Valiant’s ‘Faith’ Returns In New Ongoing Series From Houser, Pérez And Sauvage

Since her first appearance in the pages of Harbinger, the superhero Zephyr, AKA Faith Herbert, has been one of the breakout stars of Valiant’s return, injecting the grim ‘n’ gritty world of superhero corporate espionage with her unique charm. Early this year, Faith starred in her very own miniseries by Jody Houser, Francis Portela and Marguerite Sauvage and, as reported today by the New York Times, it was so popular that Faith is relaunching as an ongoing series in July, with artist Pere Pérez stepping in to replace Portela and joining the team of Houser and Sauvage.

Faith is unique for being one of the very few plus-sized superheroes in comics, and certainly the most prominent, the only one in a leading role. Her series has so far been a light-hearted delight as Faith juggles her life as a superhero with her job at a Buzzfeed-like site in a very millennial take on the classic Superman/Spider-Man secret identity dichotomy.

Historically, plus-sized characters have been the butt of jokes in the comics industry, with characters like The Blob offering about as much representation as people could hope to get. There were characters like Amanda Waller, or Wonder Woman’s sidekick Etta Candy who were big ladies that did not give a heck and got the job done, but as of The New 52, they’ve both been slimmed down to appear more conventionally attractive.

The current miniseries ends this month with #4 and the new volume of Faith begins with a new #1 in July. You can read more about it, including quotes from Jody Houser about Faith as a character and the new volume, in the New York Times’ announcement.