2 out of 5

It was free, I do totally get that.  And the Valiant books just aren’t really for me, I get that too.  They do a good job of packing this book with material for their issues leading up to the ‘Harbinger Wars,’ whether they tie in or not, and toss in a couple solid interviews as well.  It reminds me of the Vertigo Preview books in that sense, which are also hit or miss depending on the way the contents are presented.  Which, in this case, is a miss – the context of everything is too inclusive.  Yes, we’re provided a handy re-cap of the Harbinger background, and the X-O story is pretty much an origin tale, but still – the actual Harbinger preview is just way too cluttered with characters (like 8 different named characters) for its few pages to really click, the Archer & Armstrong bit all takes place in the past so really misrepresents Lente’s typically poppy take on the characters, and the Quantum & Woody preview is chuckle-worthy, but again, shows an odd sense of ‘what to include’ since it ends on a flashback instead of some kind of cliffhanger.  That makes the X-O pages probably the most rewarding and helpful if you’re using a PREVIEW book to get a taste of a story in the hopes of spurring a sale.

Essentially: I wasn’t spurred, even in the conceptual world where I dig Valiant titles.