H.A.R.D. Corps is a fictional superhero team appearing in books published by the American publisher Valiant Comics. The H.A.R.D. Corps team first appeared in Harbinger #10 (Oct. 1992), and were created by Jim Shooter and David Lapham.

Publication history

Original Valiant continuity

The original series ran for a total of 30 issues, from December 1992 – June 1995. Bob Layton explained the style of the series: "When [David Michelinie] and I set out to do H.A.R.D.Corps it was because ... We like light-hearted, hard hitting, bash 'em in the face, sock 'em guys." The cover of the first issue was pencilled by Jim Lee over a layout by Bob Layton. Lee had initially declined to take on the cover because he was too busy, but eventually did it in return for Valiant president Steven Massarsky getting him two U2 tickets.

2012 Valiant continuity

In the second relaunch/reboot of the Valiant Universe, the HARD Corps was prominently featured in the third volume of Bloodshot, from issues 14 to 21. The further highlight this, the third volume was briefly titled Bloodshot and H.A.R.D. Corps.

Premise

Original Valiant continuity

The acronym stands for Harbinger Active Resistance Division. The title's focus is a corporate strike team which represents Omen Enterprises. Omen Enterprises are at war with Toyo Harada, and his Harbinger Corporation, which he uses in his goal to control all Harbingers. The original H.A.R.D. team is a group of fighter pilots who are victims of various accidents, rendered comatose, and revived with experimental neural implants. The neural implants utilized by Omen Enterprises allow the team members to mimic the powers of Harbingers, and are all assigned and managed by an operator named "Softcore." The cerebral fail-safe procedures given are that any rebellion from the team members, as well as capture or death will result in the explosion of the neural implants.

2012 Valiant continuity

In the 2012 Valiant relaunch, the team works for Project Rising Spirit, instead of the Omen Corporation. In this timeline, the team is being tasked by PRS to retrieve Bloodshot from the Harbinger Corporation.

Characters

The original team was composed of former fighter pilots and went by call signs in the field, starting a Corps tradition of using codenames.

Original team

The original team were all Vietnam War veterans who served together in the same unit.

Other members

Later additions

Reserves

Towards the end of the series, other recruits were drafted to form a second Corps team with Perp, Grasshopper, and Wipeout. These included:

Support staff

The operators who maintain contact with field agents and manage their powers.

Powers and abilities

Each member of the H.A.R.D. Corps could utilize one Harbinger power at a time. To switch powers, an operative had to radio Softcore and request she make the switch while at headquarters. They are often seen using a defensive power and firearms for offense, but switching powers is a quick enough process to be accomplished in combat. Needing to communicate to switch their powers sometimes becomes a weakness: Corps operatives who lose their headset cannot switch powers, and sometimes their opponents will jam or disrupt communications with their base, knowing that "microbeams" are used to alter the mimicked powers. In new continuity powers are supplied to operatives via Lifeline through their reverse engineered Harada Tech neural implants developed by Project Rising Spirit. Agents can only utilize one power at a time due to the human biology being unaccustomed to hardwired harbinger ability usage, special command sequences for chaining different powers in tandem through the bio-configuration process can be initiated such as; sequence 2, 4, 6, sequence epsilon, etc. The Implants are also wired to explode and can be detonated automatically either upon capture or death of operative and remotely from PRS home base.

Original Valiant continuity

The powers the H.A.R.D. Corps demonstrate include:

Valiant Entertainment continuity

A special store of one off powers called Bee Stings can be issued, but are adeptly named due to the fatality ratio making them useful only once. Occasionally H.A.R.D. Corps will capture new Harbingers to analyze their powers. If a previously unknown power is discovered, a record is made in order to enable replication of the power.

Continuity

A spinoff of the Harbinger title, H.A.R.D. Corps is the ancestor of Psi Lords, which is set in the 41st century of the Valiant Universe and dealt with the descendants of the Corps.

Creative teams

Collected editions