Posted in: Comics | Tagged: eric heisserer, Harbinger, Livewire, particia martin, Raul Allen, rex-o, secret weapons, valiant

Valiant's Secret Is A Comic Called Secret Weapons By Arrival's Eric Heisserer, Bringing Back 90s Villain Rexo

Published Thu, 02 Feb 2017 10:35:20 -0600

by Jude Terror

Last updated Thu, 02 Feb 2017 11:22:23 -0600

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Valiant's big secret has been revealed: Eric Heisserer will be writing a new comic with Raul Allen and Patricia Martin. Called Secret Weapons, the book will "follow Livewire as she encounters psiots that Harada had cast aside in an isolated facility due to their seemingly useless powers: a boy who causes things to faintly glow, a girl who can communicate with birds, and so on." Livewire sees the potential of these characters and forms a team to fight a new version of 90s villain Rexo, now called Rex-O, who has not yet appeared in the rebooted Valiant universe. Secret Weapons was also the name of a 1993 series from Valiant. The news was revealed by bird-themed pop culture website Vulture.

Heisserer (or Heiserrer as the cover below lists him), writer of the 8-time Academy Award nominated film Arrival, was inspired while writing the screenplays for the upcoming Harbinger and Bloodshot movies, and needed to return to tell one more story:

I kept thinking about her. I started to have dreams about interesting scenes and interesting explorations of her powers long after my official writing steps were done on the script. I approached Dinesh and [Valiant editor-in-chief] Warren Simons and said, "Guys, I've got a lot of stories here for her. I see her path pretty well. I'd love to take a swing at this, writing a book that has her as the anchor."

[…]

As a storyteller, you carry around a handful of things, like, Hey, let's find a home for this idea at some point. It's been based on the fact that I always get really emotionally affected at the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I started building this home for these wayward psiots that obviously didn't make the cut. It seemed appropriate for where Valiant is right now.

In a press release, Valiant provided a longer description of the story:

The government has dispatched Amanda McKee – the technopath codenamed Livewire – to investigate the ruins of a secret facility formerly run by Toyo Harada, the most powerful telepath on Earth and her former mentor. In his quest for world betterment at any cost, Harada sought out and activated many potential psiots like himself. Those who survived, but whose powers he deemed to have no value to his cause, were hidden away at this installation. But Livewire, having studied Harada's greatest strengths and learned his deepest weaknesses, senses opportunity where he once saw failure. A young girl who can talk to birds… A boy who can make inanimate objects gently glow… To others, these are expensive failures. But, to Livewire, they are secret weapons…in need of a leader. Now, as a mechanized killer called Rexo seeks to draw them out, Livewire and her new team of cadets will be forced to put their powers into action…in ways they never could have imagined…

This isn't Heisserer's first foray into comics. He's also credited as the writer of two Dark Horse comics, Shaper and Lone Wolf 2100.

The "prestige format" four issue Secret Weapons mini-series will be in stores in June. Heisserer claims it will be accessible even to people who have never read Valiant's comics, if you were worried about that, so it could be an entry point into the Valiant Universe ahead of the upcoming films he wrote for Sony Pictures.