The secret's out about superpowers among Valiant Entertainment's comics.
And for a world unaware, existence is about to be turned on its head from the streets of Tokyo to the corridors of the United Nations.
Such is the premise of Valiant Entertainment's "Harbinger" No. 20, out early next year. It sees billionaire philanthropist and industrialist Toyo Harada's secrets about superpowers exposed in a 30,000-page all-platform online expose akin to WikiLeaks in the real world.
Writer Joshua Dysart calls the new arc a window to contemporary times, noting that the title "has always been interested in using comic book superhero tropes to explore current issues like teen pharmaceutical addiction, female body-image issues, corporatism, etc."
Dysart, an Eisner Award-nominated writer whose previous works include "Violent Messiahs" and "Unknown Soldier," said "it was inevitable that we'd get around to investigating the idea of just how jarring and complex a world where all information, regardless of how dangerous or volatile it is, is free and totally accessible," referring to recent events about secrecy, eavesdropping and electronic monitoring a la Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning.