IMPERIUM: Valiant Sends Villains On The Run In Beautiful Braithwaite Pencils Preview

There are a lot of things that are pretty awesome about Valiant Comics -- I'm particularly fond of the way that they haven't been shying away from giving us humor-driven superheroes in the form of books like Archer & Armstrong and Quantum and Woody -- but one thing that's pretty darn appealing about them as a reader is that they're pretty keen on giving new readers books they can jump onto and get into the larger universe. Right now, they're in the middle of one of those with their "Valiant Next" Initiative, and if your tastes run towards reading about supervillains on the run, they've got you covered with Imperium.

While Imperium spins out of the events of Harbinger, with Joshua Dysart and Doug Braithwaite focusiing on the manipulative and incredibly powerful Toyo Harada as he attempts to form a new team of unscrupulous bad guys bent on world domination, Dysart has said that his main focus is to play with supervillain archetypes like "mad scientist," "evil alien" and "robot soldier" to see what new stories he can wring out of them, and that sounds pretty fantastic standing all on its own. Check out a preview below featuring interior pages from Braithwaite as well as covers by Braithwaite, Raul Allen, Trevor Hairsine and Tom Muller!

Here's the official solicitation for Imperium #1, out on February 4, 2015:

IMPERIUM #1 [VALIANT NEXT]
Written by JOSHUA DYSART
Art by DOUG BRAITHWAITE
Cover A (Harada) by RAUL ALLEN (DEC141700)
Cover B (Lord Vine-99) by RAUL ALLEN (DEC141701)
Cover C (Mech Major) by RAUL ALLEN (DEC141702)
Valiant Next Variant by TREVOR HAIRSINE & TOM MULLER (DEC141704)
Character Design Variant by DOUG BRAITHWAITE (DEC141705)
Artist Variant by DOUG BRAITHWAITE (DEC141706)
Blank Cover also available (DEC141703)
$3.99 US | T+ | 32 pgs. | On sale FEBRUARY 4 (FOC – 1/12/15)