Customer Reviews

Harbinger: The Beginning

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Harbinger: The Beginning is a retelling of the first eight Harbinger comics from Valiant Comics in 1992 in a new format. Those eight comics tell a single story, and have never been together in a single book before, since the earlier trade paperbacks for Harbinger only included four or five of these eight. This hardcover has digital re-coloring for the original inks, giving a "modern twist" on books that had become almost instant classics at the time. Looking from page to page through the book, there are cases where I prefer the original coloring from 1992, and there are pages that seem much more vibrant with the new digital coloring. There are new corrections and consistency between panels of the story, and some new effects that were not possible before digital coloring.

Though 192 of the 200 pages in this book have been seen in print before, I am certain that many comic collectors still have not read them. Unless you already own this book, I know that you haven't seen these pages in digital coloring. Comic collectors often believe that they already know about Valiant Comics, but unless they were collectors from the very beginning in 1991, they probably haven't had the opportunity to read the earliest stories which formed the foundation for the Valiant fan, such as Harbinger: The Beginning.

Many comic collectors like myself did not find Harbinger until around the tenth issue, and the earliest issues were priced far above my budget in the backissue market at the time. Only after re-starting my comic collecting via internet auctions did I find (and afford) backissues for the earliest Valiant books and finally sit down to read the books in the order they were released.

This hardcover makes that task much easier than searching out all the backissue comics. There is a reason that the earliest Valiant Comics were so prized when they were new, and why they still have a strong following today. I believe that Harbinger: The Beginning is a sign of good things to come. Valiant Entertainment Inc. is now guiding the Valiant universe, and this first product is very high quality. From the full-color dust jacket to the textured hardcover underneath, it doesn't appear that VEI has spared any expense. The pages themselves are very colorful, and the original story is presented in a new way, without changing the impact of the original. A new story included by Jim Shooter, "Origin of Harada", takes the characters a little further than before... and opens several possibilities for Valiant's future.

I would imagine that there will be many discussions about "what might be next" for Valiant based just upon the few pages of new story. What we do know is that VEI doesn't mind paying extra for a quality product, without passing those costs on to the customer. At $24.95 retail, this book is a bargain compared to others on the shelf, and with Amazon's discounted pricing it becomes a "must read" for any budget, especially if you've never read it before.

If you're a fan of the current story-telling in television shows such as "Heroes" or the more realistic comic-based movies being produced today, you might be surprised to find many of the same ideas and concepts in this early 1990s story. I've been a fan of Valiant since 1992, I've been a "rejuvenated fan" since the late 1990s, and I'm a supporter of Valiant's return since long before this book was even possible. It's exciting to see Valiant return, and hopefully, this is the first in a long line of quality Valiant products by VEI. Best of luck to them.

I hope you'll give Harbinger: The Beginning a try if you're wondering why anyone ever cared about Valiant Comics in the first place. Valiant was in the top three of comic companies with Marvel and D.C. for a short period of time. How could that happen so quickly? Why are Valiant fans still so passionate? This book is "The Beginning" of the answer.

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.

I'm so disappointed that there have been some issues keeping this book out of some fans' hands. This is a well put together hardcover of one of my favorite comic book collections of the early 1990's. I still remember the day I bought Harbinger #1 and to have it all collected is a treat. Fans of TV shows like "Heroes" will be happy to see this is a very similar concept.

I was hoping big sales of this book would lead to new Harbinger comics material, but thanks to some greedy people that might not happen. I really hope it all gets ironed out so we can have more hardcover Valiant collections.

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.

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.

It's a welcome opportunity to read the early issues of Harbinger, where low print runs and ridiculous speculator prices pushed them out of reach. The storytelling is solid superhero stuff, and pretty moving in places. It's no Watchmen or Dark Knight by any means, but within the context of its genre the fanboy hysteria was justified.

BUT, and this a big BUT, the production values of this hardback are terrible. The digital recolouring job is plain awful at best, and obscures the storytelling at worst. Also, because the original artwork wasn't to hand for this collection, they scanned the comic pages and bleached the colour from them. The result is pages that look muddy and smeared, and had me wishing I could have read the original comics as they were originally presented.

It's a cautious recommendation for this collection. People who want to read the early Valiant Comics don't really have any other option, but this is not by any means a definitive, authoritative, or archive edition.

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.

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.