H.A.R.D. Corps to backup Valiant books in July

‘Who will lead the H.A.R.D. Corps?’ may be a question that we already have the answer too, but Valiant Comics announced today that the road to that decision will be playing out across all its books this July. 

Jim Zub and artist Edwin Huang (the creators of Skullkickers) will tell the tale, interweaving Valiant’s various heroes and villains in a search for the enhanced super-team’s next leader in a set of backup stories.

X-O Manowar. Quantum and Woody. Archer & Armstrong. Shadowman. Bloodshot. What do these disparate champions from around the Valiant Universe have in common? They’re all on the H.A.R.D. Corps’ recruitment list! Now for the first time ever, Zub and Huang are bringing them together for a humorous one-shot tale of the Project Rising Spirit’s latest – and perhaps last – membership drive.

The team is set to debut in Harbinger Wars #3 before making the jump over to Bloodshot where they’ll find a more permanent home with Valiant’s top merc. That particular arc won’t take place until this September’s Bloodshot #14 though- in the meantime, the team will be looking for a leader and the whole Valiant Universe in on the interview list.

“[We] were able to come up with a series of these little, short vignettes of the interview process,” Zub told Comic Book Resources. “It’s fun stuff because we get to run through a nice selection and variety of Valiant characters, some of which are appropriate, some of which are wonderfully inappropriate, how they fail the interview process and how Bloodshot succeeds over his competition.”

Look for the shorts to back up the main features in Shadowman #8, Quantum and Woody #1, X-O Manowar #15, Harbinger Wars #4 (of 4), Archer & Armstrong #11 and Harbinger #14 before wrapping up in Bloodshot #13.

Then make sure you come back for Bloodshot #14 to see the Corps in all their glory, with their new leader at the helm.