Harbinger is an American comic book series published by Valiant Comics about a group of teenage super-powered outcasts known as Harbingers. Harbinger initially featured writing and art by Jim Shooter and David Lapham. After Acclaim Entertainment purchased the rights to the Valiant catalog for $65 million in 1994, the characters were rebooted in Harbinger: Acts of God to make them more easily adaptable to video games. They continued to appear in many Valiant titles, most prominently the Unity 2000 series. Harbinger was one of the best selling Valiant titles with total sales in all languages of over five million comics.

Publication history

Harbinger debuted with Harbinger #1 in January 1992. In 2008, Valiant released Harbinger: The Beginning, a deluxe hardcover collecting the first seven issues. Harbinger: The Beginning reached #2 on Amazon.com’s graphic novels sales charts and within the top #300 of all books sold on Amazon. In June 2012, Valiant Entertainment relaunched the Harbinger title as a new ongoing series, written by Joshua Dysart and illustrated by Khari Evans.

Characters

Plot

Valiant Comics (1992-1995)

Harbingers, also known as psiots, are a race of evolved superhumans with psionic powers in the Valiant Universe. The world's most powerful Harbinger is Toyo Harada, a Japanese businessman who runs the mysterious Harbinger Foundation. The Foundation recruits and trains Harbingers as part of Harada's private army. There are some who believe Harada is an evil megalomaniac, including teenager Peter Stanchek, the only Harbinger whose power rivals that of Harada. Stanchek, also known by the codename Sting, leads a group of young Harbingers called the Renegades against Harada. This group includes Charlene Dupre, a pyrokinetic codenamed Flamingo; Faith Herbert, an overweight flying nerd codenamed Zephyr; John Torkelson, a super-strong behemoth named Torque; and the regular human Kris Hathaway. They live their lives on the run while being constantly pursued by Harada's organization.

Harbinger #0

Harbinger #0 (1993) from Valiant Comics' first volume, is the prequel to the Harbinger series and details how Peter Stanchek became involved with the Harbinger Foundation and came to oppose Harada. Each issue of Harbinger from #1 through #6 contained a numbered coupon. Each coupon also featured one panel of a six panel story by Jim Shooter that told the origin of Toyo Harada. A new hardcover collection (Harbinger: The Beginning) featured a new story by Jim Shooter, "Origin of Harada", which presumably fleshes out the story that appeared on the coupons. When a set of coupons was collected and sent to Valiant a copy of Harbinger #0 Pink Cover Mail Away Variant could be redeemed. The book became highly sought, reaching prices as high as $300 in back issue trading. A blue cover version was eventually released to meet demand. Today, the Pink Cover Mail Away Version of Harbinger #0 is still one of the most sought after Valiant books. The #0 issue of the 2012 reboot explores instead the origin of Toyo Harada as a World War II survivor and his eventual endeavors with his conglomerate using the Harbingers as a war tool.

Awards and recognition

Nominations

Collected editions

Part of the original series has been collected into volumes: In addition, the new series (by Joshua Dysart) is being collected into volumes as well: Additionally, the series has begun being collected into Deluxe Edition hardcovers:

In other media

Film

In March 2008, it was announced that Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to a film adaptation, enlisting Brett Ratner as director. In April 2015, Valiant Entertainment, Sony Pictures and Neal H. Moritz's Original Film announced a five-picture deal to bring the publisher's heroes to the big screen, which included a Harbinger film. Moritz, Toby Jaffe and Dinesh Shamdasani would produce it from a script by Eric Heisserer. Harbinger would then have a sequel and crossover film, Harbinger Wars, with Bloodshot. By November 2018, it was reported that Justin Tipping would direct the film, with a script co-written by Heisserer, Tipping and Joshua Beirne-Golden. However, Sony subsequently sold the rights to the Valiant Universe to Paramount Pictures in September 2019, with the film reentering development. In February 2022, Deadline reported that Wes Ball was to direct a Harbinger film written by Andrew Lanham. Later that year in June, Ball stepped down from his role so that he could focus on his role as director of a Planet of the Apes trilogy. Paul Downs Colaizzo entered early negotiations to serve as director, as well as to rewrite the previous draft of the script.

Web series