Is there any continuity now?

[Bl00dsh0t]

Gotta admit, I'm really not reading much Valiant these days which saddens me as it wasn't that long ago I was picking near everything up. One of the reasons I've pretty much stopped buying Valiant is down to one thing:

the universe doesn't feel connected anymore

That being said, I'm not reading Livewire (dropped after #4) or any of the mini's (i will be picking up Fallen World) - do the mini's contribute to the broader universe in anyway? do the titles feel part of the same world?

I left after HW11 but want to get back in again, however nothing is urging me to do so - am I missing out, is there anything on the horizon worth reading?

[DirtbagSailor]

Fallen Kingdom is connected to Rai, 4001 A.D., Bloodshot, and Eternal Warrior.

Life and Death of Toyo Harada is connected to Harbinger and Imperium.

[nycjadie]

I still feel like the continuity is there, but there are less crossovers. That’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. I loathe crossovers. I feel like they give the illusion of continuity and a shared universe at the expense of ruining existing storylines.

[TheeBaldMoose]

I am considering the last 6 months (and longer) to be an expansion of the universe. Still has all the continuity, it's just getting bigger.

- Livewire has introduced a few bad guys. There is possibility that we get some characters we haven't seen, back in the fold. OMEN should create a good amount of baddies here.
- Forgotten Queen is being re-introduced (and isn't a half bad book IMO), and is expanding her story line.
- Bloodshot RS is total and complete garbage and regardless of who writes it, it'll stay that way (really want Eliot Rahal to bring this whole thing around, but don't know if he can)
- Incursion has introduced a few bad guys, someone to possibly take up the void of Darque, and successfully bringing back EW (another solid book). It has expanded what the Dead-Side could be
- LADOTH will be amazing, and is so far (feels like old Valiant, much smaller and compact), and while this story line will end, it could expand greatly.
- Fallen World should be amazing, as I am very excited for this book. It'll re-introduce his old nemesis (and maybe a few bad guys?)
- Killers is slated to introduce more characters and bad guys, which Ninjak really needs.

[otomo]

It definitely feels like everything's disconnected and meandering in directions. I'm pretty close to giving up on Valiant. I know a few good creators are coming but I'm not sure it's enough.

[Shadowman99]

I'm certain it's safe to say that there's still strong continuity in the VU to date, except where perhaps Dead Drop and Bloodshot Rising Spirit have reared their ugly heads, as events, occurrences and character personalities and motives have generally been, and continue to be, respected and sustained.

I think that probably what you're sensing is a lack of more immediate, obvious and regular 'cross over', or interlinkage between titles. For example, at the moment titles are all happening in their own little 'pockets', where Punk Mambo will be happening in one place, Bloodshot in another, XO in another, and none of these characters or events are crossing paths with characters and events in other pockets, leading to the universe as a whole feeling disparate.

[Shadowman99]

It definitely feels like everything's disconnected and meandering in directions. I'm pretty close to giving up on Valiant. I know a few good creators are coming but I'm not sure it's enough.

I know a lot of folk here are big on 'connectivity' in the VU as a result of that being a main selling point for the 90's era company (that was nearly 30 years ago...), and I did enjoy the more connected titles that occurred 2012-2017 or so, but an obviously connected universe isn't a big selling point for me personally. As long as individual titles are enjoyable then I'm really not bothered as to how often Bloodshot crosses paths with the Harbinger gang or XO hangs out with Divinity and Mishka.

Doesn't really bother me.

[CongoBill]

It definitely feels like everything's disconnected and meandering in directions. I'm pretty close to giving up on Valiant. I know a few good creators are coming but I'm not sure it's enough.

I am just coming back in after taking six months off from reading Valiant. Really enjoying Incursion and am about to read the first two issues of LADOTH. Also have first four issues of Livewire on the stack. I'm feeling excited about Valiant again based on what I'm seeing. I think taking that break did me good in terms of how I feel about the company and the current books.

[jakgrimm]

This iteration of Valiant never really had any continuity. They had plot lines going off in every possible direction with no good editor to rein them in. This is exactly what all the hard work that Jim Shooter put in was about. He put out quality books with (almost) complete continuity. This Valiant could have used someone like him

[IMJ]

This iteration of Valiant never really had any continuity. They had plot lines going off in every possible direction with no good editor to rein them in. This is exactly what all the hard work that Jim Shooter put in was about. He put out quality books with (almost) complete continuity. This Valiant could have used someone like him

This is not an inaccurate criticism.

[dornwolf]

I'm honestly starting to wonder if continuity in general is slowly disappearing from shared universes. Books in general just don't feel connected at all anymore.

[Shadowman99]

This iteration of Valiant never really had any continuity. They had plot lines going off in every possible direction with no good editor to rein them in. This is exactly what all the hard work that Jim Shooter put in was about. He put out quality books with (almost) complete continuity. This Valiant could have used someone like him

This is not an inaccurate criticism.

I disagree, there are a multitude of examples from 2012 - 2019 that could be given to prove that there has been continuity in the universe, from issue to issue and title to title, and even across titles. Saying that there's never been any continuity is complete nonsense.

[TheeBaldMoose]

This iteration of Valiant never really had any continuity. They had plot lines going off in every possible direction with no good editor to rein them in. This is exactly what all the hard work that Jim Shooter put in was about. He put out quality books with (almost) complete continuity. This Valiant could have used someone like him

This is not an inaccurate criticism.

I disagree, there are a multitude of examples from 2012 - 2019 that could be given to prove that there has been continuity in the universe, from issue to issue and title to title, and even across titles. Saying that there's never been any continuity is complete nonsense.

Agreed. Even going back to Bloodshot Salvation, think it was book 6 or something like that. It showed Bloodshot working with Ninjak to get to the Dark Side with Shadowman. In that pages introduction, there is an asterisks stating the events of this happened BEFORE HWII. I do believe there are other books that have shown that as well.

Now, since the buy-out, we haven't seen characters working together. I do not believe there is a current book that has shown any characters working together to solve a situation in one book (minus BS:Rising Spirit and the HARD Corps, but that was all history, and not in the current timeline). But, I will state, these latest books feel like Valiant is trying to grow outward, not disrupt the continuity.

[kinggirlfriend]

FAITH DREAMSIDE was full of the Doctor Mirage, Hwen and Animalia.
X-O second to the last arc was full of the Eternity characters and was all about a character introduced in Divinity.
Ninja-K's last two arc were filled with tons of other characters and the storyline was a follow up to WRATH OF THE ETERNAL WARRIOR. INCURSION then follows up on the last Ninja-K arc.

Continuity isn't the issue. It's the overall quality and direction they're taking that's the problem.

[jakgrimm]

Well I think it is a different thing to talk about a shared universe and to talk about continuity. Surely the characters live in the same universe but maybe it does not feel like that. The continuity I mean is the ability to maintain storylines and abide by the same constant rules or plotlines of the characters. For example the Eternal Warrior was introduced from coming out of inactivity for 100 years or whatever. Have they maintained that the EW has not fought in either of the World Wars, or Vietnam or Kosovo or any of the Gulf Wars? I gave up right up away since I already knew the answer but maybe someone can surprise me. The thing that made Valiant great was the intelligent writing. I can't stand that this version went the way of D E C O M P R E S S I O N and other faults. FFS Valiant had something special back in the day. I know I know

[GammaJosh]

It's a year old now but the second arc of Ninja-K was chock full of continuity, tying in events of Harbinger Wars, the previous Ninjak series, Doctor Mirage, Unity, and Wrath of the Eternal Warrior. I was pleased!

[depluto]

This iteration of Valiant never really had any continuity. They had plot lines going off in every possible direction with no good editor to rein them in. This is exactly what all the hard work that Jim Shooter put in was about. He put out quality books with (almost) complete continuity. This Valiant could have used someone like him

This is not an inaccurate criticism.

I agree, but I also think somebody like Shooter probably would have reined in Dysart before we got Imperium, or maybe Venditti when he went into outer space for Armor Hunters. Although it's not too late to tie together some of the loose ends. I hope.