4001 A.D. Covers #1-4
First Look Inside 4001 A.D. #1
Solicitation Information for 4001 A.D.
4001 A.D. #1 (of 4)Written by MATT KINDT | Art & Cover by CLAYTON CRAIN
In the tradition of BOOK OF DEATH, ARMOR HUNTERS, and HARBINGER WARS, Valiant's most ambitious crossover event yet starts here! At the dawn of the 41st century, the future of Earth will be decided in the stars. This May…the rebellion begins in 4001 A.D.!
One hundred years from today, Father – the benevolent artificial intelligence that governs the island nation of Japan – will gain sentience. To defend its borders, Father will take drastic action by launching Japan into space…where its people thrive in isolation, away from the overpopulated and resource-deprived planet below. Over the centuries, as New Japan orbits our increasingly unstable world, it will become a model society – one built on peace, prosperity…and Father’s control.
A thousand years from today, Father will create the first Rai, founding a lineage of technologically enhanced heroes engineered to defend New Japan and sworn to protect it from all enemies. For hundreds of years into the future, the Rai will single-handedly enforce New Japan’s justice well…and serve Father without question.
Now, at the dawn of 4001 A.D., the latest Rai is about to inherit the dark truth behind the origin of his kind…and discover the sinister secret at the heart of Father’s existence. For New Japan to live, Earth must die…and as Rai challenges his former master for the first time in more than a millennium, the lone guardian of New Japan will be cast out of his own Father’s kingdom…
Exiled from the only realm he’s ever known, Rai now walks the ravaged world of 4001 A.D. in search of forgotten heroes like himself…on a mission to collect the last surviving legends of a broken planet…and to forge a rebellion with the power to bring the most advanced civilization in history crashing back down to Earth.
Earth must rise. Father must fall. Rai! Eternal Warrior! X-O Manowar! Bloodshot! Geomancer! Armstrong! And more! The war for the ultimate fate of humanity begins in 4001 A.D.!
$3.99 | 32 pgs. | T+ | COMING IN MAY!
Interview with Matt Kindt
IGN Comics: You’ve done a lot of books at Valiant, so what makes 4001 A.D. new and special?Matt Kindt: Well, other than it being the big tentpole style event book for them this year – which is something I’ve always wanted to tackle – what I’m really proud of is that it is a natural extension of a story I’d been building up to for almost two years with Rai as an ongoing series. It just happened to work out timing-wise and be a kind of fun jumping-on point for anyone not familiar with Valiant or the 4001 corner of the Valiant Universe. In other words, it is as far away from some kind of marketing ploy as you can get – which is what a lot of other big events seem to come off as. This is really just a big story that needed a lot of space and was always intended to be this sort of epic blow-out/up kind of story.
It’s also going to really connect the 4001 universe with the present-day Valiant Universe in a crazy way, which is something we haven’t really done yet.
Also, I think 4001 A.D. and Rai as a series are unique in comics. It’s me and Clayton Crain sticking together on a monthly book – so it’s really our vision coming through month after month – with this sort of being the natural crescendo of two years worth of work.
IGN: What do you want people to know about the story of 4001 A.D. before going in? Will it be accessible to new readers not versed in Valiant?
Kindt: It’s definitely accessible. It’s the story of New Japan, which is massive floating utopian satellite that revolves around a ruined Earth. That’s the concept – it’s been around for thousands of years, so the world really feels lived in. This is a great introduction to the entire concept – but done in a way, that if you’ve been following along the broad strokes become that much richer. And if you like this series, when you go back and read the backstory that lead us to where we are now. It’s really designed to work no matter what order you read it in. 4001 A.D. is really showing the decline while Rai proper, to date, has shown us the rise of New Japan. So in a way it just depends on what whether you want the good news first, or the bad. Ha!
IGN: The world of 4001 A.D. is pretty crazy and out there, what with Japan being launched into space to become an isolated, advanced civilization. Where did that idea come from?
Kindt: That was in the original series from the 90s. All based on the amazing work of Don Perlin, Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, Bob Layton, David Lapham, Joe St. Pierre, Peter Grau, Sean Chen, and so many others. I re-read all of the original series, and page for page, there were more original and crazy ideas in that run than in almost any comics I’ve read. So it was really a treat to go back and read it all and try to take my favorite elements and update them and maybe shine a new light on the concepts. As much as I’d like to take credit for all of it – it’s those giants whose shoulders I’m standing on and Clayton Crain’s visual inventiveness that have really made this series sing. Although I will take 100% credit for the Fungal Farms...!
IGN: Why was Rai chosen to be at the center of this story? Can his character bear the burden of an entire event?
Kindt: Oh yeah. Really the entire series to date as been a kind of ensemble piece. There’s a sort of virtual family at work with a teenage girl (Lula) who sees Rai as a father figure, and Rai’s sort-of “wife” who is actually a positron (they don’t like being called robots.) So in a way, to date, Rai has shared the spotlight with his family. But (spoiler) having been cast to Earth and kicked out of Japan, Rai has been forced to come into his own. He’s been put into these adult roles as father and husband, but in reality he was too young – a teenager trying to grow up and out of the shadow that his Father casts. And this event is really about him growing up. Becoming his own man. And finally taking responsibility for his actions and his fate.
IGN: What’s it like working with Clayton Crain? What does he bring to the story with his art?
Kindt: I can’t stress enough how Raiis only as good as it is because of him. You can write the craziest things on Earth, but if they can’t be visualized and made concrete, then they’re just words on paper. Clayton really puts in more than I ever expected. It’s something I wasn’t really used to. I notice that he was putting in a ton of extra little details here and there – things that weren’t in the script – but things that made sense. Things that showed me that he was really thinking about the story – beyond what my scripts contained. So I ended up calling him – which was crazy – because we both hate talking on the phone. But we really hit it off – and a lot of extra ideas and moments started springing out of our conversations – and it has truly become a collaboration which is honestly a rare thing have in comics. Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter and IGN.