Harbinger #35, #36, and #37 (Classic Valiant)

Superpowered Harbinger Faith has gone rogue from the Harbinger Foundation in an effort to locate her parents, and along the way, meets up with a teen her age named Jack, and his uncle. They help Faith when the Foundation's cruel soldiers come to kidnap her, but they may have too much ahead of them when they learn about Harbinger's Aerospace program, which could spell the end of hundreds of innocent teenagers...

This three-parter of Harbinger is a load of crap! The story is broken to begin with, as numerous aspects to it breaks continuity really badly. 1, Harada's space program is only very recent, and hasn't been in the making for decades; 2 While Harada has made pairings of people with Harbinger qualities,  to act as breeders, he only did so through purging their minds clean, with eventual plans of adding false memories-He gave no-one a choice; and 3, Faith HAS no fucking parents! She has grandparents! She always has! While the early series never says what happened to her parents, it's a pretty safe bet that they died when she was very young, which is completely contrary to what this story, as well as later issues, suggest. Even if they are really alive, they certainly have nothing to do with the Harbinger Foundation, as the Foundation knew nothing about Faith before she became a Renegade! Her first ever exposure to the Foundation was when she sent them a letter, and that was never even seen by them, as it was intercepted by Pete Stanchek!

Faith herself is another big problem with this story. It treats her like she's a messiah, even giving her an important past decades in the making that was 'leading to greatness within the Harbinger Foundation', which she denied. The problem with this is that misses the point, and is the polar opposite of who Faith is! The whole point of Faith of all people starting the rebellion is that she's just a lighthearted second-stringer, and specifically doesn't have a messianic backstory!

The Harbinger space program part of the story is extremely poorly handled. Why is it so screwed up? Why didn't Harada know, and why couldn't he fix it? All this does to serve the story is torpedo an arc that's been going on in the pages of The HARD Corps for about two years, and to have an explosion at the climax. It also ensures that Faith doesn't actually have to lift a finger to destroy the Aerospace facility!

Faith is a boring whiner, as well as a mostly useless lead character, and any cheery fun she once had is long gone. She has little chemistry with her love interest Jack, and it certainly seems out-of-character that she'd bang him, especially on the same day that his uncle was murdered! He even admits that he loves this girl, and he's barely known her for more than two days! Especially annoying is that thanks to a line from Magnus, the story confirms that Faith and Jack will get married and be together forever! Well so much for free will! It's pre-determinism all the way, that's the Valiant motto!

Magnus' involvement in this story amounts to nothing besides fighting Faith's battles for her, which is not only a deus ex machina, but takes away from her, as the hero of the story isn't getting much of anything done herself, but rather needs the help of a man. A man who yells at her, and calls her 'Woman'!

Not only is Magnus a total deus ex machina, but his presence here is also very confusing to anyone who hasn't read 1, Magnus, Robot Fighter, 2, the main Chaos Effect comic, and 3, the Magnus-centric Chaos Effect Epilogue that directly ties into this story.

Harada is a boring villain here, and beside talking menacingly to Faith a couple of times, he does practically nothing. Also, if any Valiant elitist wants to tell me that Toyo Harada is a morally sympathetic and ambiguous villain, then please, feel free to explain to me how we can readily sympathize and potentially even agree with a villain who casually orders the murder of an innocent teenager and the disposal of his body, or in how he expresses ownership over other human beings without their consent!

The rest of the characters are dull. We see very little of the rest of the B-Team, while we finally see Beatrice again, but unfortunately not for long, and she adds nothing to the story, then it abruptly ends. It's a shame. She's my favourite character from the second half of Harbinger (not that she had much competition), but is also the most underused.

The art here is ok, while the covers are mixed. Issue #35's is quite good, while #36's isn't as much, and #37 is just bizarre, with its non-sequitur group shot, and extremely clashing out-of-place painted-style cover. One annoying quality to all these covers is how they constantly lie about the individual story titles!

This storyline is one of the last remaining from this series, and there's very little left of any worth in this series...

Harbinger #34, Armorines #5, XO Man-O-War #33, and The H.A.R.D. Corps #23 (Classic Valiant)

Up in space, a fleet of Spider Aliens are gathering for a purpose, and many factions on Earth, from the governments Armorines, to the paramilitary HARD Corps, supervillain businessman Toyo Harada, and alien armour wielding XO Man-O-War, plan on destroying the aliens before they can go further with their plans. Meanwhile, down on Earth, a mysterious electromagnetic force field covers the entire Earth...

For the better part of a year's worth of issues, XO Man-O-War has been building up the event The Gathering, which is a grand plan by the Spider Aliens. What is this Gathering, you ask?...It's just a few alien ships meeting with each-other, and Earth's forces arrive and effortlessly kill them all. That's it. No big story, just four issues that waste our time with a nothing story that amounts to nothing! There's no epic scope, no grand villains, nor climactic moments! It's a single fight scene that goes on until it just stops! The End! We don't even know what The Gathering is! It's possible it was explained in a previous issue of XO Man-O-War, and I've just forgotten, but even so, the story where said event takes place in should at some point explain what it even is! As it stands, this four-parter has zero plot at all!

Despite being one of only two four-parters to the company-wide Chaos Effect event, this story's involvement with the Effect is negligible at best! The Chaos Effect has no bearings on the story, most of which doesn't even take place on Earth, and only serves to mildly inconvenience the HARD Corps, as they're not able to decimate the aliens quite as fast without the ability to select their powers. In fact, the lack of their powers makes their role in this story entirely pointless! 'But,' you ask, 'perhaps this story could work by showing them more vulnerable than they're used to?' Not so, as we've already had three stories over five previous issues of HARD Corps where they had to fight without the use of their powers.

Now let's get to the individual issues to this story. Issue #24 of Harbinger is the only part to this event that takes place mostly on Earth, although it's very rushed, moving from scene to scene too quickly for us to settle, and a lot of the Chaos Effect = is told to us rather than shown by actually happening.

one really confusing scene involving upcoming antagonist The Harbinger. This scene is only a page long, both starts and ends abruptly, and has absolutely zero explanation to it! The Harbinger doesn't even appear again for another six issues! When he does appear again, this scene is never brought up, so you won't even know it has anything to do with the character unless you're a Valiant expert like me.

The Armorines part doesn't bother continuing immediately on from the previous issue, with the characters once again meeting up with The HARD Corps, who they previously met under a lot more hostile circumstances. There's no character or dramatic tension from their previous encounter at all aside from one single panel, which is instantly resolved! And what would an issue of Armorines be without the lead hero Gunny insulting Major Lane for being a woman! This fucking guy!...

The XO part is more of the same, but from Aric Dacia's viewpoint. The only real addition is when we finally see the story's main villains, who are unceremoniously killed off just as abruptly as they appear. We also get a subplot this issue concerning Randy and her Department W buddies being marked for death, but it only makes up one scene, and is a pretty pointless addition to this issues.

There's one really stupid scene in this where Aric demands that a Spider Alien tell him Aristedes' whereabouts. This is stupid for two reasons. 1, Aric asks this question as he blasts the alien's torso into a fine powder, killing it instantly, and 2, because he asks this question after he's broken though the ship's hull, which should negate any and all sound!

The HARD Corps part, the finale, has nothing to it, and is the absolute worst of the bunch! Perhaps this is due to the fact that at this point, we're just reading more of the same, and because this is meant to be the big conclusion, yet does nothing with it.

That's it for the 'plot.' The characters in this story are numerous, but have nothing at all to them, and some are pretty unlikeable, and sometimes stupid, but not in a way the story intended. Harada is a high-and-mighty dick who belittles the HARD Corps and Armorines for 'wasting time and energy' on attacking the alien soldiers outside instead of taking the fight to the ships themselves. The problem with this arrogant thought is that the teams are fighting the ships! The rest of them are holding off the aliens as a stalling technique! Harada also doesn't stop whining about how the HARD Corps 'hitmen' tried to murder him, which isn't true! They made a conscious choice to not be Omen Enterprises hitmen, and spared Harada's life, as they refused to execute a defenseless man! You'd think the universe's greatest telepath would know this!

The art in these issues is ok, even though it does fluctuate between styles between the issues. The covers are pretty bland though. None are particularly appealing, and the Chaos Effect cover motif only allows them to show off things in the small strip near the middle of the page.

This four-parter is wretched! It does nothing but waste time with dull action and no story. It's also the final nail in the coffin for Spider Aliens in the Valiant Universe, partially because this story clinches how little of a threat they pose, and because their only appearances past this point are just bit-parts...

Harbinger #33 (Classic Valiant)

The superpowered Harbinger Foundation B-Team students are driving to New York, but when they go through a small country town, they find it overrun by a psychotic villain who's as powerful as he is insane, and won't stop until he absorbs the necromantic energy of everyone in the area...

Oh look, another good issue of Harbinger! Well, it technically is, anyway, mainly due to the fact that for the most part, it has nothing to do with Harbinger. This issue focuses entirely on the B-Team battling guest villain Doctor Eclipse in a small rural town, and in certain respects, this is a poor decision. Not only is it annoying that this is an issue-long fight scene, but it gets across zero character, not even for Faith, who has a massive turning point this issue. Her decision is so brief and rushed that it has no impact!

Onto the positives, we have Doctor Eclipse! He's a great villain here, and carries the story very well! His insane dialogue is hilarious, with lines like "Hey, a flying fat girl! Cool! I've never eaten one of those!", "Ooo, you've set me on fire, big deal. That trick never works.", and other such golden lines! Eclipse was never a developed villain in any of his appearances in various Valiant comics, but I've always found him to be such an amusing antagonist, with great visuals, and his hilariously wacko personality.

Aside from Eclipse, the writing this issue is pretty mediocre, though I loved the nod to Eclipse's time in The Second Life of Doctor Mirage! The second one bugged me though. It's not that the reference was forced, or even unsubtle but it's unnecessary, as a nod was already made. You can have one, or the other, but not both

The art here is pretty good. I especially like the school scene with Eclipse, where he draws his origin on a chalkboard for the students' benefit. The cover is decent too, with the pitch black background actually being effective, and decent character poses.

I hesitate to recommend this issue. It's not very good, but its villain is worth every penny!...

Harbinger #32 (Classic Valiant)

At the Harbinger Foundation school for superpowered teenagers, visiting mentor Gilad Abrams gives Faith new purpose to find out the mystery behind her forgotten past, and the whereabouts of her parents. Meanwhile, Foundation Eggbreaker (supersoldier) Blast has been dating student Natalie 'Stunner' Toynbee under false pretenses, claiming that he'll ensure she gets Eggbreaker status. She finds out the deception soon when another student steps in to take Blast to  for his actions, and she swears vengeance...

This is more of a character-centric issue of Harbinger, and doesn't have all that big a plot. It does an ok job at focusing on Stunner, but it doesn't develop her enough, and what's worse is that nothing here is ever followed up on again. Stunner did almost nothing prior to this point, and literally never appears again.

Blast is just an annoyingly unlikeable jerk. The guy's got connections though, I must admit, because I could've sworn he died in Issue #25! As with Weasel's reappearance in Issue #26, Blast is another character we didn't see die onscreen in the Eggbreakers' final battle with Peter Stanchek, but there's no way he survived, in any way. Even if he was only knocked out, he would've been crushed to death by the collapsing building.

Gilad  here is completely pointless, and while he does inspire Faith to find her parents, the scene is very confusing, and only makes sense if Gilad's really against the Harbinger Foundation, which he isn't. On that note, how does he not know the Harbinger Foundation is evil? The fact that he doesn't paints him as incredibly stupid!

Gilad is not only stupid in this issue, but also very unlikeable, given what happened to Stronghold and Livewire, which is tangentially his fault! At one point here, he says "This is my fault. I failed them." No shit, jackass! Rather than make me feel sympathetic for this character's mistakes, this line just makes me dislike him, because he did fail his friends, irrevocably!

The remaining characters here are underused and underdeveloped, save for Butch, who gets a couple of decent moments.

The writing in this issue is sometimes ok, but there's some terrible dialogue, like after Butch says "This guy's a lying leaze, Mira! He's been promising Stunner that he's gonna make her an Eggbreaker", Ms. Kabuto replies to Blast with "Is that true? You know you don't have the authority to choose who's in our elite paramilitary group!". I don't know how dialogue like that got past the editing stage!

One last thing to talk about is a bit of dialogue I find so amusing! Butch calms Natalie down from her rampage by telling her how amazing he thinks she is, and says "You don't need help from a creep like him to get a shot at being an Eggbreaker. You'll be one someday. A damn good one.". And then she'll get violently killed by the HARD Corps.

The art here is decent, and I like the effects for Stunner's powers. The cover is ok, but has an annoying lack of background.

This issue of Harbinger is tolerable, but not worth your time...

The H.A.R.D. Corps #21 and #22 (Classic Valiant)

The majority of the paramilitary HARD Corps team are celebrating the birthday of their colleague Flatline, but unfortunately the festivities are interrupted when old 'enemy' Earl Simkus arrives. He needs their help, but before he can elaborate, the teams' restaurant is attacked by Star Soldiers-Men in tough mechanical suits. What's worse it that the Star Squad have a signal dampener over the entire city block, ensuring that the HARD Corps can't access their superpowers...

This two-parter of HARD Corps is mixed. On one hand, it's not badly written, but it's really only a single action scene dragged out over two issues. There's barely any plot, and what little there is has zero payoff, as Midnight leaves the story at the end, with nothing having been accomplished besides some bad guys getting killed. We don't even know why the Star Squad wanted Earl to begin with!

Thankfully the proceedings at least aren't without some consequence, as Heydrich is further embittered at the old team thanks to the story's events, which becomes important as the series goes on.

There's some entertaining action here, and it's all that sustains the story. The characters have little to them, as the story's real time status ensures that there's little time for anything like that. The only exceptions are Hotshot and Flatline, but the latter's is incredibly rushed, while the former's is a continuity error. Hotshot tells Sam how she had a husband until he was killed, but in a previous issue, she asks Shakespeare how to cope with the death of a friend, as she's never experienced losing anyone before.

Earl's appearance in this story may be the instigator for its events, but he adds nothing to it, and leaves just as quickly as he arrived.

One thing to note, I find it a bit of a downer that not only does the Star Squad utterly destroy Shakespeare's restaurant, but also that this whole encounter interrupts Flatline's birthday party!

The art here is decent, and has a few cool moments, while the covers are mixed. Issue #21's is ok, but a bit empty and generic, while #22's is better, but lacks any kind of background.

While a mixed bag, this is still a fun two-parter, and is worth a read...

Harbinger #30, and #31, and The H.A.R.D. Corps #19, and #20 (Classic Valiant)

Evil businessman and head of the malevolent Harbinger Foundation Toyo Harada is in an irreversible coma, and his sworn enemies, the superpowered paramilitary team The HARD Corps, plan to strike the despot while he's down, and copy his devastating psionic abilities along the way. Meanwhile, as the team wrestles with the idea of killing a defenseless man, a group of Harbinger Foundation schoolkids realize what's going on and try to stop it...

This four-parter is so boring! Rather than tell a sprawling epic, this crossover between Harbinger, and The HARD Corps instead meanders until it stops, crushing many potential future storylines with its sluggish weight.

The writing in this story is sometimes decent, with a couple of ok character moments, but most of the issues are incredibly dull fight scenes and nothing more. Thankfully Issue #31 of Harbinger does at least   but you know what it focuses nothing on? The HARD Corps! Yeah, remember that?! It was only the entire plot to this four-parter, yet it's totally ignored for this whole issue! Following that, we're at the finale, where Harada mounts his attack on the HARD Corps ranch. This conclusion has no punch to it. It's a issue-long fight scene that accomplishes next to nothing, and it's never even followed up on. Harada knows where the HARD Corps base is, and he's already nearly decimated it, yet he never tries attacking it again!

Now, let's get to the myriad of characters here. First, the Harbinger B-Squad. After the serious events of last issue, the characters are facing such harsh punishments as!...err, cafeteria duty. And they go through such major emotional effects such  as!...Wondering if a girl they like reciprocates. Yeah, the events of Issue #29 really mean jack and shit, as they literally affect nothing in the long run. No traumatized characters starting to question their place in the Foundation, and not even a punishment for what they were caught doing. It's barely even mentioned! They're only on cafeteria duty thanks to the childish prank from the end of last issue, not because of what else happened!

These leads are irredeemably stupid at this point. They attack the heroes of the Valiant universe, ensuring that its greatest villain continues to exist! Sure, they don't know either facts, but it doesn't make them any less loathsome! Putting all that aside, they're rather boring main characters, and every moment the HARD Corps aren't onscreen is pain! However, there are a couple of decent scenes, such as Sam consoling Mira, and Simon standing up for himself to get Harada to keep the B-Squad together. Of course, both scenes are rendered entirely pointless in a few issues, and the latter didn't have sufficient development before this point, so these fine moments don't amount to much.

Their actions in saving Harada are especially infuriating because the team had already decided not to execute him. That choice would have so much power had it not been forced on them anyway when the B-Team turn up. The only reason they did was so the story could have a fight scene between them, because there's nowhere else in the story the two parties interact. It's especially poor writing as the point of this series at this point is these characters slowly realizing the wrongs of the Harbinger Foundation, so what better way to advance that arc than by encountering the HARD Corps, who could set the kids straight on the truth!

There's very little in regards to the HARD Corps. They have a decent amount of 'screentime', but the majority of it is just dull action, and the only real character moments are at the start of Issue #19, but that's interrupted.

Ever since Harada's coma, there's been a schism slowly developing between the upper echelon of the Harbinger Foundation, and this story completely derails that arc! Harada wakes up from his coma, rendering the entire struggle null and void, and he instantly fires, then murders Kuramoto. On that note, I've no idea why Harada is so disgraced at Kuramoto's actions, as they're no worse than any of the psychopathic crap Harada has pulled. Performing human experimentation is no more evil than ordering the wholesale murder of innocent teenagers.

Also on that note, what really annoys me about the schism arc is the reason why Kuramoto is being vilified by his colleagues. None of them have a problem with his torturing and performing human experiments on students, but rather at stuff like his making security a bit lax! What the hell? That's a pretty pathetic thing to be at ends over as opposed to what the story could have done. I think it would have been much better had there been a huge moral disagreement between the Foundation, as that makes the schism a lot more interesting and thoughtful than people arguing about how much security is needed!

Harada is a crummy villain, and he gets many out-of-character moments (such as his reaction to Stronghold, and disagreement with Kuramoto's actions), and his dialogue is laughable at times (specifically at the very end, where he espouses how dangerous his powers would be in the wrong hands-Ya THINK, Mr. Genocide?!). Not only was Harada brought out of his coma way too soon, which invalidates all weight the climactic Issue #25 had, not only does it close off so many other potential storylines, but it also brings the boring status quo screeching back!

The art here is decent, and the covers are mixed. Harbinger Issue #30's is ok, but shows too little, while #31's is boring. The first HARD Corps cover is pretty good, but the second is oddly angled, and just ok.

This story was a painful chore to read, and Issue #19 and #20 of The HARD Corps are two more that aren't really HARD Corps material...

The H.A.R.D. Corps #17 and #18 (Classic Valiant)

Covert government organization the Armorines are assigned to take down the paramilitary group HARD Corps, who are mistakenly believed to be terrorists by Armorine leader General Kendall. The team suit up to eliminate the Corps with the use of their advanced armour, but the Corps are a powerful adversary to make...

The HARD Corps is a fantastic series, but it has a few missteps, specifically with its crossovers. None of this isn't the fault of the series, but rather the guest writers who mess things up with their mediocre-to-bad storytelling.

This two-parter is written by Bernard Chang and Jorge Gonzalez, and it's obvious which writers are writing which parts. You see, Bernard Chang is a good writer! He clearly gets the series, while I assume Gonzalez focused mainly on the Armorines sections, hence why he has solo writing duties for Issue #18, where they're the plot's main focus. Because of this, the story's quality nosedives from HARD Corps material to mediocre very quickly! While Bernard Chang understands the series, Gonzalez probably didn't read a single damn issue! Take for example how Gunny is so shocked to see that Charlie and Virgil, two old war comrades, are alive, which is impossible in his eyes as they all died in a plane crash in the '70's. This would indeed sound shady, if not for the fact that Charlie and Virgil's survival is open information! They were never reported as dead! They were in a prison camp for years, and in a long coma afterwards! 'Mysterious circumstances' my ass! I'll give this the benefit of the doubt though and assume Gonzalez is simply incapable of writing competent characters. An even worse error comes when Gonzalez's writing shows that he doesn't know Toyo Harada is in a coma! This is even more egregious a problem, as Chang mentioned this event at the start of Issue #17! In fact, it was a very important moment! A real game-changer!

The plot here amounts to very little, and is just a poor excuse to have the Armorines fight the HARD Corps. Come the end, nothing has been accomplished, nor has the cast been advanced or developed in any way.

The characters here are mixed. The HARD Corps personnel have their characters come across very well in the sections written by Bernard Chang, while Gonzalez  has no such talent. His Armorines are boring, and he does nothing with the story's main characters.

The other Armorines are have nothing to them, while Gunny gets the most focus. He's a dickhead, as usual. Once again, he constantly, constantly gives his Armorine compatriot Sirot crap for supposedly being rude and disrespectful, which is never seen! What's especially annoying is that this issue marks what must be the seventh time Gunny has said something along the lines of "I'm getting sick and tired of your whining and mouthing off!". This would be incredibly annoying even if Sirot did act that way.

Gunny acts like such a high and mighty 'upstanding' soldier, yet given the way he acts, he's surprised Sirot doesn't like him?! Why should he respect or trust Gunny when the man directly disobeys orders by forcing the whole team to suddenly abort the mission while they were about to take the targets into custody, and he refused to explain his actions?!

This story does have one genuinely surprising moment-Gunny actually talks civilly to Major Lane! A scene where he nearly maintains a whole conversation without insulting or ignoring her for being a woman?! Colour me surprised! But not too much, because the scene still ends with Gunny insulting the Major.

Finally, Gunny constantly whines about how old he is, and the other characters frequently mention it too, here, and in their own series. The reason this is so annoying is that Gunny is 38 years old! Old?! He's not even middle-aged!

Another annoying scene regarding the Armorines is when they're painting distinctive symbols on their armour suits. It's not that they're doing this that's the proble, but rather that this scene is in The HARD Corps rather than the Armorines own series, ensuring that your only way of telling which identical armoured protagonist is which is out the window with this required reading! However, this doesn't pose such a big problem in the long run, as you can't even see said insignias on the Armorines in most shots in their own series, so there's just plum no way of telling who's who besides coming across dialogue naming the characters.

The art here is decent, but the covers are bland, and lack backgrounds.

This two-parter is a load of mediocre crap, and you can feel free to avoid it when getting the whole series, because aside from the brief portions written by Bernard Chang in Issue #17, this isn't real HARD Corps material...