preview of livewire aka Valiant suck now part 2

[otomo]

Boring and flat. Put the super back in superhero people.

[markie7235]

X-O Manowar invaded a sovereign nation, murdered the people who attempted to liberate it, from him, Major Palmer kills children for his paycheck, Peter Stancheck mindraped multiple people and lobotomized Dull Tull for fun, Shadowman killed his father, Rai and Lulu Lee inadvertently killed countless innocents when they liberated New Japan from Father, Generation Zero committed multiple acts of terrorism, held numerous innocents hostage, and took over an American city, and Armstrong is just a *SQUEE*.

If we're going to hold Livewire accountable for actions which may not even be canon after her new series begins, considering the new writer has been straight forward of her dislike for Harbinger Wars II, maybe we should do the same for every other Valiant character.

Dang, all that happened? Flawed characters are great but some of that sounds straight villainous. Who are the real heroes in the VEI universe then?

It doesn't make sense that HW2 isn't canon, the last part came out just last month from the same editors who are putting out Livewire

This actually harkens back to the original VH1 days also, and that was part of what attracted people to Valiant in the first place. Where Marvel and DC were really Good vs Evil, Valiant dealt more with people who come to grips with new found power they shouldn't have and don't know how to handle. It was more about internal personal conflict and lots of shades of grey.

For example, Solar gains his power and is now basically a God, but he botches things royally. I mean, if you pay attention to the underlying story in issues 1-10, he basically killed every single person on earth than destroyed the planet. He just happened to reform it also with his power, but it wasn't the same, he had changed it forever.

Magnus struggles with the idea of killing free will robots and starts coming to the conclusion that despite being machines, they are alive just like humans but in a different way. So he basically comes to grips that he was a mass murderer of millions of innocents who did nothing wrong except gain free will from their creators.

Harbinger was a story of kids with power playing with fire and not really understanding what they were doing. As a result, Torque dies. The VEI version is basically the same, but instead of Torque it's Flamingo who dies.

Flawed characters has been a staple of Valiant forever. Most of the characters early on in the Shooter days committed atrocities as they struggled with their powers, much like any normal person would who suddenly can do incredible things but have no concept of how to properly use those powers. I think the reason Amanda's actions are so reprehensible to many is for most of the VEI days, she tended to have a very strong moral compass. For example, once she realized that Harada was a monster who would kill millions to elevate psiots, she turned on him....but in HW2 she basically became him. It's out of character for her considering how opposed she was to Harada when he was going to do it. I'm curious if Harada would be proud of her or ashamed of her for her actions in HW2

I can't believe I'm quoting myself

Anyways, I realized this morning that while I outlined how committing atrocities is kind of Valiant's thing with their heroes that it doesn't really answer why this is upsetting aside from out of character for Amanda. I think the problem is two parts at this point for Valiant...

1) When Valiant first made this a core tenet of their hero origins, it was new and different back in the 90s. Most superheroes had...well...heroic origins using their power for good. It was pretty clear cut, you got powers, you either used them for good or evil and then never changed, thus making you a hero or villain in the Marvel/DC universes. But Valiant came and said things are that clear in real life, sometimes you could be the hero and other times the villain depending on perspective and circumstance. This worked again for the VEI reboot because you're re-telling/re-imaging the origins, but still sticking to the fundamentals. The problem though is you can't keep doing the same thing over and over, at some point your heroes have to learn and move on. Back in the 90s, they went to fast. For example, Solar went from flawed and borderline villain to campy superhero it seemed in a couple issues. In some ways, I appreciate what they did with Amanda more because she started off clear in vision, and this was her fall from grace/high horse, now she has to figure out her way forward. Still, Valiant needs to find a way forward without constantly going back to the barrel of new/re-telling origins and/or their heroes mucking up again. It works for awhile, but now it just feels tired and old.

2) The other issue is something I've stated before, and that's since Valiant lacks any real villains (aside from Darque), they are left to re-visit this hero's commit atrocities scene over and over. While this works initially, at some point if you want to make it like real life, you would expect your characters to experience growth and change or mature. In any case, because of this, the approach Valiant has taken works best in either a limited series arc telling that specific story and then calling it a day. For example, Harbingers despite being some interesting characters, I think is right to go to roughly issue 25 and be done. That's their story, the upstarts who rebel, think they are going to change the world, realize they are in over their head, cause tragedy, but are able to still squeeze out a win at great cost in the end. I think the best way forward with Harbinger is have Amanda become the leader of the "New Harbingers" and move the Secret Weapon kids and her into a new Harbinger series as the main characters. But that's kind of where they are done. Rai likewise I think was smart to end where it did. The only character's they really have that work well in serials would be Eternal Warrior, Ninjak, X-O, Archer & Armstrong, and maybe a couple others. Shadowman it depends if they can introduce some other enemies for him (I mean not like they don't have a whole other dimension of possibilities). Mirage is another one I think could work really well serialized. Just seems like they are trying to still walk the line of their character tragedy/origin stories and not get too campy, and not sure it's working.

[nonplayer]

X-O Manowar invaded a sovereign nation, murdered the people who attempted to liberate it, from him, Major Palmer kills children for his paycheck, Peter Stancheck mindraped multiple people and lobotomized Dull Tull for fun, Shadowman killed his father, Rai and Lulu Lee inadvertently killed countless innocents when they liberated New Japan from Father, Generation Zero committed multiple acts of terrorism, held numerous innocents hostage, and took over an American city, and Armstrong is just a *SQUEE*.

If we're going to hold Livewire accountable for actions which may not even be canon after her new series begins, considering the new writer has been straight forward of her dislike for Harbinger Wars II, maybe we should do the same for every other Valiant character.

Dang, all that happened? Flawed characters are great but some of that sounds straight villainous. Who are the real heroes in the VEI universe then?

It doesn't make sense that HW2 isn't canon, the last part came out just last month from the same editors who are putting out Livewire

This actually harkens back to the original VH1 days also, and that was part of what attracted people to Valiant in the first place. Where Marvel and DC were really Good vs Evil, Valiant dealt more with people who come to grips with new found power they shouldn't have and don't know how to handle. It was more about internal personal conflict and lots of shades of grey.

For example, Solar gains his power and is now basically a God, but he botches things royally. I mean, if you pay attention to the underlying story in issues 1-10, he basically killed every single person on earth than destroyed the planet. He just happened to reform it also with his power, but it wasn't the same, he had changed it forever.

Magus struggles with the idea of killing free will robots and starts coming to the conclusion that despite being machines, they are alive just like humans but in a different way. So he basically comes to grips that he was a mass murderer of millions of innocents who did nothing wrong except gain free will from their creators.

Harbinger was a story of kids with power playing with fire and not really understanding what they were doing. As a result, Torque dies. The VEI version is basically the same, but instead of Torque it's Flamingo who dies.

Flawed characters has been a staple of Valiant forever. Most of the characters early on in the Shooter days committed atrocities as they struggled with their powers, much like any normal person would who suddenly can do incredible things but have no concept of how to properly use those powers. I think the reason Amanda's actions are so reprehensible to many is for most of the VEI days, she tended to have a very strong moral compass. For example, once she realized that Harada was a monster who would kill millions to elevate psiots, she turned on him....but in HW2 she basically became him. It's out of character for her considering how opposed she was to Harada when he was going to do it. I'm curious if Harada would be proud of her or ashamed of her for her actions in HW2

I can't believe I'm quoting myself

Anyways, I realized this morning that while I outlined how committing atrocities is kind of Valiant's thing with their heroes that it doesn't really answer why this is upsetting aside from out of character for Amanda. I think the problem is two parts at this point for Valiant...

1) When Valiant first made this a core tenet of their hero origins, it was new and different back in the 90s. Most superheroes had...well...heroic origins using their power for good. It was pretty clear cut, you got powers, you either used them for good or evil and then never changed, thus making you a hero or villain in the Marvel/DC universes. But Valiant came and said things are that clear in real life, sometimes you could be the hero and other times the villain depending on perspective and circumstance. This worked again for the VEI reboot because you're re-telling/re-imaging the origins, but still sticking to the fundamentals. The problem though is you can't keep doing the same thing over and over, at some point your heroes have to learn and move on. Back in the 90s, they went to fast. For example, Solar went from flawed and borderline villain to campy superhero it seemed in a couple issues. In some ways, I appreciate what they did with Amanda more because she started off clear in vision, and this was her fall from grace/high horse, now she has to figure out her way forward. Still, Valiant needs to find a way forward without constantly going back to the barrel of new/re-telling origins and/or their heroes mucking up again. It works for awhile, but now it just feels tired and old.

2) The other issue is something I've stated before, and that's since Valiant lacks any real villains (aside from Darque), they are left to re-visit this hero's commit atrocities scene over and over. While this works initially, at some point if you want to make it like real life, you would expect your characters to experience growth and change or mature. In any case, because of this, the approach Valiant has taken works best in either a limited series arc telling that specific story and then calling it a day. For example, Harbingers despite being some interesting characters, I think is right to go to roughly issue 25 and be done. That's their story, the upstarts who rebel, think they are going to change the world, realize they are in over their head, cause tragedy, but are able to still squeeze out a win at great cost in the end. I think the best way forward with Harbinger is have Amanda become the leader of the "New Harbingers" and move the Secret Weapon kids and her into a new Harbinger series as the main characters. But that's kind of where they are done. Rai likewise I think was smart to end where it did. The only character's they really have that work well in serials would be Eternal Warrior, Ninjak, X-O, Archer & Armstrong, and maybe a couple others. Shadowman it depends if they can introduce some other enemies for him (I mean not like they don't have a whole other dimension of possibilities). Mirage is another one I think could work really well serialized. Just seems like they are trying to still walk the line of their character tragedy/origin stories and not get too campy, and not sure it's working.

Thats what's so great about different dimensions

[agent_graves]

X-O Manowar invaded a sovereign nation, murdered the people who attempted to liberate it, from him, Major Palmer kills children for his paycheck, Peter Stancheck mindraped multiple people and lobotomized Dull Tull for fun, Shadowman killed his father, Rai and Lulu Lee inadvertently killed countless innocents when they liberated New Japan from Father, Generation Zero committed multiple acts of terrorism, held numerous innocents hostage, and took over an American city, and Armstrong is just a *SQUEE*.

If we're going to hold Livewire accountable for actions which may not even be canon after her new series begins, considering the new writer has been straight forward of her dislike for Harbinger Wars II, maybe we should do the same for every other Valiant character.

+1 Preview looks good. Loved seeing Secret Weapons! This is the only new book from the new regime I’ve had any interest in thus far.

[syzhang28]

X-O Manowar invaded a sovereign nation, murdered the people who attempted to liberate it, from him, Major Palmer kills children for his paycheck, Peter Stancheck mindraped multiple people and lobotomized Dull Tull for fun, Shadowman killed his father, Rai and Lulu Lee inadvertently killed countless innocents when they liberated New Japan from Father, Generation Zero committed multiple acts of terrorism, held numerous innocents hostage, and took over an American city, and Armstrong is just a *SQUEE*.

If we're going to hold Livewire accountable for actions which may not even be canon after her new series begins, considering the new writer has been straight forward of her dislike for Harbinger Wars II, maybe we should do the same for every other Valiant character.

I see what you're saying but I think there is a nuanced difference:

X-O Manowar invading a sovereign nation and then defending it against hostile invaders is completely within character. That was morally right in his time. Might is right and all that. His character arc was to learn that there is a more evolved way today which he did beautifully in the 50+ issues Robert Venditti wrote and the dozen or so issues Matt Kindt wrote while Dinesh and Warren were there.

Major Palmer is a villain in the way Valiant does it best. A seductive, morally ambiguous one you sometimes forget is a bad guy...but he's a bad guy.

Pete is an extremely flawed character who is continually punished for his behavior. He is an outlaw. The forces of society and greater (Harada) are constantly trying to hunt him down and stop him. He is the protagonist of the story but the genius of what Jim Shooter and David Lapham did, and what Joshua Dysart, Warren and Dinesh continued is that Harbinger is all shades of gray.

Shadowman became a villain in VEI. Something Dinesh and Warren talk about happening organically but not something they necessarily feel was the best choice. But they honored that by never letting him ignore his villainous actions. He stayed tortured and unheroic all the way until Dinesh and Warren were gone.

Father killed countless people. Rai and Lulu Lee were trying to stop the killing.

Generation Zero paid the ultimate price for their terrorist actions

Armstrong I like

Livewire's arc has been to go from the darker shades of gray to the more heroic. Valiant, under Dinesh and Warren, took her from right hand woman of Harada to a morally conflicted character to a leader to a hero. Then, as soon as they are gone, she murders thousands. It's out of character and it's a shedding of many of the layers that have been slowly and carefully built onto her character by Joshua Dysart, Matt Kindt, Eric Heisserer etc.

I'm not trying to be negative but Valiant has always been about great storytellers pushing the limits. Now with Dinesh and Warren gone we're seeing no great storytellers at the helm and as a result lots of the great storyteller writers are leaving - Jeff Lemire, Eric Heisserer etc.

My bet is that Life and Death of Toyo Harada is amazing. It's a book that Dinesh and Warren were involved in for years. And that we see a much more interesting Livewire in that book. One that is at odds with who DMG have made her.

[syzhang28]

X-O Manowar invaded a sovereign nation, murdered the people who attempted to liberate it, from him, Major Palmer kills children for his paycheck, Peter Stancheck mindraped multiple people and lobotomized Dull Tull for fun, Shadowman killed his father, Rai and Lulu Lee inadvertently killed countless innocents when they liberated New Japan from Father, Generation Zero committed multiple acts of terrorism, held numerous innocents hostage, and took over an American city, and Armstrong is just a *SQUEE*.

If we're going to hold Livewire accountable for actions which may not even be canon after her new series begins, considering the new writer has been straight forward of her dislike for Harbinger Wars II, maybe we should do the same for every other Valiant character.

+1 Preview looks good. Loved seeing Secret Weapons! This is the only new book from the new regime I’ve had any interest in thus far.

I hope I'm wrong but right now the only thing I think has a chance of being good is Life and Death of Toyo Harada.
I really hope Livewire is good and tells a Valiant story not a Lion Forge one.