Non-MOTA "What should happen to Valiant now" threa

Byrneout · Post by **Byrneout** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:34 am

As much as Keith Giffen's run on Magnus, Robot Fighter is maligned, the key to retooling the Valiant Universe exists in the final issues of that series.

If you recall, Magnus is nowhere to be found. He was hit with tachyons, and no longer seems to exist within the timeframe of 4001 AD.

So, where is Magnus? Magnus could be in the Lost Land, starting a new Unity event by accident. Magnus could be shunted back into the past, forever altering history. The story of finding him could be an integral part of any relaunch (provided the new owners obtain the rights to Magnus).

In Magnus' absence, you could always use Torque (Magnus' son), and have him travel through time attempting to find his father. Torque makes some mistakes that a villain tries to capitalize on (Master Darque, anyone?), and the resultant battle remakes the universe without the Gold Key characters, and we start from scratch.

These are just a couple of options that keep the previous continuity, but direct us to something new as well. Is it the best route? Perhaps, perhaps not, but I didn't see a route similar to this one expressed earlier in the thread.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:25 pm

I would rather scrap Magnus after Unity and pick up from there or start all over again. The Malev war was mediocre at best and it's conclusion basically resulted in putting Magnus 20 years in the future so we could have another Rai. I want to see Magnus young and smashing Robots, not a middle aged Dad with a Psi Lord son.

Byrneout · Post by **Byrneout** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 4:35 pm

Daniel, everything you said is possible with the storyline mentioned above. Either one could effectively "re-start" the universe from Unity onwards.

Heath · Post by **Heath** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:05 pm

I'm pretty open to any approach really. Some of the stuff at the end was so bad, so direspectful of what came before, and so "NOT VALIANT" that I'd be happy to discover it never happened. Maybe not a "reboot" but a "rewind." Part of me says it would be near impossible to continue the stories from where they left off and still turn it around and bring back the core values of Jim Shooter's Valiant.

Those core principles that attracted me to Valiant in the first place are what I'm most interested in. It was those principles - moreso than the characters themselves - that made me a Valiant fan. So, whatever approach Dino takes to bringing back Valiant, as long as it is true in principle to what Jim Shooter established, I'll be happy.

But, if Dino were to cater to me personally, I'd really like to read Shadowman #44.

400yrs · Post by **400yrs** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:39 pm

Vault-Keeper wrote:Any new releases featuring Valiant characters has got to be based around a viable business model for it to be a success, IMO. Things (obviously) can't just be thrown together to please a niche audience of hardcore fans (us).

The characters returning to print might not even be part of the initial start-up. Many factors need to be considered:

What character(s) have the strongest potential to generate new sales and interest?

Which medium would be the best to generate the largest interest?

These need to be decided before a team of creators can go to work, let alone decide what pre-history is needed to establish a good foundation in the earliest stages of the "relaunch".

With all these things considered, it makes it hard to say what would be the best in terms of just a print relaunch. If it were just a print relaunch, I personally think the way to get the most exposure to a new audience would be to have your product available in the widest number of outlets available.

Thus it might be best to start out with a series of Graphic Novels. This would expand the number of outlets to going beyond the 'comic book stores', and into the Mall Bookstores like Walden, Barnes & Noble, etc. All of these type bookstores have Graphic Novel sections.

The type of Graphic Novels produced would depend on how the new owners decide to handle Valiant's past history. If they decide to stick with what happened in V1, they could release a Valiant Anthology GN, which would contain 4 16-page separate stories based on various characters. Another GN could be based on various heroes Origins. As interest grows, additional GN's could contain stories that happened during the past 10 years (Tales Of The Valiant Universe), and possibly a total reprint TPB to reprint classic storylines. This could help generate income on material that has already been produced (keeping costs down).

Should the new owners decide to start from scratch, I would suggest turning something like Bob Layton's film treatment for X-O Manowar into a Graphic Novel. With a new universe comes the opportunity of a fresh start, (whether us Valiant-old-timers like it or not).

WE aren't the ones who will be the major supporters of a relaunch. It has to be supported by thousands of NEW fans, or it just won't work, IMO.

I personally think that the new owners would see more interest and profit by using the characters for movie treatments, video games, cable cartoons, and possibly a couple of other non-print media outlets.

Seeing the Valiant characters back as a monthly comic (priced at $2.99), is unlikely. There just isn't a big enough comic-buying audience to support a major relaunch. CrossGen can be referred to as the most recent example of an interesting universe that failed due to its own overambitousness.

I believe many of the CrossGen characters have a good potential in various medias also. That's the thing, there are so many good (non-Valiant) characters out there vying to be the next big movie or video game, that it's going to take a media blitz the size of King Kong to even get the Valiant characters noticed.

This type of push will take ALOT more that the 1 mil 'chicken-feed' used to buy the properties.

I pretty much agree with all of the above.

Vault-Keeper wrote:With Dino & Co. not knowing anything about running a company for these characters, it might be best for them to hold-out and sell to a better suited marketing-man, make a few hundred thousand in profit, and move on.

Maybe one day we'll see what happens...But I'm not holding my breath waiting for anything new anytime soon.---Steve

Can't agree with this cause I don't know what dino & co knows.

And as far as the different options go, I believe that the only option that has a legitimate shot at sustaining itself as a comic co would be option 4. If they start trying to make sense of all the stuff that happened in the past, frankly, I don't even think I'd be iinterested enough to read through that, much less someone who hasn't read valiants before or someone who the Co "rubbed wrong".

The other options might make board members happy, but would probably alienate non-fans and casual fans.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:07 pm

Byrneout wrote:Daniel, everything you said is possible with the storyline mentioned above. Either one could effectively "re-start" the universe from Unity onwards.

You had me worried when I read the part about Torque looking for Magnus. I don't want that character to even exist in the new U.

fantasyfootballbono · Post by **fantasyfootballbono** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:21 pm

Not that this would ever happen, but I would like to see a re-launch with Jim Shooter doing a semi-reboot. I would not throw all continuity out the window, but would rather have Shooter treat past Gold Key/Valiant history the same way he treated the Gold Key history the first time he started the Valiant Universe. Pay homage to the characters' pasts by remaining true to the core qualities of the characters and the main relationships between the characters, villains, and supporting characters, but don't get bogged down in it. Tell good stories. Keep what works. Throw out whatever doesn't work. And most importantly, start over from the beginning so that new readers can get drawn into the storylines from the get-go and make sure that the books have solid new readership, along with the old fogeys like us who got on board in the early 1990s.

What I would envision is something akin to what Marvel did with the Ultimate titles -- keeping the core alive, but modernizing the characters and the stories to make them more relevant in today's world. Just like Valiant would have been a mess if Shooter et al. had been slavishly devoted to the old Gold Key continuity, any new Valiant titles would be a mess if they were to remain slavishly devoted to past Gold Key/Valiant/Acclaim history. Our Valiant "golden age" was in the early 1990s. Maybe it's time for Valiant's "silver age" to start with a relatively clean slate.

steverino · Post by **steverino** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:18 pm

I have to go with #1 and #2. I'd like to see the original character brought back to the core and modernized by any means necessary. I'd like to see Aric still be in the XO armor ten years from #68, regardless of what that particular story in that issue told.

I believe that each and every book should be treated independently to both bring continuity back and to optimize the fan base to keep the fans we have now and to bring in new fans.

Maybe it's too much to ask for but I think that doing something like that would give ample opportunity to tell the kind of stories that made Valiant great to begin with.