Valiant’s ‘Book of Death’ to Skip Ahead To The End

While other superhero comics publishers are mining their pasts for big crossover events this spring and summer, Valiant is blasting ahead into the future, specifically, its characters' end times.

The new, four-issue event series Book of Death, written by Robert Venditti and with art by Robert Gill and Doug Braithwaite, promises to reveal how characters including Ninjak, Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, Toyo Harada and others will bite it, be redeemed, be replaced, or otherwise change in the future.

Here's a description from Valiant's press release:

The Book of the Geomancer has recorded it all. But only a young girl – the last in a line of the enigmatic mystics who protect the Earth known as Geomancers – has seen this future come to pass, from the coming cataclysm to the dawn of the 41st century. Alone with her sworn protector, the Eternal Warrior – a soldier battle-forged across five thousand years of combat – the duo must defy their allies to stop the Dark Age that now threatens to eclipse our world.

Together, they are the number one target of every hero and villain on Earth. Either the Eternal Warrior hands her over…or they take him down. But can even he single-handedly protect one child when the entire Valiant Universe wages war against him?

Valiant CEO & Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani adds:

Major characters will die, while others will be introduced for the very first time. The loves, the losses, and the betrayals that await our biggest characters…it all starts here. For the Geomancer, this future has already happened and, in each issue, we will see more of the events that shaped her life revealed. Book of Death will have an immediate impact on not only the stories that follow it in 2015, but on the next decade of the Valiant Universe as well.

In addition to the main series, Valiant will also be releasing four, character-specific one shots, one each month starting in July:

Book of Death: The Fall of Bloodshot #1
Written by Jeff Lemire; Art by Doug Braithwaite (July

Book of Death: The Fall of Ninjak #1
Written by Matt Kindt; Art by Trevor Hairsine (August)

Book of Death: The Fall of Harbinger #1
Written by Joshua Dysart; Art by Kano (September)

Book of Death: The Fall of X-O Manowar #1
Written by Robert Venditti; Art by Clayton Henry (October)

Venditti said that the story of Book of Death has been "in the works for a long time," so hopefully Ninjak will come to a satisfactory end. It seems like it would take a lot to truly end Ninjak.

Check out the full checklist below: