Harbinger, the first mutants of Valiant comics

Peter Stancheck is a teenager like any other in a small town that could not be more ordinary. But, in fact, it's all a lie because he has superpowers and selfishly decides to use them to become popular in high school… and silence his mother. Even better, he is selected by the wealthy Harbinger Foundation. The path to success? Not really, because this foundation led by Toyo Harada wants to use it to establish its control over the world. Discovering the truth, Peter decides to flee and gathers a team of mutants with Kris, Faith, Flamingo and Torque. These harbingers will seek to survive while the federal state and the foundation hunt them down.

After an introductory zero episode, the series then goes as fast as a bullet with the power of a cannon. The stakes are set right away. Peter flees with his girlfriend Kris while being chased by a group of Foundation harbingers, the Egg-breakers. It is also discovered that Peter has multiple powers. They gather the team and discover the complexities of each before suffering a second, better-prepared attack.

More than adventures, it is human relationships that make Harbinger successful. Initially, the group is not stable. In episode four, everyone returns to their daily lives but everything has changed in a few months whether it is themselves or their loved ones. The narrative avoids Manichaeism. Peter blows up an entire building causing the death of thirty-two people. Flamingo and Torque are idiots. Elements are still very current, such as consent. Life around them is close to reality. It's hard to find a doctor when you're on the run. They have no secret base but wander from one motel to another.

This is the second volume of the series behind the shared universe Valiant, a major American publishing house but with a turbulent history. In the 90s, editor Jim Shooter was kicked out of Marvel. He decided to found his own publishing house, Valiant, which quickly became very popular thanks to X-O Manowar, Harbinger, Archer & Armstrong phrase series. After a period of crisis, these series will return in 2012 being partly reinvented. The independent structure Bliss éditions will have the courage to send these recent series to France. Since 2019, she also offers us the first series with Archer & Armstrong and therefore Harbinger today. This volume brings together the first fourteen episodes of Harbinger written by Jim Shooter with David Lapham who is also in charge of all the drawings and an episode Rai 0 of the same cartoonist.These episodes allow us to see the shared universe of Valiant. Doctor Solar in episodes five and six makes you want to read this series even more. We also cross the H.Has.A.D. Body seen in Bloodshot. The episode of Rai mainly written by Bob Layton tells the death of each hero until the birth of the last Rai. We meet the Geomancer, a rather interesting teenager, Aric the barbarian equipped with an alien armor and Turok the Indian dinosaur hunter. Everything is really possible at Valiant.