In 1992, legendary writer Jim Shooter and newcomer artist David Lapham teamed up to reinvent a staple of comic book storytelling - the superhero team genre. Their darker approach more realistically portrayed superpowered teenagers. The characters behaved like real people, blurring the line between good and evil. The heroes were flawed and sometimes loathsome, while the villains were often noble and frighteningly identifiable.
Harbinger became a critical and commercial smash hit, sparking a national obsession with Valiant Comics. Harbinger's first issue was named Collectible of the Decade by Wizard Magazine, appeared on Wizard Magazine s Top Ten list for a then-record eight consecutive months, and in 2006 was named the 1990s Comic Book of the Decade by Sequart. Harbinger also became one of the most popular comic series of the 1990s, selling over 5 million comic books.
Harbingers are human beings with extraordinary powers of the mind. Throughout history, their dangerous abilities tended to lie dormant, emerging in occasional bursts that are brought on by stress. This all changes when Japanese tycoon Toyo Harada, the world's most powerful Harbinger, establishes the Harbinger Foundation. The organization s vast power and resources are dedicated to train other Harbingers and promote Harada's vision of world betterment, no matter the cost. Soon after, the Foundation discovers the existence of teenager Peter Stanchek, the only Harbinger who can rival Harada's own Godlike powers.
Collected here for the first time is the landmark story that revolutionized the superhero team genre. Harbinger: The Beginning is one of the most celebrated stories in modern comics.
- Collects the full Harbinger origin story (Harbinger issues #0-7) by comics legend Jim Shooter and Eisner Award-winner David Lapham for the first time. - Digitally recolored under the direction of original Valiant colorists. - Digitally remastered with the approval of Jim Shooter. - Includes the original rare Story of Harada coupons in full color for the first time. - Includes an all-new eight page Origin of Harada story by Jim Shooter and original Valiant creator Bob Hall (Shadowman) featuring the first appearance of a new key Valiant character.
About Valiant Entertainment
Valiant Entertainment is a character-based entertainment company that owns and manages some of the most popular comic characters ever created across all media, including feature films, television, video games, new media, publishing, and consumer products. Since their creation in 1990, Valiant characters have sold over 80 million comic books, 8 million video games, and Valiant became one of the three leading comic character-based companies globally. In addition, the Valiant characters are often called the most important characters created since the Marvel revolution of the 1960s (Sequart, 2006). VALIANT characters include X-O MANOWAR, BLOODSHOT, HARBINGER, ETERNAL WARRIOR, ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, NINJAK, SHADOWMAN, RAI, and QUANTUM & WOODY, among many others.
Visit ValiantEntertainment.com for more information.
A blast from the past! I was a second-hand Valiant reader. I only got to know the Valiant Universe through a friend and later my dad collected the Valiant titles Turok and X-O Manowar. I only got to see the characters from Harbinger in crossovers and couldn't get a good feel for them. Now after all these years I get to go back to the beginning and enjoy these stories. First off, the re-coloring job they did looks great! It was smart of them to do that and also to offer the new "Origin of Harada" story. As a fan rediscovering this title it made for more interesting reading and for longtime fans I'm sure it was nice to see the characters in a new story. I have since purchased the X-O Manowar: Rebirth Hardcover and I plan to buy the Archer and Armstrong: First Impressions Hardcover as well. I hope they continue to give us more of these forgotten characters in future collections and eventually bring them into the 21st century with some new stories and a newly revitalized Valiant Universe.
Amazing Book I had read lots of reviews about Harbinger and how good it was but never got around to reading it. I finally did with the new graphic novel collection, and it is amazing. The story really is one of the best in all of comics. It is so realistically done and the characters are very rich and identifiable. I found myself thinking about the story long after reading it. Since I read this I've read X-O Manowar: Birth and I'm looking forward to Archer & Armstrong.
Only for the die-hard fans I bought this book because of the raving criticism and because of the pencil-work by Lapham. But it just wasn't for me. For the current mature comics-readers this is just a bit foolish old-skool stuff but not the classic that some people are making of it. The fans of the Valiant-comics are sure to be satisfied with such a beautiful hardcover but other people should stay far away from it.
Excellent.. as always I've always really enjoyed the old Valiant stuff. Having these issues collected in one beautiful hardcover edition was a special treat. I can't say that the new, never before seen story by Jim Shooter was anything special. But I'm glad to see that the Valiant Universe still has a pulse. I also hope that this is just the beginning...
If you love the original Valiant Universe, do yourself a favor and buy this book. It's worth the cost, no doubt.
Nice job This book re-prints 0-7 in chapter format. In this way it's different than for example Marvel's omnibus line which maintains the cover page and letters page with each separate issue. So you don't have a full-page cover for each issue in this book. Rather a shrunken version of each cover is included as they put two on a page, partially overlapping. The other thing that's in here is the story of Harada which was told on the back of each of the coupons that were included with the original issues 1-6, which you needed to clip and mail to get issue 0 at the time. In this book, those back panels have been colored and are included here together over a couple of pages. Finally, there's also a separate "origin of Harada" story". For those of you weren't reading when this came out, Harbinger took the comic book world by storm at the time, along with the other Valiant titles. The writing was a breath of fresh air.
The disintegration of Harbinger and Valiant was mainly for two reasons; first, Shooter didn't have voting control of the company to begin with and when his business partner started seeing a woman at the VC that lent the money to Valiant, he was booted from the corporation when a disagreement about direction ocurred and his business partner voted with his "new" girlfriend at the VC (a fascinating business tale that I recommend anyone research, by the way), after Shooter was booted, Valiant continued with other writers but the bottom fell out of the comics industry and that basically did Harbinger and the rest of the company's titles in.
I missed issues 1-5 back in the early 90's (and wasn't going to pay hundreds at the time to get #1, after only just months had passed since it was issued), and only have 6 and 7 from this volume, but irrespective of changes in colors, I like the format and recommend anyone purchase this, to either see it in this format, or sample Harbinger for the first time.
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