Archer & Armstrong Forever #1
Steve Foxe words
Marcio Fiorito art
Alex Guimarães colors
Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou letters
From Valiant
Make sure you’ve got your pants pulled up before running out to grab this comic. Now, peep the solicit:
The triumphant return of Valiant's best BFF!
When Armstrong seemingly loses his immortality, Archer refuses to let his best buddy go gentle into that good night. But when you live for millennia, you rack up plenty of enemies who'll be thrilled to find out you're no longer indestructible. Archer & Armstrong's globetrotting quest for (more) immortality begins here!
Welcome to my first Valiant review! That’s right, Blake’s Buzz is an official reviewer of Valiant comics, so prepare for more awesome reviews from this awesome publisher.
Coming off the spicy-hot success of Marvel’s X-Men ‘92 House of XCII, Steve Foxe drops into the Valiant life with an absolutely killer premier in Archer & Armstrong Forever #1. This is my first go-around with Valiant’s oddly dynamic duo, and I’m completely sold on Obadiah & Aram’s brand of outlandishness.
This is a great entry point for anyone, like me, who’s never experienced the zaniness of Archer & Armstrong. Foxe’s script does a wonderful job of exploring the strength in their friendship in an incredibly short time. These guys vibe wonderfully, but you wouldn’t think that’d be the case. There’s a moment when we find out Armstrong’s immortality may not be as immortal as we’re all led to think, and the worry in Archer is incredibly real and heartfelt. This strength in storytelling leaves readers easily attached and excited to tag along for the upcoming journey.
We’re also introduced to an incredible rogues gallery in an incredibly short amount of time.. Archer & Armstrong are going to have some really intense fights coming their way, and I’m stoked to see the ways Foxe explores the big bad, The Eccentric, and his monstrous murder tool, The Maw.
This premier delivers some rubber neck worthy, high-paced action, and it’s all made better with Marcio Fiorito’s art and Alex Guimarães’ colors. It’s a pretty book with spine-snapping pacing, and I found that it was over before I wanted it to be. Good news for Valiant because that means we’ll all be jonesin’ for that second issue fix in June.
Fiorito is really able to capture the emotion in our protagonists’ body language as well. Amidst all the crazy, there’s a lot of heart and celebration of humanness, and I find that really helps build characterization in this fairly odd couple of comic book dudes. The panels stay bright and vibrant, thanks to Guimarães’ palette, inviting our eyeballs to consume all they can as if attending an all you can eat wagyu sampling party with truffle rice and lobster claws. It’s rich, gorgeous and fills your belly with everything there is to love about comics.
Even Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou gets to cut loose and level up his already great lettering arsenal. The sound effects are perfect, and he makes these humorous descriptor captions detailing the technicalities of various fighting skills pulled off in the numerous bouts taking place within the issue. I thought it was a solid flex from one of the best letterers around. It’s a great sign that Valiant is letting all of these talented creators cut loose and have a blast. If the series continues along these lines, it’s gonna be a really great entry in the Archer & Armstrong mythos.
The issue should be at all your favorite shops, so consider snagging a copy while you’re out celebrating Free Comic Book Day today, and if you’ve already ventured out into the nerd world, make sure you pick it up later. Trust in The Buzz: you don't want to miss this party.
And now for some housekeeping:
Blake’s Buzz Episode #35 is out. We rushed this one to make sure everyone got eyes on Adam Barnhardt’s new Kickstarter campaign for Moonspawn. If you haven’t checked out Adam’s Sh*tshow comics, you should really change that. It’s a really solid cape universe with epic art and writing, and the new Kickstarter campaign looks awesome!
Moonspawn only has a couple days left on Kickstarter, so make sure to check it out!
You can download Blake’s Buzz anywhere epic podcasts can be downloaded, or you can go to my Megaphone link here.
Blake’s Buzz Live returned this week with Episode 8! If you missed the livestream, you can watch the video by clicking here. I had Manny Shape and Honor Vincent on to talk about their Kickstarter campaigns. Trust in the Buzz, folks, you should really check out El Krudo and New Rat City. They’re really great indie comics with a lot to say!
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As always, thanks for reading, watching and listening.
Phenomenal review man! I need to grab this one, because you aren't the first person to say it is amazing but you are the first to really punctuate what makes it so special. I really enjoyed the the Adam Barnhardt episode as well. Great conversation. I plan to check out some of his works as well after hearing about how he breaks all the rules!