Review: Harbinger Wars
Quick Summary
Pros: This collection is full of action to keep readers reading. The crossover here is also epic and allows some favorite characters to interact in pretty cool ways.
Cons: Hero vs. hero conflict is a big part of the book. The ending is pretty messy and unsatisfactory.
Overall: Valiant does a fantastic job with the majority of their first major event. However, the book’s forced and unsatisfactory conclusion may end up leaving readers with a bad taste in their mouths. This is a book for fans of the Harbinger and Bloodshot series, or anyone looking to be baptized by fire into the Valiant Universe.
Collection Notes
This review only covers the storyline contained in the four issue event comic, Harbinger Wars. It does not cover the events of Harbinger Vol. 3: Harbinger Wars and Bloodshot Vol. 3: Harbinger Wars. See the Continuity section below for more details.
Story
Harbinger Wars is the first big event in the new Valiant Universe. Though it manages to succeed in ways that many other comic events do not, it also has its problems as well. The entire event is solid and interesting, yet its conclusion happens so fast and with so little resolution that it puts a grey cloud over the whole thing.
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This event starts off with a bang and continues to pile on action, comedy, and character building right until it ends. Readers get to learn a lot about Project Rising Spirit and what they have been doing to shape the world up until this point. While this would usually consist of delving into a bunch of boring backstory and flashbacks, this book chooses to overlay this information with current events, which are some of the most action packed and intense moments this universe has to offer. It is a smart and very successful storytelling tactic that greatly improves this event’s overall reading experience.
The only part about this action that is not so enjoyable is the whole “heroes vs. heroes” moment that occurs near the end. The Harada vs. Bloodshot fight was great because these two characters have some real reason to fight. However, Peter and Bloodshot are simply going off of misinformation to guide their fight. Some readers may really enjoy this part of the book, as there is clearly a market for comics where heroes face off against each other. Personally though, I don’t find them that enjoyable at all.
On top of this, one of the best parts of the book is how high the stakes are. A plethora of minor characters have been introduced in both Harbinger and Bloodshot, and have been developed enough for people to become attached to some of them. This book immediately reveals that it will not pull any punches by killing off one of these characters. The effect of this is clear and instant: this is a book with consequences and real stakes. This increases the tension and suspense as readers know that anyone could potentially meet their end here.
While the book’s beginning is overall very enjoyable, it is the ending of the book that really damages things. While the setup and execution of the main action is excellent, this book fails to deliver a truly satisfying conclusion. I went through the whole event expecting to see the fight’s confusion alleviated, yet this moment of clarity never occurs. Instead Toyo Harada simply shows up and wraps up the entire story. To make things worse, he does not even wait until the conclusion of the action to show up, he arrives right during the rising action; for comparison, this would be like the police executing Joker halfway through The Dark Knight. This ending left a bad taste in my mouth and really puts a damper on what was otherwise a very well told story.
Despite a poor ending, this volume does give readers a number of reasons to keep coming back. The H.A.R.D. Corps, the Renegades, and the fate of Hive, Traveler, and Astral were some of the most enjoyable concepts in this event so ending their story on a cliffhanger leaves open the possibility for some great stuff in the future.
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Art
Though the story experiences some rather dramatic changes in quality, the art remains consistently good throughout. Clayton Henry provides some of the best artwork in any Valiant series out there right now. His art is realistic yet falls just shy of the uncanny valley, giving it a nicer and better looking comic book feeling.
Not only is the main art consistently good, but the backup art also looks fantastic. In particular, Clayton Crain and Mico Suayan do an excellent job drawing some of the flashback scenes in the first issue. Their work is darker and more realistic than Henry’s yet it works for these flashbacks because they are pretty dark in tone as well. The other artists working on this book do a great job with enhancing the art’s quality and help to make this a visually pleasant and distinct book.
Continuity
This is an event book that flows out of the storylines from the Harbinger and Bloodshot series. Specifically this story develops from plotlines in Harbinger Vol. 2: Renegades (Review) and Bloodshot Vol. 2: The Rise and Fall (Review). The fallout from the events in this book will be seen in Harbinger Vol. 4: Perfect Day and Bloodshot Vol 4: H.A.R.D. Corps.
This comic takes place concurrently with the events of both the Harbinger and Bloodshot series as well. Because these three comics all take place at the same time, some parts of this book will only make sense with information from the other series. The relevant events of the other two series are collected in Harbinger Vol. 3: Harbinger Wars and Bloodshot Vol. 3: Harbinger Wars.