In the Valiant Universe, Harbinger carries a lot of weight. While Harbinger has a history that goes back to the first incarnation of Valiant in the '90s and through Valiant's '10s relaunch and renaissance, the seminal series is returning in full force next year.. Writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly have teamed up with artist Robbi Rodriquez in order to bring back the series under a slightly different name, The Harbinger.
The story will pick up after where the last two series left off with Peter Stanchek, who is one of the Valiant universes most power psionics. This series will find him in more of a heroic role though with the writers looking to analyze the character in ways that audiences haven't seen before. CBR spoke with the creative team about their approach to the character and why this is a perfect jumping-on point for new readers.
CBR: How did you approach Harbinger as a series? What aspects of the series history or personalities we have seen did you want to focus on?
COLLIN: Our new era of Harbinger focuses directly and unflinchingly on a single person: Peter Stanchek. As the most powerful psiot on the planet, he’s a man who can level cities and take vacations to Jupiter; he has the power to be a hero unlike any we’ve seen. But he’s also made mistakes; people he cares about have gotten hurt. Sometimes, by him. Despite all of his power, he is human, which to us, is the most interesting kind of hero. But also, we know that Peter has been running from the responsibility that comes with his power, all his life. It’s time for that to end. This is the story of Peter Stanchek acknowledging who he has been, what he has done… and choosing to be the hero he has always had the potential to be.
JACKSON: This is a jumping-on point -- a fresh start both for Peter and the Harbinger audience -- so if you’re new to Valiant or Harbinger, it’s absolutely the place to start. That said, if you’re longtime fans like us, you’ll soon discover that we’re situating the entire story in the aftermath of Joshua Dysart’s iconic runs on Harbinger and Imperium. Those stories mattered and will continue to matter as we move into a new future. Toyo Harada may be “dead,” but his legacy lives on in every aspect of psiot culture.
CBR: With the upcoming Harbinger film, do you feel any extra pressure knowing that your run will be the first run that many people may pick up?
JACKSON: Well damn, I didn’t until right now!
COLLIN: Seriously, pressure’s on!
JACKSON: Truthfully, we’re just really happy to see Harbinger find a wider audience. As longtime fans of the characters, it’s a dream come true to take the reins. It’s important to us that this new era honor the iconic stories that brought Peter Stanchek this far, especially Joshua Dysart’s run -- which set the stage for everything we’re doing next -- while making a concerted effort to open the door to new readers. If The Harbinger is your first encounter with psiots -- or even with Valiant in general -- you’ll be in good company.
It might seem like an odd comparison, but we look to a different Sony movie for inspiration: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. If you’d seen every Spider-Man movie ever made, that movie still had something completely new to share with you - in character, in story, and in style. But even if you didn’t care at all about Spider-Man, the movie gave you Miles Morales and dared you not to care when he put on the mask. The Harbinger is a new story full of new characters, shaped by a shared history that enriches the read if you’ve been on the journey with Peter all along.
CBR: Starting fresh at The Harbinger #1, did you try to make this approachable for new fans to dive in?
COLLIN: If we didn’t account for new readers, we’d be doing the book a real disservice. You mentioned the movie - people who have never picked up a Harbinger book are going to be giving this one a shot. You’ve seen Robbi and Rico’s amazing art. Ideally, people are going to see that on the shelf, be as struck as us by how totally unique it is, and give it a shot. Which means that we needed to tell a story that didn’t assume that the reader had a decade of Peter’s history tucked away in their heads. This isn’t to say that those readers who do have that history won’t be rewarded; they’ll have more than enough to sink their teeth into.
JACKSON: When we start our story, Peter Stanchek has no memory of the man he was. Now, the mystery of how and why that happened will be at the heart of our first volume, but as the story progresses and he learns who has been, new readers are going to be right alongside him. It’s incredibly important to us that new readers understand where Peter is coming from, and what has brought him to this point. Because to us, his past is just as important as his future.
CBR: What have been your biggest influences and inspirations for this series?
COLLIN: Great question. A complicated question, but a great one. I’d say that the single biggest influence on this series is the world right outside our doors. Bigotry and white supremacy thriving unchecked. Every day, another episode of police violence. Citizens - normal Americans - taking to the streets to scream out in pain and frustration. In short… a world that needs a hero.
But what we have is Peter Stanchek. Self-doubting and troubled, born into poverty but still living with incredible privilege -- both societal and as a psiot. A man who has hurt the people who loved him most. A man who has made mistakes. But in this man, we saw a chance to tell a story of redemption and responsibility. A man who will learn to not run from those mistakes, but to accept them as part of who he is, and move forward with the goal to do better. The truth is, if you have power, in this cultural moment, you have no choice but to use it for good. To protect those who can’t protect themselves and uplift marginalized voices. To fight when a fight is needed and to otherwise, get the hell out of the way.
JACKSON: Creatively, Collin and I find a lot of inspiration in music, and the first thing we did as we set out to tell a new chapter in the life of Peter Stanchek was to find a musical identity that spoke to us. There’s a Radiohead song called “Videotape” that’s been a favorite of mine since college, a mournful, sweet song about looking at moments from your life as definitive, as baked-in, and as the kind of things you’ll be judged by. Peter’s videotape has effectively been erased from his own mind. He’s being given a chance to make a new one. To be judged by what he does next. At the Emmys recently, during his Watchmen win, Lindelof had this great line: “stop worrying about getting canceled and ask yourself what you’re doing to get renewed.”
Suffice to say, months before he said that, we’d titled the Harbinger playlist… “Renewal.”
CBR: For long time fans of the series, will they be seeing some familiar faces?
JACKSON: Absolutely. We’ll see the memory of characters like Faith, Kris and Torque. More than anything, the world Toyo Harada left behind at the end of Imperium looms all over our series. The Harbinger Foundation is nothing but rubble, and the psiots of the world are left with no one to turn to, necessitating a real change in Peter’s modus operandi.
COLLIN: But beyond that, our goal is to forge a new cast that reflects the world we’re all living in, not a new group of Renegades, but the next generation of psiots who don’t look at Peter as a kid as much as they see him as the failed previous generation. We’re also introducing an entirely new group of villains -- violent psiot hunters known as The Warning -- that reflect fundamental predatory forces in our real world, from capitalism to law enforcement to revenge to religion. We’re moving the story fundamentally forward, so that when we do bring familiar faces back into the mix, they’ll feel completely fresh.
CBR: How much will this series interact with the Valiant Universe at large?
JACKSON: For now, we’re going to be focused on telling a saga that creates a world for psiot stories to thrive. So we’ll be interacting long-term with everyone who has a hand in that world. As for those beyond that scope, time will tell. We’re enormous fans of the Valiant Universe, but our priority right now is Peter, his new family in Psiot City, and the forces arrayed against psiot lives.
CBR: With Peter Stanchek returning without his memories, what do you think makes lost memory storylines so much fun? What makes this one different from others we have seen in the past?
JACKSON: I’ll be honest: memory loss normally drives me up a wall. And that’s because they’re used to erase and ignore what came before. It’s an easy trick in the writer’s toolbelt; if you don’t want to spend time parsing continuity, you can just erase it! It’ll make things reader-friendly!
But that is not what we’re doing here.
This isn’t a memory loss story. It’s a story of recovery, redemption, and renewal. It’s not just Peter’s memory that’s been removed -- it’s his guilt, his addiction, his context. Peter didn’t, like, knock his head and now he’s a different person. He’s been violated and changed, the same way he has in the past violated and changed others. And he’s been left in the wreckage of the world he made with a single instruction from whoever it was who broke into his mind: “be better.”
COLLIN: This is a story hook that excites us because it allows Peter to see who he was, who he is, with fresh eyes. Memory is 90% opinion (okay, I made that up, but you get it), which means that your memory of events is unreliable. By wiping Peter’s memories away, we’re giving Peter a chance to see everything about himself with clear objectivity. Which is gonna be pretty devastating for someone who has fucked up as much as Peter has. And remember: even though he may not remember himself, his enemies certainly remember him.
CBR: Robbi Rodriguez, you have one of the most unique styles in the comics arena right now. What kind of style are you looking to bring to Harbinger?
ROBBI RODRIGUEZ: One of the fun parts when it comes to starting a new project is thinking about the approach you're going to take. Unlike our other work where Rico and I built the look from the ground up. Harbinger has a devoted fan base, and I do not want to completely give them a new look that they are not used to. So it's a balance we are looking to have with the old and new. It will definitely have our fingerprints on the project but the look will be a new coat of paint on a Familiar home.
CBR: What type of tone are you looking to capture in this relaunch?
COLLIN: Punk Rock. Kinetic. Optimistic. Propulsive. Those were the keywords that we were working from when we first started diving into the story. Yes, this is a story about Peter reckoning with his past, but it couldn’t be dull, mauldin or heavy. We wanted to bring the same energy we brought to our books Joyride and Gotham City Garage - something that moves at speed, that punches fascists in the face, but that, above all else, is fun.
JACKSON: And that’s why Robbi and Rico are so core to this creative team. We’re not just relaunching a story, we’re forging a new tone and a new future for Harbinger. Robbi told us in our first conversation that he thought of the crew as a band, and I tend to feel the same way. We’re learning each other's instincts, beginning to understand how an individual on the team is going to bring their solo artistry to the whole, and then we’re playing the best damn song we can.
CBR: Is there anything you want to tease readers with what’s to come?
JACKSON: This first year of The Harbinger is all about establishing a new status quo for the psiots of the Valiant Universe and really bringing a totally new vibe to Peter Stanchek. We’re going to be dealing directly with what it means to confront your past actions and take accountability and how to forge a new path forward. But when that work’s completed, you know we’re going to be looking to introduce this new iteration of Peter, the Harbinger, to the rest of the Valiant Universe. We’re huge fans of Valiant in general, and the idea of trying to pull in some characters from beyond the scope of Harbinger is too exciting to leave off the table.
COLLIN: I think the thing that readers should be most excited for is Peter Stanchek: Superhero. You can see from the art - he’s got himself a uniform that isn’t just a dirty hoodie. He’s suiting up, he’s powering on, and he’s striking out to kick some ass.
You thought you’d seen Peter at his most powerful? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Harbinger will release in the Summer 2021.