Only The Valiant

The Only The Valiant crew talks about the first issue of Magnus Robot Fighter from Dark Horse and Jim Shooter! Plus, some good stuff we’ve been reading recently, and a nice little discussion of the merit of premise vs. execution.

Plus! Action packed with:

• Robot ventriloquism (humanity is doomed)
• Shopping for battle tunics at Macy’s
• vacuums are not robots!
• The Mail damages comics…
• learn the secrets of getting paid to jibber jabber
• how to be a scab and influence people (or not)
• No San Diego variant for Magnus. Poor Magnus…
• Corsets are the secret to character design
• Mispronunciation is not tolerated
• Deep discussion of the virtue of 4 vs. 6! 5 vs. 8!
• Robot impersonations, and tones are not voltages
• Kitchens aren’t the only place for fridges anymore
• Fear of submission (and non sequiturs)
• Beware the Ides of July (no one believes this?)
• Was Siege just forced, or did it just suck?
• Hulk would slap down Juggernaut in a minute
• Without word balloons, it doesn’t count
• Library extortion, as measured in dollars. DOLLARS!
• You’d think it would be, but a premise that makes a woman’s clothes explode off every issue isn’t enough
• Arguments over Watchmen!
• HA! Give me my million
• Princess Mononoke, international success!
• Die cut! Hologram! Double Size! Fancy cover! Special backup! (coming soon)

If you are not listening at this very instant, you’re doing it wrong. Listen now!

Dark Horse Comics have released their solicitations for comics sold in October. We’ll be getting new issues of Doctor Solar, Magnus, Robot Fighter, and Turok, Son of Stone, all written by Jim Shooter.

Here’s the solicitations, click on the images for larger images of the covers.

Doctor Solar 3, Michael Komarck Cover (click for a larger image)

DOCTOR SOLAR #3

Jim Shooter (W), Roger Robinson (A), and Michael Komarck (Cover)

On sale Oct 6

FC, 40 pages

$3.50

Ongoing

The dark god Moloch the Devourer pits his demonic hellfire against the thermonuclear fury of Doctor Solar. Whitmore Pickerel, whose power to bring his imagination into existence unleashed the Devourer, conjures the mighty sun-god Surya for protection. But instead, Surya bows before Moloch, and the Man of the Atom faces cosmic-scale war on a second front. With the power of Solar pitted against the god of the sun, can the planet survive?

• All-new series written by Jim Shooter!
• New artist: Roger Robinson (Azrael, Batman: Gotham Knights).

Sean’s comment: Looks like Dennis Calero is off the book for this issue. I wonder if this is a permanent change?

Magnus Robot Fighter 3 Comics Raymond Swanland cover (clikc to enlarge)

MAGNUS, ROBOT FIGHTER #3

Jim Shooter (W), Bill Reinhold (A), Wes Dzioba (C), and Raymond Swanland (Cover)

On sale Oct 27

FC, 40 pages

$3.50

Miniseries

In the year 4000, savage illegal prizefights operate in the shadows of the milespires. In one corner, the deadly, gen-enhanced number-one contender—Hyppolyta. In the other corner, the remorseless robotic champion—Steelhammer, who has annihilated every opponent he has faced, man or machine. Drawn unwillingly into the ring to save a life, Magnus must battle them both—steel-smashing man against super-woman, robot fighter vs. robot fighter—to the death.

• All-new series written by Jim Shooter!

Sean’s Comment: This should be a smash-a-riffic, action packed, high entertaimo issue.

Turok, Son of Stone 1, Raymond Swanland cover (click to enlarge)

TUROK, SON OF STONE #1

Turok returns! All-new series written by Jim Shooter!

Jim Shooter (W), Eduardo Francisco (A), TBD (C), and Raymond Swanland (Cover)

On sale Oct 20

FC, 48 pages

$3.50

Ongoing

Turok, wandering warrior from a far land, rescues Andar, son of a Chiricahua chief, from the ruthless King Maxtla and his Aztec horde. Pursued into a vast cavern, prey and predators are swept away by an unimaginable force to a savage, timeless land of nightmares and miracles, where dinosaurs thunder and rampage. Beset by bloodthirsty enemies and beasts, Turok and Andar encounter an even deadlier threat—the fearsome Panther People and their mesmerizing goddess, Aasta.

Turok, Son of Stone returns, reimagined by legendary writer Jim Shooter and illustrated by hot new talent Eduardo Francisco (Victory, Executive Assistant: IRIS).

• 48-page first issue, includes the very first Turok story from 1954!

Sean’s Comment: This should be a cool take on things. At least the Lost Land will be back. And dinosaurs. It’s not Turok without dinosaurs.

There is a great article over at Comic Book Resources, with Jim Shooter discussing Script Writing. He talks about different types of scripts, the challenges of each style, and uses his script for the forthcoming Doctor Solar #1 as an example.

Some of the things in the article remind me of a presentation he gave on visual storytelling at New York Comic Con last year. Very cool stuff.

Go check out the article!

The Following Speaks for itself:

• Doctor Solar
• Magnus Robot Fighter
• Free Comic Book Day
• Review and discussion

We talk about Free Comic Book Day, and spend plenty of time on the Dr. Solar/Magnus issue that has relaunched those titles at Dark Horse, brought to us by Jim Shooter, Dennis Calero, and Bill Reinhold.

Some things are great! Some things are not so great! This is the first we’ve seen these characters in print in over a decade, so we are rather excited to say the least. Excited like we were for Phantom Menace? Maybe. Excited like we are for the latest Lady Gaga video? Possibly. Excited in another way entirely? Listen and find out now.

When you are done listening, send in your feedback about what you thought of this issue.

The new Doctor Solar ongoing series will debut in July, as was announced at Wondercon this weekend.

The new series will be penciled by Dennis Calero and written by Jim Shooter.

I asked the folks at the Dark Horse booth about the relaunch of the Gold Key character books, and they said that a new Magnus ongoing series will debut in August, and that there are also plans to launch a new Turok ongoing series this summer as well, though they didn’t mention a month.

Though they have mentioned plans to launch Turok, this is, that fact that they intend to launch the new series this summer has not been announced yet. Convention scoop!

Note that this was mentioned from the Dark Horse folks working at the booth, and is not an official announcement.

Jim Shooter will also be writing the new Magnus series. I don’t know at this time who the artist will be in the ongoing Magnus series.

I did a little leg work and ordered a copy of the complaint against Jim Shooter (thank you eLaw.com). I’ve got a copy of the lawsuit document that VE filed to sue Jim Shooter.

Essentially, the following seems to be the major scope:

• Jim Shooter has had the job of editor-in-chief for Valiant Entertainment since December 2008, and he was working on creating a line of comics to relaunch the Valiant Universe.
• Valiant was still negotiating with Classic Media to get the license for Magnus, Solar, and Turok. They really wanted these characters for the Valiant Universe.
• Apparently the deal with Dark Horse was not set in stone.
• Jim Shooter had a non-compete agreement with Valiant.
• They allege that Jim Shooter negotiated with Dark Horse to work for them, and to help them acquire the rights to the Gold Key characters while still working for Valiant, which violates the non-compete agreement and the non-disclosure agreement.

Jim Shooter was EiC! This was every Valiant fan’s dream come true, new Valiant stories under the direction of Big Jim himself.

It looks like Jim Shooter will have to file a document in response to this one, I’ll be working to get that when it is filed as well.

You can read the actual document filed with the New York County Clerk here:

VALIANT complaint against SHOOTER (pdf)

I got this document from a public source by my own means, and don’t mind sharing it here on this site. Permission is NOT given to copy the file and distribute it elsewhere. Please do not copy the file and post it elsewhere.

I previously posted about the lawsuit that Valiant Entertainment filed against Jim Shooter.

After hearing about the lawsuit, I sent out some requests for comment from a few of the parties involved.

Valiant Entertainment’s response was simple:

“Valiant Entertainment was unable to comment.

I also contacted Dark Horse Comics to see if they had any response or comment at this time, and they had a similarly simple response:

“We have No Comment at this time.

I’m going to try to contact Jim Shooter when I get home from work today. Perhaps I can get a trifecta of “No Comments”.

Also, I ordered a copy of the complaint filed with the New York County Clerk today, I hope that it will show up some time tomorrow. Expect some comments and information about the lawsuit after that arrives in my inbox.

Jim Shooter was asked 20 questions and gave 20 answers about the relaunch of the Gold Key characters at Dark Horse.

One of those 20 questions was from yours truly at the Only The Valiant Podcast. Click to read the questions and answers:

20 Questions with Jim Shooter

Most of these questions are from fans, a request for questions was given at the valiantfans forum.

Dark Horse has made a press release of the announcement they made at Comic-Con regarding their plans to print new Magnus, Solar, Turok, and Mighty Samson comics.

You can see the complete press release at the Dark Horse website at the following link:

Dark Horse Press Release

The press release contains some history about Jim Shooter, and statements by Jim Shooter and Dark Horse President Mike Richardson. They both express enthusiasm for this upcoming project.

The press release also gives a little bit of background information about Magnus, Robot Fighter, Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom, Turok, Son of Stone, and The Mighty Samson.

Hopefully they will announce plans for writers, artists, titles, and release dates soon.