I quit Harbinger After Issue 25

Glitch Please · Post by **Glitch Please** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 7:24:38 pm

Hi everyone. This is my first time post. I'm a LOOOONNG time Valiant fan. I started reading Valiant when I 12 or 13. I'm still trying to locate them but I can't find them all.

I'm 25 now that I'm an adult I'm rediscovering my love of Valiant.

My favorite comic was Harbinger and Peter Stanchek was my hero. I was pumped seeing the ads for issue #25 that we would see the final battle between Harada and Stanchek.

It was a good issue. But I was sorta *SQUEE* that they got rid of Sting like that. It wasn't very mature of me but I sorta gave up on Harbinger after that and I never read issue 26 b/c I was so *SQUEE*. Immature? Well yes, but you gotta realize I was still a kid.

In my head I kick out scenarios in which Sting crushes Harada, but alas I know that would mess up the Valiant universe.

Well what I wanna know is did I miss much? Were the post 25 issues of Harbingers any good? I'm getting the fever for Valiant stuff again and I;m sorta sad that I missed out on that stuff.

(BTW, I LOVE THIS SITE)

- a valiant fan returning home.

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 8:21:02 pm

Hi Glitch, welcome to the boards!

I also became disallusioned with Harbinger after #25, I read a few issues but lost interest. There has been some speculation on the boards that the powers that be at Valiant wanted to make major changes to the title because Shooter might have some trademark claims as this was a story he developed pre-valiant, but it is only conjecture I believe.

I think you'll find other members who also lost interest after issue 25.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:44:40 pm

It's great to find other people to talk with about Valiant isn't it. Harbinger was not the only comic to start losing a lot of fans. Not all of it was bad but it did dip down into the sewer a lot. I did keep buying most of them out of loyalty and the love of a once great company and I was always in hopes that they would snap out of whatever coma they were in and get back to doing what they did best. We all know the end to this story but like I said not all was bad and they did have their moments. Some of the later Acclaim artwork is spectacular in my book. Start with the issues you used to like buy 'em, read 'em and see if it's going to be worth the coin to complete the runs. Welcome and have fun.

dac55 · Post by **dac55** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:20:23 pm

Its nice to see new people on the boards GP. This is also a good place to pick up some of the comics you missed to. I'm kind of new to the boards too. I've made some good trades on here. Hope you like it here and stay.

David

Welcome aboard

DJSpecter · Post by **DJSpecter** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 10:40:46 pm

Obviously, after Harbinger #25 the series was taking a different turn. It was taking an eye towards the future. Since we knew from Rai 0 that it would be Faith who would ultimatly be the leader of the renegades, and at the time of issue 25 she was still a real kid this was a great way to focus on her a bit more and see how she developed. I think the series had great potential especially when Gilad and Faith meet again, and I particularly liked the "escape velocity" series. If you had been reading the story line in other issues you'd realize that essentially, at the end of issue 25 when Harada gets his stroke/coma he takes Pete's powers with him. This has to be reconsidered once Harada is woken up from his coma (that pete's powers return to him (sort of like a mindlock thing).

-Dave

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 11:16:04 pm

Welcome aboard, Glitch.

I was kinda bummed out by Harbinger 25, too. Stanchek was a cornerstone of the VH1 universe, and they shuffled him off to the side. And then to pin that series to Zephyr, who was not HOT ... it seemed odd at the time until you analyze it and realize it was a stupid freaking thing to do! Stuff like that led to the collapse of the line.

Of course, the collapse of the line led to the creation of this site.

BodaZoffa · Post by **BodaZoffa** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 11:57:43 pm

Welcome.... If you missed out on any issues, this is the place to find them.

Boda

ZephyrWasHOT!! · Post by **ZephyrWasHOT!!** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 12:16:54 am

depluto wrote: to Zephyr, who was not HOT

<GASP!!!!!>

BLASphemy!

Todd Luck · Post by **Todd Luck** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 7:17:24 am

Glitch Please wrote: Well what I wanna know is did I miss much? Were the post 25 issues of Harbingers any good? I'm getting the fever for Valiant stuff again and I;m sorta sad that I missed out on that stuff.

I never touched an issue after 25 either so I can't vouch for the quality of the books (honestly anything after Lapham left didn't click with me). The book would've been very different with a different team of characters, but I know they had competent people on the creative end of the series so there's always hope. I would check them out for curiousity's sake, if nothing else.

The funny thing is that from Rai 0 we know they would've had to "fix" the situation with Sting and bring Flamingo back by 1999. Ah, the sacred pages of Rai 0 that promise that no matter how f-ed up the Valiant Universe got, it all be fixed back to the way we all liked it by 1999...

greg · Post by **greg** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:40:42 am

Welcome to the boards, Glitch!

Harbinger #26, etc., is definitely a major shift for the title.

Sometimes I wonder what would have been different if writers
had known that titles would end in 1996 or sooner.

When you look at titles like Amazing Spider-man or Batman,
there are lots of 2, 5, and 10 year spans where "nothing happens"...
so the idea that later Valiant issues aren't as good as early issues
(for the most part) is actually understandable _IF_ we consider
that Valiant was not supposed to end in 1996.

We know that Zephyr is important to the Valiant universe because of Rai 0,
so if Harbinger had run for 150 issues, we would probably look at these
"Zephyr issues" in terms of the whole series and continuity...
but since Harbinger "died" after 41 issues...
it's like they wasted all that time when they could have told us more.
(They just didn't know it at the time...)

Glitch Please · Post by **Glitch Please** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 10:36:44 pm

thanks for the welcoming you guys!

it's totally great to find a place to talk valiant.

i can't find my old collection anywhere, i think my mom threw them away when i went to college. i'm slowly trying to rebuild my valiant collection by digging in crates and going to comic-cons.

out of curiosisty, what happend in the final issue of harbinger. does anyone know? or did it end abruptly.

thanks to whoever made this site.

BodaZoffa · Post by **BodaZoffa** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 11:00:36 pm

Glitch Please wrote:thanks for the welcoming you guys!

it's totally great to find a place to talk valiant.

i can't find my old collection anywhere, i think my mom threw them away when i went to college. i'm slowly trying to rebuild my valiant collection by digging in crates and going to comic-cons.

out of curiosisty, what happend in the final issue of harbinger. does anyone know? or did it end abruptly.

thanks to whoever made this site.

eBay is a GREAT place to get the common issues for cheap. Look out for the premium issues, though. Your mom my have threw out some dough when she dumped your comics.

Boda

Glitch Please · Post by **Glitch Please** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 11:15:54 pm

BodaZoffa wrote: eBay is a GREAT place to get the common issues for cheap. Look out for the premium issues, though. Your mom my have threw out some dough when she dumped your comics.

Boda

i think she did. thanks for the recommendation.

man i still remember issue 25. other than the ending it was superb to me.

remember when stanchek went beserk and wastes all those egg breakers like they're nothing?

also harada's treachery at the end, the way he brainwashed sting's team...man that was good sneaky mastermind-level type of stuff.

good memories.

Killer Shrike · Post by **Killer Shrike** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 8:15:25 am

Yeah, the Harbinger reboot was jarring. Some of the characters had promise from a speculative standpoint, but the series just never went anywhere after that.

Everything that was great about Valiant started to dwindle after Shooter was ousted in my opinion. Not that Im a Shooter fan boy or anything, but at least the guy put the art first and had creativity.

The cool thing about the Harbingers was it's clever respin on the young heroes concept. After 26 is was just another New Mutants swipe.

quietcorn · Post by **quietcorn** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 5:55:28 pm

Heya all,

Long time harbinger fan, first time poster

Harbinger 1-25 are among my favorite comics of all time. The plot art, the characters, the art, the twists...

this actually was the series that brought me into the whole Valiant universe. I thought the ending to 25 was perfect! It was a beautiful end to the saga and it was completely open ended. All they needed was a second equally as good saga to follow it up...

In my opinion that really didn't happen. We got a bunch of new kids, with one or two returing cast members, who on the whole did nothing of interest, until one day Faith decides to find out the secret behind her past.

WARING SPOILERS AHEAD

Yeah, so she finds out. Poof there's her mother who reveals everything to her. That's it.

Then she decides more or less out of nowhere thanks to Magnus (who came back from the Future how again? I haven't read Magnus yet) and thanks to this boy she just met she decides... hey... let's fight back against harrada again, and this time instead of having people and powers, I'll use pipe bombs. Wow, that's just as good as having her entire V1 team... and strangely enough it is, until out of nowhere the new mysterious character Harbinger comes along and anticlimacticly kills one of them, and then leaves. That's the end of the entire series. You don't get to see Faith amass any sort of army, you don't get to see anything. Just poof, series is over. To make it worse, towards the end they kept switching artists. Artists who had pretty inconsistant styles. I felt so betrayed after reading the last 15 issues. I mean, how could they produce such low quality material after 25 issues of gold?

I definately need to check out this 'the visitor' thing or whatever, cause I read on the boards it's peter. I just really wish that when they realized the company was ending, they should have capped their stories.

ZephyrWasHOT!! · Post by **ZephyrWasHOT!!** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 6:25:16 pm

quietcorn wrote: Harbinger 1-25 are among my favorite comics of all time. The plot art, the characters, the art, the twists....

right on, bruthah. This isn't my user id for nothing.

Solar is a CLOSE, OH SO CLOSE second...

and Rai #7 is the best book Valiant ever made....

But second place is still the first loser.

Magnus, Shadowman, EW, A&A, X-O, all fun books (though Magnus is my least fav...just not my thing, I guess...)

But nothing....NOTHING....came close to Harbinger #1-25.

In order, it'd be:

Harb
Solar
Rai
A&A-X-O-Shadowman (can't decide)
EW
Magnus.

Killer Shrike · Post by **Killer Shrike** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:05:34 pm

SPOILER
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IIRC, wasnt "The Harbinger" also Peter Stancheck? Mind Controlled by Harada and so forth?

quietcorn · Post by **quietcorn** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 12:28:13 am

That was my suspicion, but... :/

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I quit Harbinger After Issue 25

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