwide. Since their creation in 1989, Valiant characters have sold 80 million comic books and have been the basis of a number of successful video game franchises. Valiant’s extensive library includes over 1,500 characters, such as X-O Manowar, Bloodshot, Harbinger, Shadowman, and Ninjak.
Voyager CommunicationsIn 1988, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics Jim Shooter, former manager of the Allman Brothers Band Steven J. Massarsky, and a group of investors attempted to purchase Marvel Entertainment. They submitted the second highest bid, with financier Ronald Perelman submitting the highest bid and acquiring Marvel.
Shooter and Massarsky instead formed Voyager Communications in 1989 with significant venture capital financing from Triumph Capital. After publishing licensed comics withNintendo and the World Wrestling Federation, Voyager repositioned itself to focus on its initial plan – creating original superhero comic books under the Valiant Comics imprint.
Valiant recruited numerous writers and artists from Marvel, including industry legend Barry Windsor-Smith, creator of Wolverine's acclaimed Weapon X storyline, and Bob Layton, architect of many of Iron Man's key stories.
Cover image of Harbinger#1 from Valiant ComicsShooter, Windsor-Smith, and Layton served at the creative helm of Valiant, and they recruited a diverse group of both veteran and young creators to complete their team. Valiant launched an interconnected line of superhero comics with Western Publishing licensed characters and then turned to creating an original universe of characters.
In 1992, Valiant released original titles, including Harbinger, X-O Manowar, Rai, and Shadowman, followed by a major crossover event calledUnity, during which Eternal Warrior and Archer & Armstrong were introduced. Harbinger #1 was listed on the top ten List of Wizard Magazine, the industry's leading trade magazine, for a record eight consecutive months and was eventually named "Collectible of the Decade," while Rai#0 appeared on Wizard's top ten list for a new record nine consecutive months. In 1992, Valiant's Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for co-creating the Valiant Universe.
Valiant also pioneered a number of marketing innovations, such as the zero "origin" issues, the gold logo program, coupons redeemable for original comic books, and chromium covers. Following the popular Unity crossover, Valiant released Bloodshot, Ninjak, H.A.R.D. Corps,Second Life of Dr. Mirage, and Timewalker, among other titles. Valiant's market share reached a level almost identical to DC Comics, a company whose characters were created 50 years earlier, and in 1993 Valiant was named Publisher of the Year ahead of Marvel Comics and DC Comics. In terms of sales, Valiant's comics rivaled those of the industry leaders Marvel, DC, and Image. During this period, comics based on Valiant's characters regularly occupied numerous spots in Wizard Top 10 hottest comics of a given month. Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, Rai, Shadowman, Ninjak, Eternal Warrior and others would compete with Batman, Spider-Man, Spawn, X-Men and others for the top rankings. A series of highly successful characters cemented Valiant's place as an industry heavyweight, for example — Bloodshot #1 sold 900,000 copies,X-O Manowar #0 sold 850,000, Rai #9 sold 800,000, Secret Weapons #1 sold 650,000, Ninjak #1 sold 500,000, Second Life of Dr. Mirage sold 500,000, etc. At this point, Valiant characters had sold more than 50 million comic books.
Acclaim ComicsIn 1994, Triumph Capital decided to exit their investment, and Valiant was sold to video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment. Acclaim later discontinued publishing Valiant comic books and focused on developing Valiant action adventure video games targeting a younger demographic than Valiant comic book readers. From 1996 to 2002, Acclaim created a number of successful multi-platform released Valiant video games, such as the Shadowman franchise and Iron Man X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal (which featured Valiant's X-O Manowar alongside Marvel's Iron Man) with Valiant video game sales exceeded 8 million units and grossed over $300 million.
In 2003, Acclaim Entertainment's video game business was taking significant risks, including limited diversification. After losing a major sports video game license and without any new hits, Acclaim became financially insolvent and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2005.
Valiant EntertainmentIn 2007, a group of professionals led by Jason Kothari and Dinesh Shamdasani acquired all the rights to the Valiant Comics library from AcclaimEntertainment's estate and formed Valiant Entertainment (VE).
Legal battles for the rights to Valiant trademarks occurred as a rival group, Valiant Intellectual Properties LLC (VIP), made filings for some titles, due to a belief that Acclaim Entertainment had failed to renew the trademarks correctly. This held up distribution of titles by Diamond Distribution. Valiant Entertainment eventually won, with former Valiant Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter continuing to write new stories for hardcover reprints.
In late 2008, Jim Shooter was hired as Editor-In-Chief but only lasted until the summer of 2009. In October 2009, Valiant sued Jim Shooterfor breach of contract, after he accepted a writing contract with Dark Horse's relaunch of the Gold Key characters while still a full time employee of Valiant Entertainment.
In August 2011, Cuneo & Co. invested in Valiant Entertainment with Cuneo and Co.'s principals, Peter Cuneo and Gavin Cuneo, joined Valiant's board as chairman and director, respectively.Peter Cuneo is the former CEO of Marvel Comics
Valiant Entertainment have announced the Summer of Valiant in which they began publishing four new monthly comic books based on the Valiant Comics universe of characters. X-O Manowar began in May 2012 by writer Robert Venditti and artist Cary Nord. Harbinger began in June 2012 by writer Joshua Dysart and artist Khari Evans. Bloodshot began in July 2012 by writer Duane Swierczynski. Archer & Armstrong began in August 2012 by writer Fred Van Lente and artist Clayton Henry.
Valiant Entertainment revealed plans to release the world's first "talking" comic book cover, featuring QR code technology that allows the reader to use their smartphone to hear X-O Manowar speak.
Valiant Entertainment have also created the Pullbox program which encourages readers to start a pullbox subscription with their comics store in order to obtain an exclusive version of the comic.
UniversesThe Valiant Universe, drawn by Bernard Chang, inked by Bob Layton, Tom Ryder and variousThe Valiant Universe is the fictional shared universe where all comic stories published by Valiant Comics take place.
In the beginning, the Valiant Universe was a reflection of Jim Shooter's vision for an ideal comic book universe: character-driven, strong continuity with emphasis on science fiction, long-reaching consequences and internal consistency. Valiant was the first company to attempt to follow a real-world timeline, in which events in the comics occurred at a pace similar to their publication schedules. The company writers adhered to real-world science as much as possible. No matter how powerful the characters became, they were still affected by friction, Newton's Laws of Motion, Einstein's laws of relativity, etc.
While the Valiant Universe had its share of aliens, the writers never employed such popular science fiction conventions as universal translators or faster-than-light travel. All Valiant Universe superheroes had powers derived from psionic awareness (the "power of the mind"), energy manipulation or technology. Valiant Comics's writers tried to emphasize the human aspect of superpowers, as well as how the actions of various super-powered individuals affected average human beings. Most Valiant heroes were not as moral as average comic book heroes with many having more in common with 1940's pulp adventurers than traditional superheroes. Valiant Comics titles were set in a tight, carefully integrated fictional universe, where events in one title could have indirect effects on other titles. In several cases, major characters debuted in established titles before their own titles were launched.
The Valiant Universe was created by Solar as the result of his attempt to recreate his universe after he accidentally destroyed it. As a result, a universe similar to his own emerged. Solar's psychological tendencies manifested themselves in his recreation of the universe. It was eventually discovered that several times during Valiant Universe's history, Earth was attacked by a race of spider-like aliens, who sought to use the human race for slave labor and food. Their efforts were indirectly responsible for the creation of several heroes, most notably X-O Manowar and Shadowman.
The early 1990s saw the rise of psionically empowered humans called Harbingers. They were led by Toyo Harada, a powerful psionic businessman with a Messiah complex. While on the surface he operated in a manner similar to Professor Xavier of the X-Men, he actually sought to use Harbingers to take over Earth, in order to "save the world from itself", with himself as leader. The history of the Valiant Universe's super-powered community was greatly influenced by Geomancers, human beings who had an ability to listen to psychic impressions left on most everyday objects.
From the beginning, all Valiant Comics titles were divided into two groups:
- titles in the 20th century (the present)
- titles set in the 41st century (beginning with 4000 A.D.).
Following Jim Shooter's departure, the Valiant Universe changed under the creative direction of Bob Layton and Kevin VanHook. In 1994, Valiant trimmed their comics line while moving to a two-issues-per-month schedule for their more popular titles (Bloodshot, Harbinger, Ninjak, Shadowman, X-O Manowar etc.). Soon after, Acclaim Entertainment, who had bought Valiant several months before, restarted the comics line with new versions of the heroes which could be used as video game properties.
Armada and Windjammer divisionsIn 1995, Valiant Comics created two new division imprints, Armada and Windjammer. Armada focused on the publisher's line to publish licensed properties. Properties licensed to the Armada imprint included a series of various original Magic: The Gathering comic books, based on the popular collectible card game.
Windjammer was established as Acclaim's creator-owned line, for comic book writers and artists to publish their own material without giving up the copyrights to their creations. Titles published under Windjammer included Neal Adams' creator owned Knighthawk, Samuree, Valeria the She-Bat, and Mike Grell's creator owned Starslayer and Bar Sinister.
[edit]Acclaim Universe (VH2)When Acclaim Entertainment bought Valiant Comics, the universe was completely restarted. In 1996, with all previous Valiant Universe (VH1) titles canceled, Fabian Nicieza, a former editor and writer from Marvel Comics, was hired as senior vice-president and editor-in-chief and given the task of revamping Valiant Comics properties.
As editor, Nicieza oversaw the new version, dubbed VH2 by the company, which re-imagined all of the Valiant characters such as Shadowman, X-O Manowar and Ninjak, using the top comic book writers of the period including Warren Ellis, Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek and Garth Ennis. The line also introduced new titles such as Troublemakers, Trinity Angels and the hit comedy Quantum and Woody.
The most successful titles during this period were the re-imagined Turok and Shadowman, which sold well. The characters were later developed into successful video game properties by Acclaim's parent company, Acclaim Entertainment.
Originally, this new universe appeared to have little to do with the original Valiant Universe, or VH-1. However, later crossovers revealed that the Acclaim Universe was the result of a time paradox caused by Solar.
The Acclaim Universe was similar to other superhero-based universes, but wasn't as interconnected as the Valiant Universe that preceded it. Writers began to experiment with the scientific aspects of Valiant Universe and moved away from scientific fact and theory, towards science fiction.
Acclaim Comics met with initial success but by early 1999 most of the line had been cancelled. Acclaim Entertainment suffered huge losses on a number of video game titles and were cutting costs on their non-core businesses. Nicieza eventually left and staff levels were cut. The next year Acclaim attempted to merge the two universes with Unity 2000.
In 2000, during Acclaim's Unity 2000 crossover, writer Jim Shooter introduced yet another alternate universe, unofficially called VH-0 by fans. In essence, it was his vision of what the Valiant Universe would have been if he had stayed with the company. According to Jim Shooter's plot, at the end of the crossover the VH-0 universe was destroyed and most of its characters killed; VH-1 and VH-2 were fused together into a new universe. However, Acclaim continued to suffer losses on their video games while the series suffered a number of administrative problems (art return and payment issues) and were forced to cancel the series after only the third issue.
In 2005, the rights to the Valiant and Acclaim original characters (such as Archer and Armstrong, Rai, Quantum and Woody etc.) were auctioned off. The rights to the three licensed characters (Solar, Magnus and Turok) reverted to Random House, which currently owns Western Publishing and Gold Key Comics properties.
Valiant Entertainment is a character-based publishing and licensing company that owns and controls some of the most cherished comic characters ever created across all media worldwide. Since their creation in 1989, Valiant characters have sold 80 million comic books and have been the basis of a number of successful video game franchises. Valiant’s extensive library includes over 1,500 characters, such as X-O Manowar, Bloodshot, Harbinger, Shadowman, and Ninjak.