If you read the Valiant Comics Free Comic Book Day issue, you saw it.

Eternal Warrior image from Valiant FCBD 2012 Preview

Eternal Warrior, Winter 2012

Bam! With just a single image, Valiant gave us a glimpse into the future. It won’t be too much longer after Archer & Armstrong hits stores, the fourth comic in Valiant’s new line up, that we’ll be getting the fifth comic, Eternal Warrior.

We don’t know the creative teams yet, or exactly when it will launch, all we have to go with is the awesome, and ferocious drawing of Eternal Warrior by Lee Bermejo.

When I see “Winter 2012″, I think December. If this book will indeed be launching in December, We can expect to see it solicited in October, and probably the advance solicitations as early as September.

It looks like Valiant won’t be waiting too long before expanding their universe of comic book titles.

We’ve got nothing to go on about this title now. Prudent eyes saw Gilad, the Eternal Warrior, in issue #1 in X-O Manowar, and I remember some interviews that spilled that Gilad would also be seen in Archer & Armstrong. By the time the title comes out, we’ll probably know a bit more about the character, but for now, it’s anyone’s guess.

But then, there’s also…

Rai, Spring 2013

Rai from Valiant FCBD 2012 Preview

Bam! Another single image with a single phrase, “Rai, Spring 2013″, drawn by David Aja.

This one is interesting to me for a couple reasons that are tied together.

First, that gun in Rai’s hand, and the guns all around his feet, look awfully modern. These aren’t from hundreds of years ago, and I wouldn’t expect them to be around hundreds of years from now.

I don’t think we can expect Rai to be set in the distant future, or the distant past. In fact, it looks like it will be set pretty much in the modern day, plus or minus 50 years or so (after all, how long has a Beretta pistol, or M1911 pistol, looked modern?). I wouldn’t be surprised if Rai takes place in the near past, or near future. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it takes place in the present.

Second, Rai looks an awful lot like Bloodshot. Conspicuously so. In the classic Valiant, the Japanese Rai legacy was based on the legend of Bloodshot, hence the similarity. This incarnation of Rai looks like it will be closely related to the current Bloodshot, but in a totally different way.

How closely will this comic book tie into Bloodshot? Will it spin out of the title? Will we see Rai in Bloodshot before we see him in his own title?

I don’t know. More than anything, these pictures raised a lot of questions, and I don’t think we’ll know the answer until these titles hit the stands later this year and next year.

If Valiant threw these images in the Free Comic Book Day book to increase anticipation, mission accomplished.

The Malev war is the long, overarching story that runs in Magnus 21 to 37, and in Rai and the Future Force 9 through 22.

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