WonderCon: Valiant Comics Panel Recap

A crowd of Valiant fans gathered at WonderCon this year to get the lowdown on the upcoming Harbinger Wars and other great stuff in store from the reborn publisher. Valiant had Marketing and Communications Manager Hunter Gorinson, CCO and CEO Dinesh Shamdasani and writers James Asmus and Joshua Dysart on hand to show off new artwork, leak a few story detail,s and tease the forthcoming Harbinger Wars mobile game app.

The panel got started off with Gorinson announcing that Joshua Dysart was officially Valiant's first exclusive writer. This news was met by a huge round of applause from the audience and Gorinson ominously looking at Dysart and saying "Gotcha now."

The focus then quickly shifted to Harbinger Wars. "This is the first time two books in the Valiant line have come together and are clashing. What you are gonna find out when you read Harbinger Wars is that in the very, very beginning of Bloodshot – literally page one – we've been seeding this thing," Dysart said. "What we have decided to do is take four issues and turn every creative decision up to eleven. This is our big summer movie book."

"What we are setting up here is a team that's designed to work together like a military unit and what you are going to get later is Peter and his crew, The Renegades, rolling in. The Renegades are cool and fun and can really fun stuff, but they are nothing like this. There's gonna be a clashed between the disciplined Psiots and Peter and his crew," Dysart said.

Gorinson then pointed out that Dysart and the Harbinger Wars artists were tasked with creating two dozen new characters for the series. Dysart laughed and told the audience that Valiant originally asked him to create 50 new characters; a number that he said was just a tad too high. "I petitioned strongly for that number to come down," Dysart said.

The panel then told the audience about the Harada Protocol, which would factor heavily into the second issue of Harbinger Wars. "Bloodshot is a Harbinger hunter, as you guys who are reading the book are all aware, and there is something programed inside of him that he is not aware of. Basically, when Bloodshot's facial recognition software detects that is proximal space to Toyo Harada, the primary enemy of PRS, the Harada Protocol kicks in. It allows for a entire new set of cognitive abilities that come online that are specifically designed to combat Toyo Harada," Dysart said. "Essentially, Bloodshot has to get close enough to Harada to deliver an attack. It's important enough to PRS that Harada die that they are willing to sacrifice Bloodshot. So, Bloodshot will actually be vomiting nanites into Harada's mouth. That's actually happening. That might sound stupid, but I promise when you see it it's gonna be awesome!"

Gorinson then turned the discussion to the newly announced Quantum and Woody. The new series is set to be written by James Asmus with art from Tom Fowler.

"I feel like my whole life brought me to this book. This is one of those things that when I got the call asking me to pitch initially on the book, I really felt like it was a synthesis, the original Quantum and Woody and what I love about it, the humor, the heart and the insanity, and the fact that all of that is built on textured relationship," Asmus said. He also promised that the series would feature a goat. "We know what you want," he laughed. The series will also feature variant covers from artists like Marcos Martin and Andrew Robinson. The book would feature a QR cover, allowing readers to hear the goat's dialogue, if that's your thing.

"There is something we are building towards, we are weaving a larger tapestry," Shamdasani said of Valiant's future. He promised that there was something very large on the horizon that Valiant fans would love.

The panel then showed off some of the screen shots of the upcoming retro styled Harbinger Wars gave that would be launching in the near future. "Due to the nature of Apple's approval process, we can't give an exact date, but it is very far along."

The images showed had a great 8-bit old-school, side-scrolling action feel. The audience cheered and laughed at many of visuals. Valiant is even releasing 8-bit variant covers to many of their books which mimic great titles like Donkey Kong, Double Dragon, Contra and Metroid.

Benjamin is a writer and storyteller. He owns many leather-bound books and his office smells of rich mahogany. Follow Benjamin on Twitter @616Earth, or find him on IGN.

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