Who Owns the VALIANT Universe?
It’s extremely difficult to find any comic book fan who was engaged in the culture in the 1990’s that didn’t fall in love with VALIANT comics the moment they picked them up. Created by Jim Shooter to challenge the monopoly Marvel and D.C. held on the industry at the time, the company created a stable of characters and stories that quite frankly blew away anything that was going on at the time (and are still a step above 99% of most titles in quality even today.)
After six years of stellar books the house of cards fell on the publisher, and in a day that will go down as one of the blackest and most depressing days in comic history all properties were acquired by Acclaim (which was only interested in bilking the universe by dumbing the properties down into idiotic caricatures of their former glory.) In a historic series of blunders Acclaim squandered some of the most treasured, yet short-lived, characters in comic history.
Why does this all matter? For one, a company called Valiant Entertainment, Inc. is releasing a hardcover compilation version of VALIANTS’ seminal work “Harbinger” on August 29th, complete with a new story by Jim Shooter and a new character. At Comic Con, fans were treated to a VALIANT ashcan containing re-imagined art of the defunct publisher’s characters. These developments sent a shockwave through a cult community in the comics subculture who still keep their copy of Rai #0 cuddled up with them at night to keep them warm, hopeful for a return of the beloved franchise, if not the whole universe. This would be nothing short of a second coming in the eyes of some fanboys, but recent developments have thrown the entire scenario into a murky abyss of legal wrangling.
The specifics of the intellectual property disputes, in all of its litigious glory, are far above my head to understand. The dispute seems to go back to the specifics of the auction held for the properties following Acclaim’s bankruptcy in April of 2005, and puts the properties in limbo. The long and short of it seems to be that it will be up to the courts to decide whether Valiant Entertainment or Valiant Intellectual Properties holds a legal claim to the assets.
It’s important to note that despite the similarities in name, neither concern (as far as I know) has any ties to the original VALIANT company or creative teams other than the tapping of Shooter to come back and lend a new story to the Harbinger collective, so it is difficult to know who to root for in this dispute. I’m leaning towards Valient Entertainment at this point solely for the fact that they worked with Shooter on this “new” project and bringing in the man who was the epicenter for this “big bang” of creativeness is exactly the right step towards bringing this beloved universe back to the prominence it deserves. The inclusion of Shooter brings hope that the universe will be brought back for the right reasons, to make damn good comic stories that stand the test of time the way the original VALIANT did, rather than retool the franchises to the lowest common denominator for a cheap buck the way Acclaim did. Fingers crossed, let's hope this one works out for the fans.
-Kenneth England
comic, Kenneth England, VALIANT, Jim Shooter, Harbinger, Valiant Entertainment
Hey
years ago Valiant had a contest and first prize was a complete run of all things Valiant (with the exception of Super mario Brothers)...Yep, I was the winner. With the exception of a couple of issues that gave to a friend, I still have every issue in my collection. My fave, Bloodshot. Just something about a Ninja Hitman with Nanites for blood
The ownership of the stories and characters is not in dispute. Valiant Entertainment owns them.
It's only the right to market them under their names ("Harbinger", "The Visitor", etc.) that is in dispute.
Worst case scenario: Valiant Entertainment will have to sell these books and characters under new titles. The same situtation DC has with the classic Captain Marvel.
I hope you are right. I don't pretend to be at all an expert in IP law, so I hope you are right.