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Valiant Masters
Harbinger: The Beginning
This digitally recolored and remastered Valiant special edition collects the full Harbinger origin story from issues #0-7 for the first time ever, and includes an all-new "Origin of Harada" story by Jim Shooter! This classic story of Sting's band of renegade teenagers with extraordinary powers of the mind and their battle against Japanese tycoon Toyo Harada took the comics industry by storm in 1992. Features Eisner award-winner David Lapham's very first work as a talented teenager and one of legendary creator Jim Shooter's greatest stories ever!
200 pages, Hardcover
First published August 29, 2007
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44 people want to read
About the author
Jim Shooter
1,032 books85 followersJames Charles Shooter was an American writer, editor and publisher in the comics industry. Beginning his career writing for DC Comics at the age of 14, he had a successful but controversial run as editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, and launched comics publishers Valiant, Defiant, and Broadway.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 11, 2011
The Valiant comics were something I enjoyed back in the day. They were the smartest superhero books on the racks and today's comics owe a lot to them.
Harbinger reminds me a lot of Heroes. It's about the Harbinger Foundation, a group that finds special kids and unlocks their powers. Unfortunately, the Foundation is evil, and Sting and the rest go on the run, fighting against it where ever they can.
The thing that drew me to Harbinger (and other Valiant comics) was that characters died and more mature topics were covered than in Marvel and DC at the time. Kris cheated on Sting with Torgue and after Torque was killed, wound up having his baby. You didn't see things like that happening in Spider-Man.
Harbinger reminds me a lot of Heroes. It's about the Harbinger Foundation, a group that finds special kids and unlocks their powers. Unfortunately, the Foundation is evil, and Sting and the rest go on the run, fighting against it where ever they can.
The thing that drew me to Harbinger (and other Valiant comics) was that characters died and more mature topics were covered than in Marvel and DC at the time. Kris cheated on Sting with Torgue and after Torque was killed, wound up having his baby. You didn't see things like that happening in Spider-Man.
April 4, 2025
While I thought this definitely felt somewhat of it’s time, checking the date I realized it was way ahead of it, and, while a bit dated now anyway, Shooter manages to write grounded superheroics in a way unique even today, with the obligatory fights per issue using relatively realistic physics and tactics, the characters feeling better fleshed out than most, and an actually shocking event.
Pity there don’t seem to be any collections of the other 33 or so issues up ahead.
Pity there don’t seem to be any collections of the other 33 or so issues up ahead.
October 14, 2018
If I could rate this book lower than one-star, I would sincerely do so. Its absolutely abhorrent.
Everyone one of the characters, barring Zephyr (more commonly known as Faith and soon to be starring in her own movie), are gigantic and volatile jerks to everyone they interact with. They even make Zephyr, their own teammate who is nothing but nice and kind to everyone, the subject of all their fat jokes. Torque, the worst character in this book, actually threatens intense physical violence towards her for no good reason.
The book as a whole definitely has problems portraying women; they're only objects to be connected to men, objects to be physically harmed and sexually objectified, overly emotional or an object of mockery. Its written by an old man, so that would explain it. Its a disservice to the men as well since both male characters are violent misogynists who only use women for their bodies (Sting, the team leader, uses mind control to have a woman love him and suffers no consequences from this. Hell, she even agrees to be his girlfriend after this!).
Everyone one of the characters, barring Zephyr (more commonly known as Faith and soon to be starring in her own movie), are gigantic and volatile jerks to everyone they interact with. They even make Zephyr, their own teammate who is nothing but nice and kind to everyone, the subject of all their fat jokes. Torque, the worst character in this book, actually threatens intense physical violence towards her for no good reason.
The book as a whole definitely has problems portraying women; they're only objects to be connected to men, objects to be physically harmed and sexually objectified, overly emotional or an object of mockery. Its written by an old man, so that would explain it. Its a disservice to the men as well since both male characters are violent misogynists who only use women for their bodies (Sting, the team leader, uses mind control to have a woman love him and suffers no consequences from this. Hell, she even agrees to be his girlfriend after this!).
July 28, 2025
3.87
Not too bad, I enjoyed seeing Faith's start into superhero-dom.
This was a reading tribute to Jim Shooter, who recently passed away and I was pleasantly surprised.
I'm unsure if the Harbinger series goes on with how this ended, but if it does, I'll keep on with it.
I think Pete has huge potential for his own series and maybe even a live action adaptation, I haven't looked yet so unsure also if that has already happened.
The artwork was pure early 90s and worked beautifully, very vibrant.
My only complaint, they could've developed the minor/side characters a touch more to give us deeper fleshed out villains outside of Harada.
Not too bad, I enjoyed seeing Faith's start into superhero-dom.
This was a reading tribute to Jim Shooter, who recently passed away and I was pleasantly surprised.
I'm unsure if the Harbinger series goes on with how this ended, but if it does, I'll keep on with it.
I think Pete has huge potential for his own series and maybe even a live action adaptation, I haven't looked yet so unsure also if that has already happened.
The artwork was pure early 90s and worked beautifully, very vibrant.
My only complaint, they could've developed the minor/side characters a touch more to give us deeper fleshed out villains outside of Harada.
January 17, 2025
This was your typical kids, with superpowers, story. Of course there's a shadowy organization, that wants to train them and keep them under control, ultimately for evil purposes. It was a fairly interesting read!
September 5, 2025
Excellent Start
Required reading for fans of Valiant, super heroes and/or teen dramas. Essentially X-Men but poses the question of "what if Professor X was an egomaniacal killer CEO and his students ran away?"
Required reading for fans of Valiant, super heroes and/or teen dramas. Essentially X-Men but poses the question of "what if Professor X was an egomaniacal killer CEO and his students ran away?"
May 6, 2020
Can see why they want to make this a movie. It could be like X-men
June 30, 2022
Wasn’t bad or amazing, but it was fun.
September 19, 2024
I ENJOYED THIS COLLECTION. I LOVED ALL OF THE CHARACTERS AND THE HUMOR. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO READING MORE.
September 1, 2016
Having just read the first Deluxe hardcover for the new Harbinger, I was shocked to go back and see how closely it follows the outline of this book, from Harada purposefully killing one cast member to Pete's inappropriate whammy on Kris. However, you can see how much comics have evolved in the last 20 years, because the writing hear feels much more primitive, like it's the bare outline of the more recent incarnation.
With that said, there's a lot to like here. Shooter gets straight to the heart of these (sometimes unpleasant) characters and presents everything with a realism that was totally unheard of in comics at the time -- culminating in the shocking penultimate issue of this volume. There's also some beautiful interactions with the overall VH-1 universe, including the spider aliens and Solar. I did think there was too much fighting with Harada's troops though.
So, this is overall a flawed book, but pretty wonderful and innovative despite those flaws.
Oh, and unfortunately the artwork reproduction is somewhat muddy. It's worse in some issues than others and the dialogue occasionally gets fractured as well. None of it is horrible, but it's definitely worse than expected for a premium hardcover.
With that said, there's a lot to like here. Shooter gets straight to the heart of these (sometimes unpleasant) characters and presents everything with a realism that was totally unheard of in comics at the time -- culminating in the shocking penultimate issue of this volume. There's also some beautiful interactions with the overall VH-1 universe, including the spider aliens and Solar. I did think there was too much fighting with Harada's troops though.
So, this is overall a flawed book, but pretty wonderful and innovative despite those flaws.
Oh, and unfortunately the artwork reproduction is somewhat muddy. It's worse in some issues than others and the dialogue occasionally gets fractured as well. None of it is horrible, but it's definitely worse than expected for a premium hardcover.
February 9, 2010
Probably one of my favorite comic series going up. Great story but the sub-par art work probably limited the audience.
September 2, 2024
I think some of the language and portal of women is extremely dated, but some topics and themes here were way ahead of its time.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews