Harbinger (comic book)


Harbinger is an American comic book series published by Valiant Comics about a group of teenage super-powered outcasts known as Harbingers.
Harbinger initially featured writing and art by Jim Shooter and David Lapham. After Acclaim Entertainment purchased the rights to the Valiant catalog for $65 million in 1994, the characters were rebooted in Harbinger: Acts of God to make them more easily adaptable to video games. They continued to appear in many Valiant titles, most prominently the Unity 2000 series. Harbinger was one of the best selling Valiant titles with total sales in all languages of over five million comics.

Publication history

Harbinger debuted with Harbinger #1 in January 1992.
In 2008, Valiant released Harbinger: The Beginning, a deluxe hardcover collecting the first seven issues. Harbinger: The Beginning reached #2 on Amazon.com’s graphic novels sales charts and within the top #300 of all books sold on Amazon.
In June 2012, Valiant Entertainment relaunched the Harbinger title as a new ongoing series, written by Joshua Dysart and illustrated by Khari Evans.

Characters

Toyo Harada is the first Harbinger of the modern age, and unlike subsequent Harbingers he was able to make his powers manifest at will, or activate the powers of others. Other Harbingers exhibit powers only rarely and this activation is always brought on by severe stress.
Harada is an Omega Harbinger: he commands the full spectrum of psionic abilities, including telepathy, telekinesis, mind-control, and many other talents. He uses these powers to create a multinational corporation and amass a large fortune. Fearing the world is on a course to destroy itself, he plans to take it over and mold it to his specifications. To this end he creates the Harbinger Foundation, which actively searches for potential Harbingers.
Pete Stanchek is a normal teenager until he develops Harbinger abilities. After seeing an advertisement he contacts the Harbinger Foundation. Harada is intrigued by Pete, who is the only other Harbinger to have triggered his own powers and who exhibits multiple abilities. Harada is no longer the only Omega Harbinger.
Harada tries to persuade Pete to join the Harbinger Foundation and become Harada's right-hand man, but when Pete's best friend, who had been vocal about his distrust for Harada, is murdered by the Foundation Pete realizes the truth.
Pete, along with Kris become renegades. They decide to recruit Harbingers themselves, activate their abilities, and form an army capable of challenging Harada.

''Harbinger'' #0

Harbinger #0 from Valiant Comics' first volume, is the prequel to the Harbinger series and details how Peter Stanchek became involved with the Harbinger Foundation and came to oppose Harada. Each issue of Harbinger from #1 through #6 contained a numbered coupon. Each coupon also featured one panel of a six panel story by Jim Shooter that told the origin of Toyo Harada. A new hardcover collection featured a new story by Jim Shooter, "Origin of Harada", which presumably fleshes out the story that appeared on the coupons. When a set of coupons was collected and sent to Valiant a copy of Harbinger #0 Pink Cover Mail Away Variant could be redeemed. The book became highly sought, reaching prices as high as $300 in back issue trading. A blue cover version was eventually released to meet demand. Today, the Pink Cover Mail Away Version of Harbinger #0 is still one of the most sought after Valiant books.
The #0 issue of the 2012 reboot explores instead the origin of Toyo Harada as a World War II survivor and his eventual endeavors with his conglomerate using the Harbingers as a war tool.

Awards and recognition

Part of the original series has been collected into volumes:
In addition, the new series is being collected into volumes as well:
Additionally, the series has begun being collected into Deluxe Edition hardcovers:

Film

In March 2008, it was announced that Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to a film adaptation, enlisting Brett Ratner as director. Alexandra Milchan, Jay Stern, Dinesh Shamdasani and Jason Kothari would produce. In April 2015, Valiant Entertainment, Sony Pictures and Neal H. Moritz's Original Film announced a five-picture deal to bring the publisher's heroes to the big screen, which included a Harbinger film. Moritz, Toby Jaffe and Dinesh Shamdasani will produce it from a script by Eric Heisserer. Harbinger will have a sequel and crossover film, Harbinger Wars, with Bloodshot.
By November 2018, it was reported that Justin Tipping will direct the film, with a script co-written by Heisserer, Tipping and Joshua Beirne-Golden. The plot will revolve around Peter Stanchek / Sting, a young man who discovers he has supernatural abilities, who joins forces with other superpowered individuals in order to thwart the nefarious plans of a villainous organization that seeks to weaponize the titular heroes' powers. The film will feature additional characters from the comic book series including Joe Irons, Kris Hathaway, Faith Herbert / Zephyr, and Charlene Dupre / Flamingo. In September 2019, the film rights returned to Paramount Pictures, with the film reentering development.

Web series