Robert Venditti

You know, one assumes that with a thousand lifetimes spent battling evil, Gilad Anni-Padda has probably had ample opportunity to get angry. But if you really want to see someone get mad, you should check out what they do when their first-born son is kidnapped by demons and taken to literal Hell. That's bound to provoke a pretty extreme reaction, and in Robert Venditti, Robert Gill, and Michael Spicer's Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, we're getting to see it for ourselves. Check out a preview of next week's issue below!

For Gilad, the Eternal Warrior, dying isn't really the problem, since he always comes back. But the last time he did, his first-born son wound up in the clutches of a demon prince named Humongous. That's tough to get around, especially since Gilad's only plan right now is to trade his (after)life for his son's and willingly submit to an eternity of torture. Things are starting to get pretty rough, and in Robert Venditti and Robert Gill's Wrath of the Eternal Warrior #12, it's only going to get worse.

For the past five years, XO Manowar has been Valiant's flagship title, but now the story of Aric of Dacia, a barbarian plucked from the fringes of the Roman empire and returned to Earth with an alien battle-suit that might be the single most powerful weapon in the galaxy, is coming to a close. And given that high concept, you can probably guess that it's not going to be a quiet ending. When the final issue hits shelves next week, it's coming with 64 pages of story and a truly overwhelming number of variant covers --- including a Ninjak story from Jody Houser and Javier Pulido that looks fantastic. Check it out with a preview below!

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!

Legendary comics artist Colleen Doran is contributing a gorgeous variant cover to the landmark 50th issue of Valiant's X-O Manowar. Her cover, seen above, is an homage to Michelangelo's sculpture The Pietà, with the titular armor in place of Jesus Christ. The mix of sci fi and Celtic fantasy imagery (not to mention the androgynous white-haired figure), while appropriate for X-O Manowar, is also reminiscent of Doran's own magnum opus, A Distant Soil.

If you're like me, then you've probably looked at the eponymous suit of armor in the pages of Valiant's X-O Manowar and thought, "Yeah, okay, it's an indestructible suit of space armor that has wrist-rockets and a lightning sword, but wouldn't it be better if it was a hundred feet tall?" If that's the case, well, I have good news, bad news, and worse news. The good news is that we're finally going to see what that looks like when Valiant's 4001 AD Summer crossover explodes into an X-O Manowar one-shot next week! The bad news is that, as the title indicates, it's not actually going to happen until the 41st century. The worse news is that it happens in a version of the future that's generally described with words like "ruination" and "despair," where people probably aren't doing well enough to appreciate how rad it is to have a giant robot. But we can, if we would only check out a preview below!

Here's the nice thing about the world of X-O Manowar: Everything is labeled in a very convenient manner. I mean, just look at the man himself: He's a warrior from barbarian times --- a literal man of war --- flying around in a high-tech exo-suit. And the Vine, the alien race that kidnapped him from barbarian times? They're essentially just cosmic gardeners although their idea of "pruning" tends to involve killing all humans. It's a very straightforward way to keep track of everything. So when a new group shows up with claims of being a legendary, omnipotent force from beyond the stars, you really hope that they're going to be named something like "The Niceness" or "The Friendlies," or maybe even "The Make-You-Some-Pancakes Bunch." Unfortunately for Aric of Dacia, though, they're called "The Torment," and when X-O Manowar #47 hits in June, from Robert Venditti, Joe Bennett and Roberto De La Torre, they're probably going to live up to that name. Check out a preview (with some unfinished but beautiful art) below!

I believe pretty firmly that Barry Allen should be locked up in a jail, but if we're being honest with each other, that's less because of anything he's done and really just comes down to the fact that I grew up in the '90s and have a pretty strong attachment to Wally West. But even though they might not agree with my reasoning, the Central City Police Department certainly agrees with my conclusions. When Flash #50 hits shelves next week, it's opening with the Flash being arrested --- and he's being brought in by the Rogues.

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!

Valiant Comics' shared superhero universe is smaller and less familiar than those of its major rivals, but even a small shared universe can offer a lot to learn about. To help those readers looking to take the plunge into the Valiant Universe, we’ve assembled our own team of delinquents to break things down. Steve Morris knows Valiant inside out; J.A. Micheline is new to the universe. Micheline has the questions, and Morris has the answers. Over the last month Steve has introduced JAM to the superpowered Harbinger team and the brainwashed assassin Bloodshot. For the next assignment, though he set JAM homework of a more cosmic nature --- the flagship Valiant series X-O Manowar. If that wasn't enough, it's also finally time to talk about the British Enigma that is Ninjak. She gamely accepted the mission --- and now they're back to talk about it!