Hot Property: Valiant Comics

If you were a comic reader in the late '80s or early '90s, then you most likely encountered Valiant Comics, and characters such as the super-powered teenagers in Harbinger, the time-displaced warrior in X-O Manowar, or the reincarnated soldier in Bloodshot. From 1989 to 1994 Valiant sold over 80 million comics, and beat out both DC and Marvel as Publisher of the Year in 1993.
 
Things were looking even better for Valiant when videogame publisher Acclaim Entertainment bought them in 1994. Unfortunately, Acclaim discontinued Valiant’s comic book line in favor of developing various multi-platform video games, including Turok, Shadowman, and the Iron Man/X-O Manowar crossover game. Acclaim Entertainment filed for bankruptcy in 2005, closing Valiant Comics for the foreseeable future.
 
Enter Jason Kothari and Dinesh Shamdasani, two USC business school grads and comic book fans, who in 2007 bought the company and, after some legal wrangling, finally brought Valiant Comics back to comic store shelves.
 
Valiant is not currently represented by an agency, but they already have two properties in development: Harbinger is set up at Paramount with Brett Ratner attached, and Bloodshot is set up at Sony with Matthew Vaughn attached.
 
The true re-launch of Valiant Comics was marked by the release of X-O Manowar #1, which debuted this past May. It sold through its initial print run of 45,000 copies, and has been garnering extremely positive reviews among various comic book websites. Doug Zawisza of Comic Book Resources says, “as relaunches and reintroductions to comic book properties go, X-O Manowar is a great start.” Irish Rican at Ain’t it Cool News proclaims the first issue “a complete knockout.” He goes on to say “welcome back, X-O - the comic world and the real world have never needed you more.”
 
With superheroes dominating the big and small screen, it’s time for some characters who are not part of the Marvel and DC Comics stable to get a turn in the spotlight. Valiant’s roster of characters are interesting, cool, and ready to explode. Properties not currently in development include: X-O Manowar (think Lord of the Rings meets Iron Man), and the buddy action series Armstrong and Archer, about a warrior monk and his boozing immortal pal.
 
For more information: http://www.valiantentertainment.com/