Valiant previews Gilad’s newest book in Wrath of the Eternal Warrior

Click on through for an extended look at the next chapter in the life of Gilad, Valiant Comics’ Eternal Warrior.

Warning: There are some heavy spoilers in here if you haven’t read all of Book of Death yet.

Now, on the other hand, if you have read Book of Death, then you might be wondering how Gilad Ani-Padda could possibly have an all-new book heading for the stands. Here’s the thing though, it kind of looks like death isn’t all that final if you’re an immortal with an eternal link to the Earth itself.

For five millennia, the Eternal Warrior has shaped history at the end of his sword. He’s razed empires, toppled civilizations, and broken armies as an immortal soldier in service to the Earth. But now, the Eternal Warrior has fallen into the endless abyss of Hell itself…and finds himself stranded in a hostile alien landscape unlike any he’s ever faced. Separated from his earthly environs, can history’s deadliest soldier withstand a unearthly realm far older, far deadlier, and far more ruinous than anything he’s ever encountered before? Beyond the veil of life…eternity awaits…

“I think [WRATH OF THE ETERNAL WARRIOR is] a totally new perspective on the character,” series writer Robert Venditti told Comic Book Resources. “In the days of old Valiant, we always saw [the Eternal Warrior] as a hero who charged into battle, but I don’t know that the motives were always clear — and certainly not the cost. We’d look at him and think sure, I’d want to live forever. But as we go through this series, we see what he has to sacrifice to be immortal — and we also see how his loved ones all eventually pass on, and what he has lost over the centuries. He has regrets, failures and losses for a hundred lives.”

Looks like some of that has taken its tole on the Eternal Warrior’s eternal soul, being that he’s found himself in hell and all. There was plenty teased in that trailer too, as to Master Darque and the Book of Death storyline as well, so it remains to be seen just how much of that is still going to be an issue for Gilad.

We know that the second Geomancer is no longer an issue by the close of that previous storyline, but Darque himself is another matter. He’s not exactly easy to get rid of, as it were. And of course, Gilad is trapped in hell, which isn’t all that far from Darque’s playground, the Deadside. It may not be too long-lived of a stay for Gilad though, as Valiant hints at this book being the starting point of a “battle-hardened road back to the world of man”.  No rest for the brutal I guess.

Wrath of the Eternal Warrior #1 arrives on the racks and digital download storefronts on November 19th fro the team of Robert Venditti and Raul Allen.