Wrath of the Eternal Warrior

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.

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!

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.