Advance Review: Secret Weapons #1 – Valiant’s Hot New Team!
By Matt Conner
In Valiant’s hotly-anticipated new team book, Livewire must build Secret Weapons out of a handful of homeless rejects before an alien monster kills them all!
Cover by Jelena Kevic-Djurdjevic
Secret Weapons #1 (of 4)
Written by Eric Heisserer
Art by Raul Allen
Published by Valiant Entertainment
Secret Weapons, Valiant’s latest team book, introduces a new team of misfits to the comics landscape. And it also brings in one of the hottest names in screenwriting to this medium. Heisserer, fresh off an Oscar nomination for Arrival and preparing for work on Valiant’s Harbinger and Bloodshot feature films, needs to prove he speaks comic book. And based on this issue, he’s done it.
Livewire, a woman who speaks to technology, has seen it all. In Harbinger, she advised her sensei, the villain Toyo Harada. In Unity, she fought X-O Manowar to a standstill and led Valiant’s most powerful figures. Then, in Imperium, she nearly destroyed her old boss’s country. And now, she’s cleaning up another one of his messes and becoming the teacher he couldn’t be.
In Valiant’s comics, psiots gain powers when Harada activates them. Tough process, high death rate, so when an activated psiot has dud powers, they move to The Willows. He won’t waste more resources training these losers. But as Livewire learns, something awful happened at the facility. And the kids who survived, now homeless in Oklahoma, have powers like talking to birds or making objects softly glow.
If Livewire wants these kids to survive the night, she has to earn their trust and train them to fight a relentless killer alien. This won’t be a clean victory.
Screen to Page
Eric Heisserer has a lot riding on this series. The Academy loves his writing, but he’s going to take two of Valiant’s best comic properties to the movies and has to compete with the beloved Marvel Cinematic Universe. So he absolutely has to prove he knows comics. And writing this does it beautifully.
His script, a series of scary monster attacks, shows he can deliver action that Bloodshot will need. And his characterization of the poor rejected psiots and their confident new teacher will translate effortlessly to Harbinger. The issue reads like an amazing TV pilot, but not ashamed to be a comic book, and I’m hooked already.
Welcome to Valiant, Mr. Heisserer. Hope you stick around a while.
Cover by Raul Allen