Raul Allen

Secret Weapons was a Valiant team-up book from the '90s that starred Livewire, Bloodshot, and Geomancer. Later this year, the franchise gets a 21st century reboot that places Livewire front and center where she belongs. In June, Eric Heiserrer, Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín will relaunch Secret Weapons as Livewire rounds up the kids with powers deemed too insignificant for Toyo Harada's Harbinger program. ComicsAlliance chatted with Allén about his collaboration process in defining the visual language of Secret Weapons, Livewire's role as a lead character, and the re-emergence of iconic Valiant villain Rex-o.

Earlier this week, Valiant teased the launch of a new series from Arrival screenwriter Eric Heisserer, penciller Raúl Allén, and colorist Patricia Martín, claiming that soon, "the secret is out." If you're the type of person who keeps track of which Valiant properties have and haven't been relaunched since the company's 21st-century return, that was a solid clue, and today, it's been confirmed: In June, Secret Weapons is back.

Listen: I kind of love The Dying One. I mean, of course I would, right? He's a supervillain who dedicated years - decades, even! - to building a massive underground labyrinth full of deathtraps that are designed explicitly for killing a man who literally cannot die. That's the kind of dedication I love in my antagonists. But then he had to go and ruin it. In next week's issue, as the Dying One finally comes face to face with the Eternal Warrior for bargaining and a fight to the death, he went and opened his big mouth and committed the ultimate sin: He talked smack about Ninjak. Obviously this cannot stand. Check out a preview (including this heinous act) and the start of Gilad's biggest throwdown yet below!

Here's the thing about being one of a trio of immortal brothers who have spent the past few thousand years roaming around and having adventures: Unless you're the one who spends the majority of his time passed out drunk or trying to bring the newsboy cap back into style, you're going to make an awful lot of enemies. And odds are, some of those enemies are going to end up being the kind of immortal masterminds who have an awful lot of time on their hands to plan out their revenge. And in the pages of Wrath of the Eternal Warrior #7, that's exactly what's happening to Gilad Anni-Padda, as he finds himself trapped in what Valiant describes as "the most impenetrable deathtrap ever conceived": A massive, underground maze designed for the sole purpose of destroying the Eternal Warrior. Check out a preview below!

Just earlier today, we speculated that we’d be seeing more announcements of exclusive contracts beyond those coming from DC Comics, and it seems that is the case, as Valiant Entertainment has announced a whopping fifteen exclusive deals in one fell swoop ahead of this weekend’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo.

In the three-plus years since Valiant Comics once again became a mainstay on comic shop shelves, The Eternal Warrior has emerged as a central character in the Valiant Universe, serving as the anchor for several series and events. Since starring in an eight-issue solo series by writer Greg Pak and artist Robert Gill, Gilad, the immortal protector of the geomancers, has taken on even more significance in the Valiant U. Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, out next month from writer Robert Venditti and artist Raul Allen, puts the de facto star of Book of Death and The Valiant in a whole new set of circumstances, facing down ancient, terrifying creatures in an "off-world" setting. To find out more about the character's strange new situation, we sat down with Venditti to get the scoop on how this strange environment will affect Gilad, the fallout from Book of Death, and writing a very personal story about a 5,000-year-old character.

The thing about holding a grudge is that there's kind of a time limit on it. I mean, we are, after all, creatures of finite life spans, so on a purely functional level, you can really only be mad for so long before you either stop being mad or stop being anything. Unless, of course, you're Gilad Anni-Pada, better known as the Eternal Warrior, who has an entire immortal lifespan of a couple thousand years to just keep on getting madder and madder. What I'm getting at here is that when you've got a book titled Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, then you are promising a pretty extreme level of anger, and that's something that I'm really hoping to get out of Robert Venditti and Raul Allen's new take on the character as he journeys through an alien hellscape. Check out a preview.

If you're anything like me, then you want - no, you require --- as much Ninjak as humanly possible to be delivered into your waiting eyballs at all times, and if that's the case, I've got some good news for you. Next week, Valiant's #1 ninja --- or, you know, their #11 ninja, if we're going alphabetically --- is taking the center stage in not one, but two new stories. First, Ninjak #6 continues the awesome ongoing series with a brand new story arc that pits Colin King and his high-tech ninjutsu against La Barbe, a mysterious French adversary who preserves his anonymity with a Scrooge McDuckian pile of money and some Ninjak-hunting laser weapons. And if that wasn't enough, Book of Death: The Fall of Ninjak jumps a hundred years into the future to see what he's up to in the post-apocalyptic world ravaged by the Armor Hunters. Can you handle that much Ninjak?!

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.