All of us have holiday traditions: some of us watch A Charlie Brown Christmas each year, some of politely ask the three major shared comics universes (Marvel, DC, Valiant) to make some changes to their comic lines to please our interests. Wanna guess which one we are doing today?
First up this year is Valiant, which continues to grow and mature each and every year. If you’ve got any suggestions, let us know in the comments.
So, without any further ado:
Ken Godberson III
Stop Using Marvel’s Bad Ideas
Basically what I mean by this is, Valiant is beginning their big push for their Cinematic Universe coming and we’ve watched the comic side of Marvel become neigh subservient to that. Cross-media synergy can be good, just don’t go completely mad with it. On another not, when a story is meant to be a self-contained arc, please don’t try and expand it into a full blown event. I’m glaring at you, “4001 A.D.” and tentatively glaring at you “Divinity III: Stalinverse”.
Expand That Creative Pool
I got to be honest, when I learned I had some trepidation. While Kindt is a good writer (even if I feel his Valiant work can be up-and-down) and I can appreciate that Valiant seems to have a long-term plan for the book, I was disappointed that it’s one of the Valiant mainstay writers doing this book. I get that Valiant has a smaller concentration of books, but it does, after a while, make the lack in a variety of writers more noticeable. I want to see a variety of creators from all walks of life, of different races, genders, sexualities, and more.
Brian Salvatore
Let Faith Reign
Sometimes a character pops up and, before you know it, is practically everywhere. Think Deadpool for Marvel, or Harley Quinn for DC. Well, Valiant has one of them, too: Faith. And, unlike Deadpool or Harley, she’s not annoying as shit. Faith is one of the most recognizable and fun characters that Valiant is currently publishing, and she’s easily the most bankable character with the Tumblr crowd (and, overall, is usually in Valiant’s top 3 sellers each month).
In other words, she should be more front and center with everything Valiant does.
Now, I’m not saying to turn her into Poochy and have everything revolve around her, but if there’s one character that should be both in a team book and a solo book, it is Faith. If there’s one character who should headline the next big crossover, it is Faith. If there’s one character to pop into a struggling book to give it the rub, it should be Faith.
As long as this is done without going totally over the top, everyone wins: the book can be built up into Valiant’s biggest title, you can bring more readers – especially non-Wednesday warriors who might’ve seen the character someplace other than a comic store – and you can begin to shed a little of the boys’ club image that comes from every other bankable Valiant character being a dude.
More books like “Britannia” and “Savage”
A ton of Valiant’s success has come from its refusal to stray too far from its core universe. However, that is the only way for the line to grow and develop further. And that is why two of the books announced at the Valiant Summit were so refreshing: they were firmly still in the Valiant universe, but didn’t look like anything else the publisher had ever put out, and expanded the world out into directions that we’ve never seen before.
Another book like that next round of new releases would be a very welcome development. Sadly, comics companies need to, on some level, be everything to everyone, and while Valiant’s smaller scale prevents that slightly, it allows them to go all in when taking a chance, either by bringing in top talent (like Peter Milligan on “Britannia”) or by taking a concept that seems so out of place, but is still given a place of prominence (like “Savage”).
Because the line is small, each book matters – show us how much diversity matters – both on and off the page – by being bold with your next announcements.
