Only The Valiant

Fixed! The episode has been re-posted Monday, November 14. If you had some problems with the audio file before, please re-download.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

The Only The Valiant crew is stranded on a desert island, with nothing but a few comics, and hopefully a Starbucks and internet cafe.

Luckily, we were able to package up a few of our favorite comics before our boat crashed during what was supposed to be just a three hour tour.

The professor quickly put together a podcast recorder out of a couple coconut shells, so we’re able to record this podcast message and bring it to you, straight from the comic-filled desert island

We’ve got our three favorite runs of comics, and one of those runs is a Valiant Comics run. Between the four of us, we’ve got a ton of reading material on this island.

Tune in now to learn what we brought with us, and why! This is a long one, with tons of great comics talk.

DC’s “New 52″ relaunch occurred last month, and the OTV crew was excited enough about it to read the whole bunch of comics. In this episode, we take a look at this publishing initiative as a whole, to give our overall thoughts on these books and this effort by DC.

We’ve taken a step away from the usual Valiant discussion for this episode, to talk about this event, because it is has been a huge event for the comic book industry.

In addition to our thoughts on this exciting event:

• Each book reviewed with the Official OTV ranking system, Yes/Meh/Sucks
• Throw your hands in the air for the Ladies! Or, was this all just atrociously done and disrespectful to women readers?
• What reading these books tells us about what we like
• Burn out!
• Nobody agrees on ratings, ie. there’s something for everyone
• and 357 other things!

Some notes:

Justice League #1 Edited

DC Comics is bad at Math

Super Friends for the win!

Giant Size! Foil! Chromium! Hologram! Gimmicks galore! The 90s saw a spurt of comics using gimmicks of all sort to stand out and get us kids to buy ‘em.

We discuss the craze, how it started, the heyday, the legacy, and the end of this craze. All that, plus:

• Are there Stargates hidden in the dessert? Theories vary
• We confirm that we are a motorized cart and oxygen tank free crew
• Who got shafted in zip teasin’ Egypt?
• Battletech was so hot a little while ago
• The first chromium cover! First foil! First glow in the dark! First embossed!
• Which of us fell for the gimmick trick?
• Gimmick vs. variant, what’s the difference?
• Marvel goes coocoo for cocoa puffs-err-gimmicky covers
• Actually, Geomancer #1 was the last gimmick (we figure this out eventually)
• Do you care what the last forced gimmick was? Some of us don’t…
• …and our personal favorite enhanced covers

All this and more in the current episode. Get it below!

In this episode, we let Chiclo take the reigns and guide us through a discussion of dead universes. We take a step beyond Valiant to discuss Ultraverse, Crossgen, Comic’s Greatest World, Milestone, Comico, etc, etc, etc. If you have ever had an interest in all of the comic universes beyond the big two, sit back and listen in.

Special Edition! This episode is a result of an impromptu discussion between Sean, Chiclo, and Zeph on the comics industry. This episode goes a little off topic as we discuss what happened to the comics industry for the last 20 years, from boom to bust to scrapping by, plus our visions for the future of the comic book industry.