Harbinger was the top selling Valiant Comic. While Image Comics back in the day was known for their collection of artists, Valiant was known for their great stories and airtight continuity. I never read any of the older Valiant titles because I hated reading comic books with shitty art. I mean, what’s the point of reading a comic book if the art sucks? I did read Ninjak, Bloodshot, and Turok. All of these books started strong and got boring as hell later. Ninjak had Joe Quesada art, which made it awesome. Back to Harbinger, the comic looked like an X-Force ripoff (I don’t mean ripoff in a bad way at all). Kids with powers fighting the adults with bigger, more practiced powers. The art is by David Lapham, whom I disliked at first, but I just got used to him. In 2008, Harbinger: The Beginning was released which is a reprint of issues 1-7 (Jim Shooter and David Lapham run). This reprint sold a shit ton as well reminding everyone that people like a good story.

Summary of Characters:

Toyo Harada: The antagonist, he wants to save the world by conquering it with Harbingers (i.e. people with awesome abilities). He has every mind skill in the magical book.

Peter Stanchek (Sting): Sting is the only other Omega-class Harbinger. He and Harada can activate powers by a mind fuck. He’s the leader.

Kris Hathaway: Basically the logic and brains, she’s really annoying as shit. But I think she’s annoying because Peter unconsciously uses his mind fuck powers to make Kris love him. There’s a hint that she’s pregnant, but I’m pretty sure it’s Torque’s.

Faith Herbert (Zephyr): Her “friends” call her Zeppelin…because she’s fat, you see. She can fly. That’s it. It really would have been dope if she became all skinny later in the series and hot. As of right now, she’s a fangirl that you see at conventions.

Charlene Dupre (Flamingo): She makes flames and is a bimbo. Torque treats her like shit telling her to get him a beer, and she does. She probably hooks up with Sting later.

John Torkelson (Torque): He’s the strong man of the team. He dies, and his last words were not Charlene but Kris’s name. Kris is pregnant. Just saying. He’s a real loser and I’m glad they killed this guy off.

Summary

The team gets together and tries to kill Harada. Too bad Harada has more experience than everyone else, so he just owns them all day. Solar has a chance to help kill Harada, but instead he just tells them to escape because he’s a big pussy. So the team goes back to get Harada, but Harada takes them all out and kills Torque.

Bad Ass Moment

Torque dies. That was so awesome. He’s lame as hell.

I Kinda Wish

I wish the writing wasn’t so robotic. For a series that carried the company on its back, the writing was really formulaic. In one sense, this is cool because you just go through the motions, but in another, the interaction between the characters is predictable. I’m not those trying-to-guess-oh-I-did-I’m-smart-this-book-sucks-now kinda guy, but this book was pretty transparent. I also wish Kris had powers that manifests later. She is boring as shit and comes off a whiner. Actually, the whole team is whiny. I actually only liked the fat chick, but that’s only because I hoped she’d get on weight watchers and get hot later in the series.

Rating

**3/4 This one’s weird folks. If you asked me if I suggest you buy it, I would probably say yes. If you then after reading it told me it was so cookie cutter and lame, I would say yup. I enjoyed it, but it was just so…lacking in umph. I would probably read the other Harbingers if they became available to me just to see what happens next, but that interest is that there is a lot of potential to make the story more surprising and exciting. However, usually when I feel that way about a story, I get disappointed. It’s like watching Signs, thinking the ending is goign to be so fucking awesome and you going through the most boring movie ever is going to be worth it, and then you find out it’s water. Fuck you, M. Night. So I would say pick it up because its a solid story, but if you don’t like it, it’s because it’s still an infant of a story.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 at 12:02 am and is filed under Be a Man Like N. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.