While on vacation recently, I purchased copies of VALIANT's
DIVINITY #1-4 to read and see what all the fuss is about. As of this writing, issue #1 is up to 4th printing...due to either Valiant's announcement recently for their characters moving into films OR this book is just as good as they say.
Honestly. This book is just as good as they say.
It's a pretty simple story to understand. The backdrop is Earth circa the 1960's. A Russian cosmonaut (who lived much of his life as a ward of the state) agrees to give his entire life to his homeland and undertake a daring mission into the farthest reaches of space. While the USA is shooting for the moon, the Russians are shooting for as far down the rabbit hole as they can get...or in this case, as far in the galaxy as they can go. It's a 30-year mission and commitment. It is during this mission that cosmonaut encounters something that changes him forever and gives him godlike powers. He returns to Earth years later and creates a Utopia-like area in the Australian outback and is giving those that come to study him their greatest desires.
It's a unique combination of BLACK SCIENCE, MANHATTAN PROJECTS and Valiant's original title
SOLAR MAN OF THE ATOM. This character could be seen as "filling in the void" that the original Gold Key character that had been rebooted into the V1 universe has left since the VALIANT ENTERTAINMENT reboot, which I'm glad to see. SOLAR was always my favorite character in the original Valiant Universe and thought he played well with the others. I'm sure I'm not the only reader who has made that connection, but either way, I'm very happy to see the inclusion of such a powerful wild card character. I also like the fact that the book has the look and feel like an IMAGE title, which might get the comic into the hands of new VALIANT readers as well.
It's a great blending of story and artwork and I think if they keep the rest of the series as solid as this first issue then Valiant's going to have a real home run. I'm looking forward to continuing my reviews on this title, and highly suggest if you haven't picked this book up (either for reading or collecting) you better do so now. They're drying up.
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