By Dustin Cabeal

I will tell you something; I’m glad I read the first page of this comic. It’s a letter from Publisher Fred Pierce talking about the creation of this comic. The title of the series might be familiar in that it shares the name and concept as the web series that Valiant and Super Power Beat Down did last year.

Essentially if you’ve seen those videos, this is the expanded, more affordable comic book version of that web series. It does not fit or follow the current layout of the Valiant Universe and instead is just using the characters willy-nilly. Ninjak is a bit like Snake Pliskin in that he’s been given a difficult task to complete before the drugs in his system kill him. Roku has taken Neville’s family and tasked Ninjak with getting them back by stealing from his employer… oh and death drugs. I’ll admit the last part seemed like overkill. The first issue he fights a couple of people which sets up for other Valiant characters to come after him.

I think there are only two ways to enjoy this comic. If you liked the short videos and wanted to see an enriched story, then you’re likely to enjoy this. It revisits that world nicely. The other way is to be a big fan of the characters of the Valiant Universe. These are all hypothetical battle after all, which is something that used to be the lifeblood of comics before some publishers began relying on hero vs. hero fights every six months.

It is easy not to enjoy this comic though. While I found the concept to be interesting and any good brand will, of course, expand and maximize any and all properties, the simple fact that the story doesn’t reflect the current Valiant U’s landscape was a bit of a turnoff for me. That and I would think that this could be a confusing mess to new readers that would possibly jump on something like the new Ninja-K. Who knows, but I didn’t find it particularly interesting given that I’m up to date on Valiant and this isn’t. The simple fact that the characters are designed to look like the video rather than the house designs that have been so prominent since Valiant launched was enough to make me pass on reading another issue.

Again, I get the idea behind this, and it’s something any publisher would do, but I think the execution is lacking. If this were an actual event or mini-even that used the idea of the video series but changed it to match what’s currently happening in Valiant, that would have been smart and incredible. It would appease both interested parties. Instead, it’s as if Valiant wants to create a mess for themselves the way that Marvel did with the Ultimate line and have two worlds running at the same time, splitting their audience and their interest. We’ll see, it could just be this and then done, but that’s rarely how it works in comics. If something sells, publisher tends to keep doing it. Which is a shame because Valiant has one of the most interesting, tightest ran shared universes in all of comics. At the end of the day, it’s an okay comic that you can tell has outside influences at play.

Score: 3/5

Ninjak vs. The Valiant Universe
Valiant Comics