Unity #4

By Matt Kindt, Doug Braithwaite & Brian Reber

With most books of this caliber, one that brings together characters from multiple books and, really, establishes a shared universe, there’s a lot of ground to cover. If you think of how other publishers might handle this, you’d probably be strapping yourself in for a huge, mega-arc that would last upwards of a year or better. Not Valiant. Valiant has plans for these characters and this title and everything in the Valiant machine is firing on all cylinders.

If that was vague, the fact that the opening arc to establishing a giant, shared universe was only four issues is a very good thing. We’ve all had time with these characters, in some form, since Valiant came charging back so there was no wasted recap time. There were no filler issues; it was quite literally all killer, no filler. Writer Matt Kindt wasted no time getting into the action and getting to the issue at hand: what do these people do with Aric of Dacia and his seemingly unstoppable X-O Manowar Armor? Well, he addressed that early, he addresses the rest of the “unity” team and, hey, we’re on to the next issue. It’s going to be interesting to see how X-O Manowar writer Robert Venditti handles the aftermath of this first arc in next week’s issue.

As with every issue in Unity so far, Doug Braithwaite and Brian Reber nail it. Colors, faces, fight scenes, explosions, expressions, everything is just done with the utmost care and skill. Braithwaite, and indeed Reber, have yet to not be impressive on this or any other Valiant book they’ve worked on so far. Hopefully after the next arc, Unity gets Braithwaite back on a more permanent basis.

So, in conclusion: quick pace good, writing and art both top notch, need more fast, Valiant doing great things. That basically covers it all, right? Valiant has so much going on and so much coming if you aren’t caught up already, it’s time to go pick up some trades. Valiant got it right, this stuff really is must read.