Inspiring rhyming headlines everywhere, Valiant’s successful relaunch of their company and line has now expanded to a fifth monthly title, with the announcement that their ‘Ninjak’ property will return in September. This follows on word-of-mouth build-up for X-O Manowar and Harbinger which has proved pretty successful, at least in terms of building up awareness for the returning company. Valiant have not yet announced a creative team for the series.

Ninjak was originally created by Michael Moretti and Joe Quesada, back in the nineties. The character is a ninja, which you may already have assumed, although the most well-known version of the character is a British man called Colin King. King works for the Secret Service in his spare time, is highly qualified in the field of ninja-ing, and is also thought to be the smartest person in the world. Well, naturally.

Another interesting thing: if I know my helmets – and lord help us all if I don’t, you guys – the helmet in this teaser looks a lot like the one worn by the lead character in Robert Venditti and Cary Nord’s X-O Manowar series. Could we expect Ninjak to first return in the first revival of Valiant Comics’ most well-known tradition: the crossover?

1 COMMENT

  1. Maybe it’s just me, but it always dismays me when a new title is announced without the creative team being announced at the same time. Without writers and artists, especially without good writers and artists, comic books aren’t worth my interest. I don’t care about Ninjak, but I might care about the creators.

  2. It feels a lot like Valiant want to show that they’re solvent enough to afford to launch a new ongoing title. They’re announcing the book simply to show that their relaunch is working and they’re in a position where they can.

    I’m the same – my interest depends on the creative team.

  3. Do we know for certain that this is a fifth book, and not the character appearing in X-O Manowar?

    Might be good, actually–I wonder how fast Valiant wants to expand, and how fast is too fast.

  4. Wasn’t the second version of Ninjak a kid that transforms into him? Written by Kurt Busiek?

    I always thought that was the more popular version of Ninjak…

  5. The last version of Ninjak prior to the Acclaim relaunch was the best I think, with Mike Baron and Bryan Hitch on the character.

    And I agree with the sentiment that he may be suffering a debut in another title before he gets his own again. Even without the Solar/Magnus/Turok holy trinity, Valiant/Acclaim has a lot of characters to play with, and it won’t all happen overnight.

  6. As far as I’m concerned, every announcement of a returning Valiant book just brings us one step closer to new Quantum and Woody.

  7. Whether or not I read it depends on one of two things…

    If the guy who lends me his comic books buys it.

    If I’m send a review copy.

    On the other hand, if it had a really terrific by my standards creative team, it’s possible I would buy it. Just don’t ask me to toss out names (positive or negative) of that team.

  8. @ Tony
    So no Chuck Austin/Greg Land tagteam supreme? :)

    Actually, I have an unfounded suspicion that Mico Suayan will be doing something for them more than just covers. This would be in his style-set, though the piece shown obviously isn’t his work.

  9. Valiant is expanding too quickly. Many startup companies have shown incredible promise but expanded titles way too quickly like CrossGen.

    Should stick with four strong core titles in wave one, then expand to two more in wave two, then three more in wave three. With a year or year and a half between.

    When Ninjak comes back I hope they go with the first incarnation and maybe look to Archie Goodwin’s Manhunter for inspiration.