As you’re reading the latest installment of the Eternal Warrior’s journey, two things quickly come to mind. Immediately you say to yourself that Gilad Anni-Padda is an incredible fighter and tactician. The other, which is more important is that he really needed Ninjak on this one. More than team-ups for publicity purposes the characters in the Valiant universe need one another. Their strengths and weaknesses balance each other.
While Gilad will kill his way through a situation, Ninjak would take more of an espionage-type approach. Likewise, in a previous issue of ‘Bloodshot’ the title character used Livewire as a failsafe to counter Project Rising’s programming. It makes the characters in the Valiant universe inter-dependent on each other for their survival. Essentially they are a family. And issue 10 of #Wrath of the Eternal Warrior†exemplifies that.
In the beginning of the story arc when an infant Kalaam, Gilad’s son is stolen from him. When the reader sees Kalaam again, he is a sullen teenager, a dead one. Father and son find it difficult to connect. For years, Gilad searched, leaving a trail of blood behind him, but to no avail. You can tell that this is one of the few regrets in a long existence. As a warrior, you accept certain things. It’s the main reason why ‘the fist and the steel’ doesn’t want to have children. They are attachments he can’t afford to have. What’s more, he’s had to bury them all. As children of a man who cannot die they also become targets. If you can’t kill the enemy, make him suffer. And in part four of “Labyrinth,” there is a beginning of understanding for Gilad. He must reconnect with his son and he needs his Valiant family to do it.
Still there is the matter of the Undying One. He is old, but his immortality functions in a way that feels as if it’s some form of punishment. He is not a protector like Gilad, rather he seems all consumed with himself. He wants to remain in the same body, so that’s why he kidnaps Gilad and repeatedly kills him in previous issues? That can’t be it. There has to be something more to the self-proclaimed enemy of the Eternal Warrior. But in a comic subtitled ‘A clash of Eternities’ perhaps there isn’t more. Maybe if you live for too long with not purpose, you become envious and embittered to the point of stupidity. In essence maybe the universe just doesn’t like the Undying One.
Overall, knowing the end doesn’t necessarily answer any questions. The audience sees Gilad team up with Ninjak when the old spy is a bit long in the tooth. However, that in no way answers any of the pertinent questions in Robert Venditti’s ongoing comic book series. This storyline only satiates a small portion of the reader’s curiosity. What happens on the last page will only leave you with more queries.
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