Good Thing: How Valiant Makes Blockbuster Superheroes Accessible

I'm not a major superhero kinda guy. I came to comics fairly late, and never managed to dive that much into the superhero realm. I think I always thought it was too big, with too much to catch up on, and a lot of the superhero books I read when I was younger always seemed like they knew something I didn't. That whole lore and world existed way before I was even born.

I even came to Valiant's rebooted universe pretty late, only catching up with it recently. But with Valiant, I found a superhero universe I could actually jump into.

I began with The Valiant, which is a kind of similar in approach to The Avengers, where the publisher brings all the main heroes from its world together to stop the big bad. It's the kind of summer blockbuster you'd expect from Marvel or DC, re-shaping a bunch of characters and changing the status-quo.

I'd never read a single Valiant comic before jumping into The Valiant, and yet, within the pages of the first issue, I got to grips with all the characters, the world, what the stakes were, and why I'd want to dive into the second issue.

Since then, I've been all over Bloodshot, X-O Manowar, Eternal Warrior, and more. It's taken the formula of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and adapted it to comic form, with enclosed series, all told in various "phases," leading up to a particular event.

The Valiant is the publisher's Age of Ultron, and it's a fast-paced and epic way to kick off a new set of stories. The Valiant universe feels like it's adapting and molding as each major event happens, and it really does feel like these stories have consequences for the characters.

More importantly, it offers blockbuster fun through all the series I've read. The creators at Valiant know what they're doing, and have doubled down on that accessible Hollywood style of storytelling.

For anyone who struggled to fully get into Marvel and DC, and who is looking for a way to get that crazy, over-the-top superhero action fix, look no further than the Valiant line of superhero comics.

In Good Thing we celebrate something we love from comics or pop culture, because every day could use something good.