Review: Eternal Warrior #1

Creative Team:
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Trevor Hairsine
Colorist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Simon Bowland

The Issue:
Valiant Comics have been back for a little over a year, and in this time they’ve been careful to expand their universe slowly. Where their other launches have featured characters from a different part of the universe, Eternal Warrior stars Gilad Anni-Padda, the younger brother of Armstrong, who has been featured in issues of both Archer & Armstrong and (more recently) X-O Manowar.

The issue opens with Gilad preparing to enter war against the Death Cult of Nergal in the times of Agent Mesopotamia. As he prepares to head off to war, he sees that his daughter Xaran is prepared to fight beside him. Seeing too much of himself in her, Gilad opts to take his son Mitu instead. After a short battle, the Death Cult overwhelms Gilad and his men. Xaran charges in on the back of an elephant to save the day.

Not satisfied with simply getting advantage over the Death Cult, Xaran heads to the kill their women and children. Gilad and Mitu stand in her way but are unable to stop her. Held to the ground with a spear, Gilad watches as Xaran slits her brother’s throat.

Six millennia later, Gilad is still alive but he is surprised to find out his daughter Xaran is also alive. But there isn’t much of a reunion as she tells him that everything has gone wrong.

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What I Liked:
Sadly, not much. Greg Pak is a talented writer so there is hope going forward but this issue wasn’t a strong start.

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What I Didn’t Like:
Gilad Anni-Padda jumped off the page as such a rich character while in the pages of Archer & Armstrong. There were dimensions to him and the built in conflict here with Armstrong. While in X-O Manowar he had conflict built in with Aric but there wasn’t as much character there. In this issue there was even less. So basically what I’m saying is Gilad went from a meal, to leftovers to leftovers of leftovers. This really makes me question how much of a story there is to tell in a series.

Considering that he lived so long there is a lot of history to fill in, but it feels like we have enough stories of a warrior out of time already with X-O Manowar. What this issue revealed about Gilad has had a family, and people know he was immortal. This doesn’t exactly sit with his appearance in X-O Manowar because at the time it was mentioned that he had to move from one group to another because of his immortality. When his daughter shows up it lets us know that the first half of the comic wasn’t wasted, but it doesn’t make me care.

There wasn’t one character in this book that was fleshed beyond one dimension. Six millennia after his son Mitu is murdered, and we don’t know why he loves his son enough that all this time later he names his dog out of him.

Grade:

2 out of 5 villains
2 out of 5 villains

Just a guy who was into this nerd stuff before it's popular. Now that is I'm just happy I have people to talk about it with.