So the Valiant Universe seems to have been pretty tightly created from the get go, with the same villains showing up in different books and characters being related to one another in some way.  From what I understand, there are three immortals walking around and they are brothers.  One of them is the Eternal Warrior, whose own book I’ll get to later.  Another is Armstrong, the back half of a book that I think is supposed to be a buddy action comedy of some sorts.

I read issues #1 (which was a Unity chapter), 13, 14, 15, and 17.  The gist of the title is that Archer is a warrior monk type character and he’s more or less attached to the immortal Armstrong, who is kind of a bum.  The first issue has Barry Windsor-Smith artwork and while it looked really nice, it was hard to follow.  I think, too, that this is the only Unity-related book that was in this longbox, and while I know that the crossover was known for being a kick-off of the Valiant Universe (there are only, I think, a small number of comics the company published pre-Unity and back in the day, those were pretty valuable), it’s one of those crossovers that doesn’t give you enough of the greater context for you to understand what’s going on or be engaged.

The other issues, which were written by Mike Baron, were a little easier to get a handle on because the characters moved to Hollywood and it became this “fish out of water” story combined with an attempt at satirizing show business.  It’s entertaining for what it’s worth, including an UZI shootout between two neighbors for no reason except that they got into an argument or something.  Baron’s writing is fun and the initial Hollywood arc made for some entertaining reading, but not enough for me to keep going.

Keep, Sell, Donate, or Trash?

Donate.