A Great Start In Valiant's Shared Universe
Unity is written by Matt Kindt (Earth 2 & JLA) with art by Doug Braithwaite (Journey into Mystery & Universe X). Essentially this is Valiant Comic’s first team up book since their relaunch, full of their young yet wide variety of characters. Let’s do a quick recap & score this issue!
The comic starts off with Aric of Dacia aka X-O Manowar demolishing the attacking Russian military while a blogger records the carnage. Due to the Manowar armor’s abilities the fight is battle is quick & one-sided. We then cut to the Eternal Warrior Gilad consulting with Japanese businessman Toyo Harada about the events of X-O Manowar #16, warning of the Russians willingness to use nuclear force against Aric unless they can get the situation under control prompting him to get a taskforce together. This team consists of Ninjak (high-tech mercenary-ninja), Bomb (super strong & energy redirector), Mirror (taskmaster rip-off), Ether (technopath), & The Captain (telepath & persuader). Almost instantly the mission fails as Aric kills all of them besides Ninjak while Harada & The Eternal Warrior recruit Amanda McKee aka Livewire, who has the ability to control machines with her mind.
This issue set out to truly show Valiant has a shared universe & it succeeded. With characters from almost every Valiant book currently publishing it makes an easily cohesive world for the reader. The writing is intelligent with distinct tones for each character while the plot gives a glimpse at future events within this beginning arc. The art is beautiful capturing great landscapes, destruction, people’s emotions, and more complimenting the writing seamlessly. For all of these reasons & more I give this issue an 4/5 stars.