**** (out of 5)
I hate “chosen one” myths. Since the inception of the fantastic story, being passed down verbally through generations, mankind has been obsessed with them – obsessed with the possibility that certain people are born different, or better in some extraordinary way, and that maybe – just maybe – they could have “special” handed to them too. On an intellectual level, I can understand the allure of such a fantasy. Nobody wants to have to work to receive the admiration and respect of their peers, not when they could just be born with a high Midichlorian count, wizarding blood, mutant genes, or any number of other possibilities. But I’ve always found this preoccupation with protagonists who did nothing to earn their savior-of-the-world-and-stuff status besides being “born with a destiny” to be, at best, unfortunate.
Now, with that in mind, go ahead and take a look at the rating I gave to Harbinger # 1, a comic book about a teenager who was born with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Contradictory? Hypocritical? Perhaps, but I don’t think so, because Harbinger is not a story about someone who was born with the ability to save the world. It takes the very mature idea that being born with superpowers in a world full of “Norms” is not a good thing, and that any such people, left to their own devices, will eventually destroy themselves.
Most of us have been where Peter Stanchek is when this story begins, and none of us want to go back there. He’s a boy at the end of his rope – no friends, no money, no prospects, and a series of walls slowly closing in on him – that is, until one man offers him a way out.
It’s worth going into detail about the ways in which Peter is not Protagonist material, at least not yet (in fact, the level to which Joshua Dysart drags him through the mud is probably the main factor keeping this from being a 5-star book). In this issue, we see him steal from an elderly shopkeeper, squat in an unused house, then stalk and essentially rape his childhood sweetheart. Now, there are circumstances that keep each of these actions from making the character completely irredeemable, but let’s not beat around the bush as far as what he actually does. That last action, in particular, will need to be handled extremely delicately in order to keep the book from quickly going off the rails in terms of believability.
The art in Harbinger is not nearly as stellar as that of X-O Manowar – however, it still looks pretty (thanks again, in large part, to the coloring), and already a unified aesthetic for the new Valiant Universe is starting to make itself apparent. Its worth noting how effective (and subtle) the use of color is in the book’s early scenes. Peter’s vibrant yellow hoodie singles him out as, visually, the one bright spot in a world full of drab, unhappy people – and yet in reality, he’s the darkest of them all. Josh Dysart has the start of an extremely compelling protagonist in Peter (Much more so than the character of Aric in X-O Manowar) – if he can convincingly redeem his actions over the course of time, Harbinger could well shape itself into a strong cornerstone of the exciting new Valiant run.
Check out Valiant’s official page for the book here: http://valiantuniverse.com/2012/04/19/sneak-preview-harbinger-1/