An unexpected happy re-discovery!
I love comic books ever since I was a child. I often spent all my monthly allowances, even lunch money, on comic books and video games. Until when I was 17, I decided to sell my entire collection to raise money for my new hobbies… Well, I thought I got rid of everything.
Last year, I was back in my home city spending Christmas break with my parents and I was told to clean up my room. Lots of “junks” were thrown away along with great memories from the past two decades. Suddenly, I was completely struck in surprise when I discovered the 17-year-old me decided to keep a particular set of comic books. Guess I always knew these Hong Kong Valiant books are very special!
Without further thinking, I packed the books nice and secure, took them home along with few other valuable belongings. The books are still very cool just to look at, and it gets more and more interesting as I started researching in their history.
The history of the Valiant Hong Kong edition
Valiant comic books in 90s are quite common having foreign series published, mostly in European countries as translated ongoing series and in some Asian countries as well. The Hong Kong edition is one of the top quality foreign series ever published, featuring quality printing on glossy interior pages inside full wraparound foil cardstock covers, with new emboss designed based upon what’s used on the original Chromium covers.
As for the book content, not only the entire books’ stories were translated into Chinese, local Hong Kong editors also added extra features that were not part of the original Valiant US issues. Most of them are aimed to introduce American comic book culture into Hong Kong market, plus some interesting materials on collecting comic books in general.
These books were published as a limited collection set of 6 individual issues, all of which are origin story issues (#0, #1) from Valiant Heroes One (VH-1) series published in the early 90s. They were reprinted in Hong Kong by Voyager Communications Inc., the parent company of Valiant Comics at the time, and a local publishing house in Hong Kong called Americom Publication Co.
The complete collection set has the following 6 issues:
- Bloodshot #1 Oct 94
- reprinted from Bloodshot (1993 series) #0
- title in traditional Chinese: 再造戰士 - X-O Manowar #1 Oct 94
- reprinted from X-O Manowar (1992 series) #0
- title in traditional Chinese: 零度戰爭 - Ninjak #1 Oct 94
- reprinted from Ninjak (1994 series) #1
- title in traditional Chinese: 機動忍者 - Shadowman #1 Nov 94
- reprinted from Shadowman (1992 series) #0
- title in traditional Chinese: 影子俠 - The Second Life of Doctor Mirage #1 Oct 94
- reprinted from The Second Life of Doctor Mirage (1993 series) #1
- title in traditional Chinese: 虛幻博士 - Solar, Man of the Atom #1 Oct 94
- reprinted story from Solar, Man of the Atom (1991 series) #1
- reprinted covers from Solar, Man of the Atom (1991 series) #3
- title in traditional Chinese: 太陽之子
How I acquired these Hong Kong Valiant books
I knew Valiant Comics before having these books, they were not as well-known as DC or Marvel but also has a huge fan base and lots of great titles. Bloodshot is actually being made as the movie debut of the Valiant Universe with Vin Diesel as the lead. For me, their books from 90s are my favourite.
I bought these books in 1994 during my family trip to Shanghai. I still remember I got them directly from a local newsstand for 30 RMB, though the collection box was clearly opened before and was not in great shape. I saw the book covers, which are super cool, and I bought them without thinking. Did I read them? No, they are in Chinese, but I ended up reading the English copies :)
Unfortunately even back then, this was the only set available at the newsstand, otherwise I would for sure ask for a set in a better condition.
Why are these considered rare books?
You might wonder how many issues of these Valiant Hong Kong books were published. Six issues in total! Yes, only 6 issues were ever published, nothing afterwards. Which explains the limited collection box that can only house 6 books. As for how big was the print run? Unknown.
Below are some assumptions I have from my own research, which might help explain why these books are considered most rare in the Valiant Comics collecting community:
- These books might have been published in two formats:
- loose individual issues, and
- all 6 issues inside a limited collection set box. - They were published aiming for the local collectors/speculators market:
In 1994, Hong Kong experienced a trend of collecting/speculating on American comic books after the huge success and popularity driven by DC Comics’ The Death of Superman. This presented a great opportunity to introduce the lesser-known Valiant brand into the market. Local comic book speculators were literally buying everything. This might explain why only 6 issues were ever published, either to test the market, or to purposefully keep these books in a limited quantity. - A lot of these books ended up in mainland China:
Eventually, comics speculation started to cool down as local speculators didn’t see quick profits they expected. My guess is lots of remaining copies of these books were shipped to mainland China as low-priced goods among others. This explains why my copies didn’t even feel brand new at the time. As for now, after almost 26 years, Valiant comic book collectors are struggling to find existing copies from local Hong Kong dealers whereas some copies can still be found in mainland China occasionally. Valiant Comics brand was almost unknown in mainland China, chances are these books were treated no better than trash among readers as Japanese manga ruled the entire market. Plus back then in China, comic books were considered for kids only and were generally frowned upon by grown-ups. There was also no concept of preserving comic books at all which explains why most found copies are not in very good condition.
All after all, there has been handful of sightings of these books in the Valiant Comics community throughout the years. All transactions on these books I can find were private and only as single issues, not as complete sets. Which makes sense, very hard for a Valiant collector to let go a complete set of these.
Nothing can be found on CGC census on these books. Nothing on eBay, marketplace, etc. If you are one of the few lucky owners of these books like me, I believe these books will always have a precious place in your own personal collection.
What’s up next?
In the following parts, I will show you more content of the individual issues one by one. Hopefully this will help Valiant Comics fans to know more about these books.
- Pt. 1: Bloodshot #1 Oct 94 Hong Kong edition
- Pt. 2: X-O Manowar #1 Oct 94 Hong Kong edition
- Pt. 3: Ninjak #1 Oct 94 Hong Kong edition
- Pt. 4: Shadowman #1 Nov 94 Hong Kong edition
- Pt. 5: The Second Life of Doctor Mirage #1 Oct 94 Hong Kong edition
- Pt. 6: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 Oct 94 Hong Kong edition
- Pt. 7: The CGC Journey
- Pt. 8: Showcase
Enjoy and thanks for reading!
