The 21st Century Valiant Universe In Five Seasons, Season 1: Project Spirit Rising

Valiant Comics was a small comic book press founded by one of the most hated editors in the history of Marvel comics, Jim Shooter. After a successful run in the 90s, it eventually shut down when its parent company,  Acclaim, restructured. Not everybody has DC’s Time Warner money or Marvel’s Disney backing.

In 2012, Valiant started relaunching series, and about a year ago, they revealed that they were going to create a movie universe modeled after Marvel’s successful cinematic universe.

​Here’s how I would structure a TV series that handled their properties, should they have gone the television route, as opposed to the movie-verse. I’m only doing ten episode seasons, without the serial approach that I’ve done with the DC and Marvel properties because most of what’s available in trade format is their modern stuff, and that goes back almost four years, as opposed to DC & Marvel’s nearly 80 years apiece.

Season 1: Project Rising Spirit
(showrunners: Josh Dysart and Duane Swierczynski)

Episode 1: X-O Manowar By The Sword
(written by Robert Venditti, art by Cary Nord)

Imagine if Iron Man’s suit was completely sentient, and completely indestructible. Now imagine if, instead of some douchey alcoholic billionaire, a Visigoth Warrior who had been taken as an intergalactic slave took possession of it and was trying to use it to get back to Earth. Sounds cooler than Tony Stark’s story, right? Well that’s our starting point to this new universe.


Episode 2: Ninjak Weaponeer, Ninjak Shadow Wars
(written by Matt Kindt and Lewis Larosa, art by Butch Guice and Mico Suayan)
Colin King is an inexperienced spy and weapons expert for the British MI-6 who we follow from his first case to a battle with a terrorist organization called The Shadow Seven. But what does this British ninja spy dude have to do with a Visigoth Iron Man in space?


Episode 3: X-O Manowar Enter Ninjak
(written by Robert Venditti, art by Stefano Gaudiano, Moose Baumann, Dave Lanphear, and Lee Garbett)

Hey, it’s our first crossover! The Vine is set to destroy The Earth (which has gotten way more modern since the Roman Era), and in order to defeat them, Aric needs to convince Ninjak that he’s the hero in the story, not those evil aliens. How hard a sell could that be?


Episode 4: Harbinger Omega Rising
(written by Joshua Dysart, art by Khari Evans, Lewis Larosa, and Ian Hannin)

American telepath, Peter Stanchek, has been fleeing various authorities since he first realized he wasn’t mentally-ill but superpowered. Now, another superpowered harbinger, Toyo Harada, promises he can solve all his problems. But something about this Professor X wannabe seems a little off.


Episode 5: Bloodshot Setting The World On Fire
(written by Duane Swierczynski, art by Arturo Lozzi and Manuel Garcia)

A supersoldier doesn’t know who he is but is determined to find out. He also has nanites in his blood that give him a healing factor. He sounds like a ton of terrible 90s superhero cliches wrapped into one but as his backstory unfolds, his intrigue grows.

Episode 6: Harbinger Renegades
(written by Josh Dysart, art by Phil Briones and Barry Kitson)

Pete Stanchek discovers there’s more to The Harbinger Foundation than Harada let on, so he assembles his own team of superpowered teenagers to take The Harbinger Foundation down.

Episode 7: Bloodshot The Rise And The Fall
(written by Duane Swierczynski, art by Warren Simons)

What is Project Rising Spirit, and what does it have to do with our vicious supersolider friend? Now that he’s erased the false memories implanted in him, it’s time to figure out who he really used to be.


Episode 8: Harbinger Wars
Episode 9: Harbinger Harbinger Wars
Episode 10: Bloodshot Harbinger Wars
(written by Josh Dysart and Duane Swierczynski, art by Clayton Henry, Barry Kitson, and Mico Suayan)

So it turns out Project Rising Spirit and The Harbinger Foundation have the same Big Bad organizer. Yeup, what The Valiant Universe has in common isn’t a moral code, or a common origin, it’s a common enemy.  Can the combined might of Bloodshot and the Renegades take down Toyo Harada?


Season 1 is 10 episodes


Interseason Special 1: X-O Manowar Planet Death
(written by Robert Venedetti, art by Clayton Crain)

​As I’ve done with some of the other continuities, I’m including Interseasom specials,  a la Doctor Who. Annoyed by how The Vine set its sights on his home planet of Earth, Aric takes the fight to their home planet, determined to kill those slave-taking aliens once and for all.