The panel I went to next was the "What the @$*& is up with Valiant?" with Fred Van Lente.
I was a
huge fan of Valiant when it came out. Yeah, there was a lot of hype when Image Comics came into being, and
Spawn was "successful" title to say the least, but Valiant was a successful
company/universe. They became - and there's really no other way to say this - The Big Third.
Then Shooter left, the bubble burst, Acclaim took over, and it became The Big Turd.
Now Valiant was back, and was getting some very positive reviews. I haven't read any of the new titles due to lack of funds, but I wanted to show my support and gain some insight to what direction The Big Third was headed.
Van Lente is the writer of the new
Archer & Armstrong series. While a talented writer, as a speaker he tended to repeat himself a lot. Not in a "senile old man" kind of way, but more like he was nervous in front of an audience.
The bulk of the panel was about the history of Valiant Comics, and its Gold Key roots, which most of us knew about already. But one of the things I learned was that after Valiant Comics went bust the first time, Gold Key comics was bought by Classic Media. This included Solar, Magnus and Tuvok - all Gold Key characters originally. To make things even
more interesting, Classic Media has since been bought by Dreamworks. This, according to Van Lente, took those characters completely off the table when Valiant began again.
I wondered why those characters weren't included in the relaunch.
This led to the revelation that despite this drawback, a movie production company (he wouldn't say which one) had optioned both Shadowman and Bloodshot. There was a brief mention of Van Lente's past experience with movie companies (he co-wrote
Cowboys and Aliens - which was another panel later on at the con) as he explained that when a property is "optioned" is essentially means two things: One is that for the specified time period of the deal, that movie company has the "option" to use said property to make a film if they want to. The other - and this is more interesting - is that
no other movie company interested in making a film with that property can touch it...for the specified time period of the deal.
This has tied the hands of many a company on many a project, leaving us fans deprived.
Van Lente then brought up
A&A and explained the concept behind the series - again, something most of us already knew - and mentioned Eternal Warrior. He said that there are no plans to expand the Valiant line, but Armstrong's brother has (or will) be in
A & A from time to time.
There was a little time for questions, and someone asked about Acclaim characters, such as Quantum and Woody, being integrated into the Valiant Universe. Van Lente said there's nothing planned at the moment, but maybe down the road.
Then I asked my question: "Any talk a
Unity type thing?"
Van Lente said no, because events like that were the product of the nineties and Valiant was too young right now to even think of something that big.
Granted, that question may have made me look like a '90's prospector, but what I meant was if there were any plans to integrate their existing characters. Yeah,
Unity was an "event" to boost sales, but it also had Archer and Armstrong fighting side-by-side with X-O Manowar. And
that was what I meant to ask. What do you call that? Cross-pollination? Cameos?
Time ran out before I could correct my question, but I'll work on being more specific with my questions going forward.
I had a little over an hour to kill before the next panel, so I headed back to the tables.
