Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Valiant | Tagged: Dinesh Shamdasani, Jim Shooter

Valiant Beyond to be an Absolute Ultimate Valiant Universe Rebirth

Valiant Beyond is to be the Absolute Ultimate Valiant Universe Crisis Rebirth for March 2025

The finale of the Resurgence of the Valiant Universe crossover event with Fred Van Lente and friends will hit in January 2025 with an extra-sized finale issue that promises to "change everything" and set up the future of the publishing line. So what will Alien Books and Valiant Entertainment follow it up with in February? Well…not much, it seems. For that, you will have to wait until March. And by "that" I mean Valiant Beyond.

Expect an Absolute/Ultimate/Energon type of line-wide relaunch after the Resurgence event, called Valiant Beyond,  a new "micro-line" of relaunched titles called "Valiant Beyond" that's intended to appeal to both lapsed readers and new fans in the style of Hasbro's Energon Universe, the Marvel Ultimate line, and DC's Absolute universe. They've requested artists to submit new concept artwork for characters like X-O, Shadowman, Bloodshot and Harbinger.

While not wiping away what came before this in terms of continuity or canon. Artists have reportedly been asked to submit concepts for characters like X-O, Shadowman, Bloodshot and Harbinger for new 'Beyond' versions with an eye towards creating Valiant's own "Absolute" line of books as part of a Valiant multiverse. Writers have been told that "almost everything is on the table" as far as bringing back older characters and storylines from '90s, Acclaim, and Dinesh-era Valiant Comics. The word is that the characters will be placed in wildly different settings or have a tweak to their looks or origins but will remain fundamentally familiar to longtime fans. A clean slate to start fresh but not reinventing the wheel. They've been careful not to use the word "reboot" and seem committed to keeping old-school Valiant fans happy. So how will they have their cake and eat it too? How do you do a clean-slate relaunch of a line of titles without upsetting current readers? One word: Multiverse.

The end of Resurgence will detail how this all comes about in the actual storyline itself, but expect a DC Rebirth style embracing all the different eras of Valiant while also making these new versions of the characters that place them in different settings and scenarios. The publishing history of Valiant has seen multiple eras and ownership, resulting in different versions of the characters that were distinct and mostly separate from one another, but that could change with a new multiverse-friendly approach. Bloodshot co-creator Kevin VanHook already penned a story featuring a meeting between the '90s and 2010's Bloodshot in the Black, White & Bloodshot anthology, kicking the door down for more cross-universe interactions.

So, the new Valiant Beyond titles will hit in March and April, and other projects will come later in 2025 that deal with the other versions of the characters that long-time fans are familiar with. The intent is to excite fans of the nineties and twenties eras and invite in new readers who have been enjoying the Absolute/Ultimate/Energon titles as well. But for February 2025? You won't get much.

"Valient," as some fans refer to the current publishing arrangement between Alien Books and Valiant Comics, has spent the better part of 2024 wrapping up Dinesh-era storylines and setting up their big hero vs. hero Resurgence crossover event. But with that event ending in January, there's been no word yet on what's coming next—until now.

For those unfamiliar with Valiant, it's got a long and rather complicated history with multiple iterations of the characters, rights transferring between companies, reboots, and relaunches. The Valiant Comics of the late '80s first published licensed video game titles from Nintendo, including The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. Years later, Jim Shooter and co. introduced characters like Dr. Solar, Magnus, and Turok, as well as mainstays like Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, and Ninjak. After years of sales success and variant cover gimmicks like chromium covers, Valiant was eventually purchased by video game publisher Acclaim. Books were relaunched, new versions of characters were introduced, like Shadowman (whose N64 game was just re-released on consoles last year), and there were some new breakout stars like Quantum & Woody, but ultimately, the line would last only a few more years before disappearing from comic store shelves altogether.

In 2012, Dinesh Shamdasani, a self-professed Valiant Comics mega-fan growing up, purchased the rights to most of the back catalogue and characters and resurrected the brand with a reimagined and interconnected universe of characters steered by some of the comics world's top talent, including Robert Venditti, Duane Swiercynzski, Joshua Dysart, and many more. The "Dinesh era" of Valiant Entertainment would last for several more years and would win critical acclaim with titles like Harbinger and Faith before they were eventually purchased outright by DMG Entertainment, and Dinesh and Co were shown the door. And thus, we got Bad Idea Comics.

After a thin few years during and after pandemic, the entire line of Valiant comic books is now licensed to indie publisher Alien Books who have been reprinting classic material, telling new stories, and leading towards that Resurgence crossover event we mentioned earlier. And they've been bringing back some original Valiant talent like Bloodshot co-creator Kevin VanHook to tell new stories with the characters. One of which featured two different Bloodshots interacting in the second issue of the Black, White & Bloodshot anthology series, one from the 90s and one from 2017. Was this a tease of what's to come? I was told there's something similar happening in the current Shadowman series by AJ Ampadu coming up.

It seems that as Alien prepares for their Beyond relaunch, they're also looking at ways they can bring in elements from those different eras – Shooterverse, Acclaimverse, and Dineshverse – to future projects. That writers have been told to bring back old heroes and villains and concepts that have maybe lied dormant for a while. And that the Finale issue of Resurgence by Fred Van Lente hitting in January is meant to set all of this up with both a line of new-reader friendly titles launching and more retro-inspired projects coming later. We should see the first of the Valiant Beyond books in the March 2025 solicitations so we're not too far off from finding out for ourselves how this is all set to go down. Doing a relaunch while also bringing back previously discarded continuity and characters… that's called having your Valiant cake and eating it too.

Oh and yes, a Valiant Resurrection for Free Comic Book Day 2025…

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