The Unity squad crosses paths with an arch-nemesis they never knew they had.

Even as a heavy Big Two readers, it’s nice to know that there are strong alternatives out there for superhero comics. Valiant, in particular, has been an underdog heavyweight in the genre with titles such as XO Manowar and Bloodshot (which has a movie coming soon) that seem to fully embrace their fringe status in the industry. One of the best treats from Valiant is their (ideally) flagship, Justice League-like title, Unity.

This issue deals with the resurfacing of an old foul mouthed foe from the past who has squared off against her share of Unity’s previous incarnations throughout history. The lion’s share of the book is dedicated to the War Monger looking back on her history with the team’s predecessors. It’s an mildly entertaining account, but it would be more effective if it wasn’t taking place in the middle of something we’d like to see more of in the present. It’s a bit of a stretch that a villain would stop in the middle of a fight (especially after the ending we’re left with last issue) to tell an entire detailed origin story complete with descriptions of each character, their powers and how they get along (or don’t) with the rest of their team. The only time this ever happens is in anime shows and even then, it’s greatly reviled as filler. Matt Kindt has two interesting events in two different times taking place. I just wish he would have found a more plausible, less distracting way to juxtapose the two. Visually, the laundry list of artists do a pretty decent job of creating a unique visual difference between the various time periods. Having said that, there’s way too many artists working on this book. It took less people to murder Jon Snow than it did to draw this book. It wasn’t as much of a distraction as this sort of thing tends to be, but it’s still obvious that there’s way too many cooks with their hand in this particular recipe.

Bottom Line: Kindt’s material is readable and keeps you interested in where the story’s going, but it could have been arranged better. However, the art is still easy on the eyes and the writing is still strong enough that it’s not a dealbreaker. 3 Inuyasha filler episodes out of 5.