Preview: Faith #1

FAITH #1 (ONGOING)

Written by JODY HOUSER

Art by PERE PEREZ, MARGUERITE SAUVAGE & COLLEEN DORAN

Cover A by KEVIN WADA (MAY161849)

Cover B by JELENA KEVIC-DJURDJEVIC (MAY161850)

Cover C by CARY NORD (MAY161851)

Cover D by EMANUELA LUPACCHINO (MAY161852)

Valiant Emoji Variant by SWYFT MEDIA (MAY161853)

Valiant x CGC Replica Variant by PERE PEREZ (MAY161854)

Interlocking Variant Cover by PERE PEREZ (MAY161856)

Variant Cover by KANO (MAY161857)

Variant Cover by COLLEEN COOVER (MAY161858)

Blank Cover also available (MAY161855)

AN ALL-NEW ONGOING SERIES! Because you demanded it…the high-flying hero that captured the imagination of the world is back with a colossal new comics milestone!

In a city under siege by robots, aliens, monsters and even worse… celebrities, there is only one woman the people of Los Angeles can count on: the stratospheric superhero called Faith! Aspiring reporter by day and dedicated crime-fighter by night, Faith has tackled every obstacle in her path with confidence – like those crushing deadlines at work, the long-distance boyfriend half a world away, and the missing back issues that plague her comics collection! But, unbeknownst to her, Faith is about to collide with the one force she never saw coming: an up-and-coming super-villain bent on snuffing her out once and for all! But who is lurking behind the mask of her new foe…and could they just be the one person capable of rendering Faith powerless?

Jump on board now to find out why Valiant’s one-of-a-kind hero is inspiring a whole new generation! Be here as FAITH moves from her sold-out mini-series…and into the history-making debut of her first-ever ongoing series!

$3.99 | 48 pgs. | T+ | On sale JULY 20 (FOC – 6/27/16)

I read the mini-series they used to promote this character and it was pretty good. So I'll probably pick up this comic too.

Before a lot of people complain about Valiant pandering like Marvel did, understand that this character existed before all garbage about pandering and stuff, she was apart of a team and just got her own solo run.

Damn that was alot of scans! Was that the entire comic! LOL!

Did that "The cake is a lie" really need to be there?

It's just the way of some comics now to mention in some pop culture reference, usually a year to several behind when it was actually funny or interesting.

Well Valiant did it. They finally made a bad book.

Have you read any of the Faith mini-series? It's pretty good. I thought it wouldn't be but I gave it a chance and was pleasantly surprised.

However, not everyone likes every comic. I don't like what Marvel has done with all the major changes so I stopped reading Marvel and have returned to DC

I don't care about reading some fat girl that flies.

So she's like a female Angel? When he could just fly.

@allstarsuperman: And why is this bad? Because it's not something you like?

Interesting

Finally. After two toe-dips, Valiant dives in.

I didn't know tumblr had a superhero.

No, she can move things with her powers, make barriers, shields, etc. You literally see her do all those things in this article.

@vikhalla: LMFAO

Yep a hero that existed about over 10 years before the site was made.

I'm not trying to single this person out. But I've heard this word used a lot "pandering". Since when is representing the actual people that exist on earth in media like comics pandering? I love captain America and Emma Frost as characters, most people don't look like Captain America and Emma Frost though.

........

*Woosh*

@save_me_now: but if we're talking about what super heroes would realistically look like, they would need to be at least relatively in shape. They don't need to be models, but with all the physical activity they're in, that type of body shouldn't be maintainable.

By pandering I mean using race and gender as a gimmick as a means to make sales rather than creating new characters for the sake of representation and creative story telling.

Making Falcon Cap, Jane into Thor, etc. rather than making new characters they simply swapped out others for race and gender to make a quick buck, these drastic changes have been met with extreme push-back and will not stand the test of time that other characters will, those made for the sake of creativity and representation like Black Panther, Magneto, etc.

She was apart of a super team, ever hear of the Harbinger series? She just got her own solo run.

It's actually a pretty good story. I thought what you thought but got the mini-series before this and it is interesting, but not every comic is for everyone.

@critic: That's a really thin excuse, like it's been pushed through a mandoline thin. And generalizing superheroes. First of all the woman spends like 90% of the preview flying or floating. How the heck is that supposed to get her that beach bikini body? If anything the fact that she never has to walk anywhere would make her even less likely to be skinny than you or me. She occasionally punches people, but as anyone with a beer gut over their belt and 30 bar fights under their belt will tell you, punching people doesn't cut down on belly fat. There are like a zillion X men alone that barely have to move or exert themselves at all to use their powers, especially floaty telekinesis users. Their physical training is supplementary as part of the Xavier School curriculum. I could start talking about things like targeted work outs and dietary changes but the point should have been made already.

Valiant just cannot be stopped! Most of the negativity seems to be from those who haven't bothered to read, yet still think their uninformed opinions somehow matter.

True. It's funny because these are probably the same people who love all the race/gender swapped characters for Marvel. Zephyr isn't the first fat super hero, there have been numerous ones, she is just the first to get her own run (at least as far as I can remember).

I read the mini-series that led up to the release of this series and it was actually very good and easy to get into. I recommend it for anyone who wants to get into Valiant and hasn't had the chance yet.

It depends. Look at Bouncing Boy and Microbe and Goldballs all are fat and yet all have powers, take part in physical activity and remain fat. So it's not a guarantee. Plus, Zephyr has the power of telekinesis, so she rarely uses her hands or feet for combat, she uses psychic attacks, flight, barriers.

I actually want to read this. I just picked up some first volumes of X-O Manowar, Rai, Divinity, and Imperium and I enjoyed all of them. But now it seems quite clear to me that I should read Harbinger and then this. Either way, Valiant is already impressing me more than Marvel has as of late.

Wow, not only does this look good, but that was a long preview.

@doc-holiday:Marvel isn't the type of company I would start a crazy flame war to defend. But I do want to say people of color or just of any demographic that isn't a straight, white man or woman with washboard abs are sensitive to this kind of thing. I get that everything Marvel does looks like a cash grab, it's a very worrying thing for any avid comic reader. But they do occasionally make good decisions and I think Miles and kamala were great decisions. They're well written characters who've had awesome solo books. I was kinda shaky on Captain Falcon, but he's grown on me. As a black person, reading CA:SM issue 10 was a beautiful, emotional moment for me.

I totally understand taking a long view and thinking about lasting change but the tidal wave of harsh reactions to these changes (almost entirely based on race) is actually super hurtful to those people who are finally getting rich, fleshed out stories written about people that look like them, as main characters even! It's a deeper pain than a lot of people will admit, it hurts so much it's hard to really describe or make analogies for.

Obviously some of these changes won't last, but some will. And as I mentioned in another thread, the previous Avengers and New Avengers runs were incredible. But they culminated with the older generation of superheroes letting the Illuminati run wild right under their noses. Dr strange alone (alongside his weird cult) literally destroyed like hundreds of alternate earths, by killing their superheroes and letting the incursions finish the job. Namor, whose such a huge d-bag it's practically a super power actually had an attack of conscience and decided to stop killing people alongside his new best friend, THANOS. Respected superhero Dr. Strange, just kept on killing people. They went beyond being heroes or villiains, they were playing god and controlling the balance of life and death on a multiversal level. The team completely crumbled, Steve and Tony spent their last moments before the universe ended punching each other in the face.

I think some new blood is sorely needed, there's no way they could screw up much worse than the previous generation.

There is a mini-series before this that makes it easier to get into Zephyr's story-line. I recommend it.

@save_me_now: I didn't mention Miles and Kamala on purpose for a few reasons; Miles was made for the Ultimate universe so he was a safe bet and he has been well liked (not saying all people like him or that there wasn't hate when he showed up but sales prove he is good), Kamala is not the same as the others, Carol Danvers was already going by Captain Marvel by the time Kamala took on the moniker of Ms. Marvel and I read her origin story and several issues,it was very good and her character reminds me of early Spider-man comics (teenager, randomly gets powers, hides them from family, has to maintain school life and super life), but on the subject of Falcon as Cap, sales figures show his comic sales have been mediocre (I've posted them numerous times on other forum discussions) and he isn't alone. I believe some characters come from a place of creativity but Marvel is a company and they're not above cheap cash grabs; they just killed off the Hulk, killing a super hero is one of the cheapest cash grabs there is these days, so that is one piece of evidence, the other is the continuation of popular series or resurrection of them; Old Man Logan, Secret Wars, Civil War 2 (seriously, 2? they couldn't think up a better name?). I think Marvel sees the appreciation of representation as a good perk but not the reason they did it.

I speak as a long time DC fan who knows a company that has not used race or gender as a gimmick (or at least not a lot) and not needed to because DC has the most iconic characters of varying backgrounds. Look at Wonder Woman, she is celebrating 75 years of successful comic book history, she came out about 10 years after Batman and Superman. DC has proven a commitment to representation and excelled in many ways. Look at their tv shows; Young Justice, Teen Titans, JL/JLU (if you haven't watched it, check it out, John Stewart is one of my favorite heroes of all time), Static Shock, and more recently in Arrow they've started building up to Mr. Terrific and even made a new character to play Guardian (John Diggle, although they call him Spartan) and on Flash they have Firestorm (another favorite of mine).

And that is just cartoons, DC has so many great heroes in print. So for me, it is bothersome to see a race or gender used as a marketing gimmick when brand new characters could be made. Although, when the worlds most famous and powerful super hero, Superman, is an alien, it means DC started on a pretty open minded foot.

This is Comic Vine. I really believe that half the people on the site don't even read comics. They just come here to complain about thing they have no clue about.....

^ This...seems pretty accurate :P

Sighs.......I guess no one gets it.

@heatblaze123: I get it, it's a dumb joke you borrowed from Sargon who made a video about this character a while ago. Except if she were Tumblr's super hero she would be killing all the men, have blue hair instead of blond and blame everything on the patriarchy.

I did not make this, but I felt like I had to show this to people who do not know anything about Faith besides the fact that she is fat and can fly. (A little out of date, but I am sure it gets the point across...)

Source

@ultimate_knight: Thank you. Although, honestly, a quick look at her page on comic vine would show she is older than Tumblr, heck, she is older than the terrible concept of SJW.

Alright, Houser, we get it. She's a geek. No need to make references on every freaking page.

@save_me_now: I love Emma Frost your not alone!

Oh yeah, this argument again. It's completely irrelevant to this character, especially since her powers are not linked to physical strength at all. The character uses her mind to make herself fly, use barriers and objects. In no way at all does she need to physically exert herself to accomplish this. So...actually her body would be maintainable.

Never heard of her but she seems cool. Plus its not like they killed a hero for her to be there nor did she steal someone's name/mantle.

Yup!

Thank you, fair point. She is her own hero, from her own team who got a solo run.

No one seems to care that the cake is clearly not a lie. You can even get TO it in the game.

Not getting cake on your way out of a life or death situation doesn't make the cake non-existant.

Why does no one get that? The joke is inaccurate.

I'll go now.

@doc-holiday: I'm a pretty big DC fan myself. I'm 25 so I grew up watching the 90s - early 2000s DCAU. Teen titans, Justice League unlimited. I also saw all of young justice. I've always maintained that they write way better character focused stories than Marvel. Their writers can really get you to empathize with a characters you would never expect. They've continued this tradition all the way through the new 52. I think Batwoman and swamp thing have been some of the best comic books of the past decade. I read most of DC's comics as well as Marvel's. I agree that Marvel seems to be way more money focused than DC. Civil war II has been inexcusably stupid so far. I'm still on the fence about old man logan, but I'd put the Time Runs out story line that lead up to secret wars against anything that DC's put out in the past 20 years.

I think a lot of Marvel's events are really poorly done and obvious cash grabs, but they occasionally find something that works. DC just does a better job with that stuff. I'm on the fence about Jane as Thor but I don't necessarily think that making Sam captain America was a horrible idea. (Though until issue ten I didn't care for his solo book either) At the time steve had lost his powers, I wouldn't have minded things staying that way to be honest. He's been captain America for like 75 years, I feel like not being able to write a story without Steve as captain America would make marvel look pretty bad at this point. Also being Captain America is more than just a superhero title, it's like a public office. If Maria hill or the president tells an American one thing but Captain America tells them to do the opposite, they'd be conflicted. Captain America leads most of the superheroes in the Marvel U by default at this point. Having a non-white captain America is the comic books version of having a non white president.

Marvel has made plenty of new characters in the last 5 years alone btw, definitely more than DC has and that's just counting the X-Men. They have to make new characters because they haven't ret-conned their old ones.

Some of Marvel's recent changes seem jarring but they haven't gone full retcon the way DC has so they're gonna have a different path. DC is just better at working with existing characters.

@doc-holiday: Also DC having their iconic character as a alien means nothing. He's from a race of Aliens that look exactly like white people on earth (I know there's like 12 black kryptonians but most of them haven't been seen since like the 80s). Until the new 52 superman never received anything close to the scorn that oppressed groups receive in real life. There are plenty of alien races in american comics that look like white people. Even some of the races that are purple or green are still purple or green with Caucasian features. When was the last time you saw a humanoid alien race that looked like southern or eastern Asians, Africans, or Hispanics? In comic books it was probably never. I could write entire articles about this topic.

I'm not trying to call you a racist or anything but there is a reason people are so divided about Marvel's new direction.

@save_me_now: Easy there. Remember that most of those designs were based largely off of designs from the 30s, 40s and 50s where they thought aliens basically looked like people, the grays (those guys with big heads and dark eyes) or robots. We've only recently had non-humanoid aliens. As for non-caucasion, isn't Icon an alien? Martian Manhunter usually has non-caucasion features, although it varies from artist to artist, I prefer the JLU design, in fact, in Justice League Doom (the animated movie) he takes the form of a black man.

My point was that DC has a stronger commitment to story telling and diverse characters. I loved the Batwoman series, I picked it up and just couldn't put it down, they wrote her so well and I enjoyed that she chose the mantle rather than having it offered to her like so many others. Honestly, she is one of the few people in comics I see suited to replacing Bruce if he were ever gone for good.

Also, what are Hispanic features? I mean, if they mostly just look humanoid with different color skin, how could you tell? I don't think you were intentionally saying that to specify there are many things that separate Hispanics, more just to make a point.

The only "Hispanic" alien looks more like a racist caricature: http://comicvine.gamespot.com/macho-gomez/4005-77168/

Also, you seem really defensive of Marvel. It's fine if you think that they are committed to diversity and aren't using at as a cash grab, it's just hard to believe since they basically wiped out their top roster to be replaced with characters of varying ethnicity and gender rather than DC who made new characters and promoted them better. The simple fact is, Marvel would never say if they were doing it just for money so there is no definitive way to prove it. I just look at sales figures and see mediocre numbers with a series still running and try to draw an answer from there.

I am also not going to have this argument forever so I am saying now, drop it. I like DC more and nothing you say is going to convince me that Marvel has made any good or right decisions with such drastic changes.

@doc-holiday:

Marvel has made any good or right decisions with such drastic changes.

I disagree, Marvel got me more interested in reading with Riri Williams and I'm a new comic reader. DC just got me rounding my eyes with rebirth. But both companies usually turn me off with crossovers and comic silliness.

Also, how is it a cash grab? Their movies make them more money, why change the characters? Maybe, they truly want to be more diverse, maybe the creators want this. Also, what with the hold, Marvel Vs DC? They both make good comics and bad comics

Anyway, Faith look to be interesting. I might go pick it up