With several of their most beloved characters and series back on comic book stands, the time has come for Archer & Armstrong Forever to bring Valiant Entertainment’s fan-favorite and adventurous duo back to the spotlight. When the carefree, hard-drinking, and immortal Aram Anni-Padda, a.k.a. Armstrong, seemingly loses his ability to heal from any wound and believes his days as an immortal are finally coming to an end, his young and optimistic best friend Obadiah Archer will travel the world in search of mythical artifacts to save his friend.

Archer & Armstrong Forever is the latest series returning as part of the The Year of Valiant, a campaign aiming to put 2022 in the history books for the publisher’s creators and audience. The supernatural Deadside War comes to Shadowman, the long-awaited return of Faith to The Harbinger, and for the duo of Archer & Armstrong, a triumphant return courtesy of writer Steve Foxe (X-Men ’92) and artists Marcio Fiorito (Eternals: The 500 Year War) and Alex Guimarães (Savage Avengers). To find out where this new series finds the titular heroes and its place in the brave new Valiant Universe, Screen Rant is pleased to offer an exclusive preview with Foxe himself. Readers can enjoy the full interview and comic covers from Bernard Chang, David Talaski, Dan Hipp, and Ro Stein & Ted Brandt below.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

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Screen Rant: The return of Archer & Armstrong is the latest of several coming from Valiant the past few years. Your focus is obviously on this book and these characters, but are you also aware of that larger ‘movement’? Either creatively in the story that you’re telling, or just knowing more eyes might be on this first issue?

Steve Foxe: There’s always a benefit to “riding the wave,” so to speak. The excitement and heat generated by books like SHADOWMAN and THE HARBINGER gets folks pumped up to read even more from Valiant, and I’m grateful that ARCHER & ARMSTRONG FOREVER is going to be waiting for readers as a next step.

As for tapping into that in the pages of the book itself, our focus is mostly on expanding the world of our lovable leads and introducing even more fun new stuff to the Valiant Universe, but… I couldn’t resist building off of some recent events in other titles moving into the second arc. If you only read A&AF, you won’t miss anything, but if you’re checking out our sibling books, hopefully touches like these help the world feel more alive and interlinked. Saying more might spoil things…*coughcoughDeadsideWarcoughcough*

SR: Just from your personal experience, how did you originally get pulled into the world of Archer & Armstrong (and of Barry Windsor-Smith in general)?

SF: Well, my introduction to Barry Windsor-Smith was with a certain hairy science experiment in the frosty Canadian wilds, which is a first taste I’m sure I share with a lot of fellow fans. I was a little young in the ‘90s to fully appreciate the original Valiant line, but I’ve since gone back and discovered how much the spirit of the original odd-couple dynamic holds true throughout their newer iterations.

My introduction to Archer and Armstrong was actually the Fred Van Lente/Clayton Henry & co. series, which was my favorite title of the Valiant comeback. Fred and his collaborators were just so freaking good at balancing humor, thrilling action, and real stakes, without ever losing the plot to pure zaniness. You don’t need to have read all the prior A&A volumes to pick up A&AF #1, but you’d have a darn good time working your way through them.

SR: Following on that, how did the project and the story come together? Valiant relaunches often sound like fans getting the chance to take the helm of either underrated or unsung heroes and leaping at it – was that the case with you as well?

SF: To be honest, the genesis of this was something that pretty much never happens: my awesome editor Rob Levin emailed me, out of the blue, about pitching for Valiant. While we followed each other online and have a lot of mutual acquaintances, we hadn’t directly interacted, and I had no idea he was familiar with any of my work. I leaped at the opportunity, though, and it took all of one conversation to realize we both loved Armstrong and Obie and didn’t know why they’d been off shelves for so long.

The biggest appeal of this duo for me was their ability to bridge the worlds of comedy and action/superhero-adjacent storytelling. A&AF has allowed me to combine some of the humor chops I’ve honed on books like SPIDER-HAM with my lifelong love of superhero storytelling, and even doses of full-tilt horror to reflect my work on RAZORBLADES and PARTY & PREY and other more nightmarish projects.

I like what you said about “underrated or unsung,” too. My personal bibliography is a bit… eclectic… and I’ve been eager to make more of a name for myself in mainstream monthly publishing. I feel like Archer and Armstrong together are a pillar of the Valiant Universe, and this new run is a chance for all of us—on and off the page—to live up to that promise!

SR: Those previous Valiant relaunches have made it very clear that this isn’t just about attracting new readers, or ‘rebooting’ a universe, but welcoming older readers back with stories and characters they’ll recognize. How does your story for Archer & Armstrong Forever factor both of those audiences in?

SF: Breaking down a #1 issue is both an art and a science, and I’m very lucky that Rob and assistant editor Audrey Meeker were by my side in figuring out that balance between reinvigorating existing fans and welcoming new readers. Especially within a shared universe, there are a lot of plates to keep spinning, but I think the fundamental truth is that you want to respect what has come before, add to it, but not require an encyclopedic knowledge of it just to get in the door.

Part of my job is to capture how Archer and Armstrong sound and act, and to have them making decisions that fall within their established characters, but also to challenge them and make them face new scenarios and choices that push them out of their comfort zones.

The tl;dr is that no babies are getting thrown out with the bathwater. We’re picking up a bit after we last saw the guys, and any shocking new changes are part of the story we have to tell, not something we’re going to drop in your lap from the first page and expect you to roll with. And readers who’ve never before met these two should walk away from the first issue not just understanding their deal, but invested in discovering what’s next for them.

SR: For casual fans or those less than familiar, the combination of an immortal and a possible super-soldier test subject seems like this leans directly into the outlandish or pure fantasy. What is it about these characters that strike a chord with you, or that you find unique or fruitful for storytelling?

SF: You know, you kind of nail it in the phrasing of the question: the combination of Archer and Armstrong SEEMS like it should be totally outlandish. But what’s so exciting to me, as their writer, is that the fantastical side of it all fleshes out a very nuanced, enduring, and compelling bond between a well-traveled good-time lush and a sheltered kid who just wants to do the right thing while cautiously expanding his horizons.

You could turn the comedy factor up to 11 and end up with a very funny book, but under the jokes is a fascinating friendship that has been through the wringer over the course of their publishing history. As fun as it is to challenge artist Marcio Fiorito with weirder and weirder threats for Archer and Armstrong, exploring the connection between these guys is really what’s driving the heart of the book.

SR: Just from the synopsis of Forever, it sounds like a core part of this story, immortality, is going from a given to a gigantic problem. How did you arrive at this major change of status quo for your story?

SF: I have to credit Rob joking about the unusual density of immortals in the Valiant Universe (though I’d maintain Aram and his brothers are the immortals) for planting the seed of the idea. When a trait is as intrinsic to a character as Armstrong’s immortality, there’s a lot of storytelling potential in taking that trait out of the picture and seeing how that character adapts—or fails to adapt—to a fundamental change like that. And it’s not just about Armstrong’s reaction, either. Archer has come to count on his mischievous mentor figure being a constant in this life. What if that’s not so guaranteed after all?

I wanted to kick off ARCHER & ARMSTRONG FOREVER with a big change to the status quo that still felt like it was truthful to the spirit of the book, and not just a change for change’s sake, which also goes back to your question about respecting older fans while drawing in new readers. My backup pitch was making Archer an avenging angel and Armstrong Frankenstein, but Rob shot that one down pretty quickly.

SR: Assuming that Archer & Armstrong Forever is picking up where the duo’s previous stories left off – with the Boon, the Sect, etc. – the door seems wide open for what’s possible, both in terms of physical powers, and mental memory/mystery gymnastics. So how much will readers need to know going into this first issue? How does the scope of your overall story compare?

SF: The entire creative team worked pretty hard to make sure the first issue was welcoming, informative, and EXCITING, so while you can read it fresh and understand who these two are and how they relate to each other, I’m not forcing a Wikipedia entry into every other panel.

“Show don’t tell” is vastly oversimplified advice, but that’s part of the approach here: rather than TELLING you who Archer and Armstrong are, we’re going to show you through rooftop chase scenes, fight-a-paloozas, and downtime in the bar. Back in my day, your first comic was often the middle of a story arc and you just had to glean what you needed to as you went along. We’re not asking that much of readers, but we do trust folks to know we’ll dole out essential information as the series progresses. If we don’t tell you something in detail in #1, it’s probably because it’s plot-relevant in issue #2 or #3, and we have a more exciting way to tell you about it then.

(And if you’re an Archer & Armstrong super-fan, then you can jump into this as if it’s the next sequentially numbered issue after their prior runs.)

As for the book’s scope, the second issue takes place on just about every continent, the third leaves this Earthly realm entirely, and the fourth…well, I can’t give it all away. But the scope is absolutely BIG. I spent the early days of quarantine binging classic action movies from the eighties and nineties and I’m writing this book as if James Cameron, Jackie Chan, and John McTiernan are looking over my shoulder and telling me to go bigger.

SR: The synopsis also teases some major threats now coming for Armstrong to settle centuries (or millennia) worth of grudges and old scores. Can you offer any more teases about those villainous figures?

SF: The old threat coming for Armstrong is actually a bit more contemporary (and mortal) than all that, but that doesn’t make The Eccentric’s unsettled score any less threatening. Like I joked above, the Valiant Universe has a lot of immortals, and I couldn’t bear to add another to the roster so soon. There’s a Bonnie Raitt lyric: “Life gets mighty precious/ When there’s less of it to wa-a-a-aste.” The Eccentric’s time left on Earth is VERY precious by that definition, which means his window of opportunity to lay old grudges to rest is closing fast. However, he’s a refined gentleman through and through, and gentlemen don’t get their hands dirty…

When The Eccentric has a task that’s likely to get messy, he unleashes The Maw. Remember when I said I tapped into my horror side for A&AF? Yeah, The Maw is my Clive Barker fever dream. I’ve written scenes for The Maw that turn my stomach, so getting to force him onto Archer and Armstrong has been a sick delight. I’ve got one word for you: “Schlorrrpp.”

SR: You have got some incredible collaborators on this story with Marcio Fiorito, Alex Guimarães, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. What can you tell fans about the visuals in store for this return of Archer & Armstrong?

SF: I’m so glad I finally get to talk about the rest of the team! You should really read all of the answers above as being about our collective efforts because no comic exists by will or effort of a writer alone.

Starting backward on that list, Hass is one of my closest friends in the industry and I whine and stomp my feet until he letters just about everything I write. He’s British and polite so he always caves. He’s also, for my money, one of the best and most innovative letterers working today, and the touches he’s adding to A&AF perfectly cap off the tone of the book.

As for Alex, I don’t think it’s any surprise that you’re seeing his name EVERYWHERE lately. He has such a keen eye for enhancing the scene with personal touches and refreshing palette decisions. Sometimes, hashing out colors is a real back-and-forth process on a book. With Alex, he just got it out of the gate.

Finally, Marcio makes me understand why so many writer/artist pairs call each other “brother.” There is no book without Marcio, and it’s a big driving force for me, creatively, to see how much he has pushed himself on this series. He is always up to take that next step farther, do that much more, to nail the best possible book we can put out. Marcio was one of the first names we looked at for A&AF and I’m so glad it worked out in the end. I suspect you’re going to see a lot more of him in the mainstream market in the years ahead.

And I have to mention again that Rob and Audrey, our editorial team, is a constant additive presence on the book, both pushing and enabling us to do our best work. The entire Valiant experience so far has been such a collaborative effort to get an awesome comic on the stands, and I hope readers see all of that reflected on the page.

SR: Not to spoil the series, but should fans prepare themselves for as dramatic a change as the synopsis implies? Or is immortality not as crucial as it may seem in making this dynamic duo work so well?

SF: Oh, I think immortality is very crucial to the premise of our dynamic duo…which is why I’m so excited to rip the rug out from underneath them and put them through Hell for readers’ entertainment [insert smiling devil emoji].

Provocations and jokes aside, we swung big here. If you’re going to plop down the cover price to read ARCHER & ARMSTRONG FOREVER, we aren’t going to give you half measures. Expect BIG changes, BIG new faces, BIG surprisingly NSFW things I didn’t think they’d let us do, and a BIG love letter to one of comics’ most lasting friendships.

Archer & Armstrong Forever #1 arrives May 4, 2022, and is available for preorder now.

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Andrew Dyce
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Screen Rant Editor Andrew Dyce was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Despite calling the vast nothingness of the Canadian prairies home (or perhaps because of it) film and television have been a passion since birth. As a graduate of the University of Manitoba with a degree in English Literature, Andrew has grown to appreciate the story and writing behind everything from blockbuster comic book movies to schlocky B-movie action.

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