Just asking, because when I looked into X-0 Manowar, it seemed you had to collect other trades to follow the story and I prefer slightly more self contained comic books.

In other words, can I just buy the Shadowman trades without having to collect anything else to follow the story?

@safefruitcake: Yes. The Shadowman series has been completely self contained thus far and really hasn't played that large a role in the Valiant U at all.

Is this your first Valiant purchase? If so, I would recommend X-O Manowar or Harbinger. X-O does have crossovers to the Unity series as well as Armor Hunters. The story has been phenomenal from the start though. You can read the story by itself up until Armor Hunters which is 30+ issues in. Even then, it can be read separately, but the Armor Hunters event was fantastic. Harbinger is the other big influence on the Valiant U as it introduces the big bad of Toyo Harada and is also a great story that ran 25 issues. There is an event in there called Harbinger Wars that crossed over with Bloodshot that was one of my favorite story lines of 2013.

I was not much a fan of the Shadowman series. The first few arcs were entertaining, but then I thought it went downhill and then became horrible once Milligan took over for that Shadowman: End-Times mini-series.

@cap10nate: Thanks for your help and recommendations :)

@safefruitcake: Sure thing. Let me know if you have any other questions about Valiant.