'The Life and Death of Toyo Harada' by Joshua Dysart with art by Cafu and a variety of guest artists for various flashbacks is a 6 issue limited series following events in the Valiant Universe.

Toyo Harada is a psiot, which is kind of like a mutant in the Marvel universe. He is out to protect other psiots, so that puts him at odds with humans. This story shows his origin and follows a battle between Harada's team and those who would take him down. It's a story of sympathy and betrayal, but it's probably better if you are familiar with the characters in stories before this.

It was a pretty wordy story at times, but the art was fantastic. A brief foreword catching readers up on events might have been nice because this just jumps right in to the middle of a battle. I did like it.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Valiant Entertainment, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

There is nothing really wrong with this but I just read a bit of it and didn't feel the need to continue. I feel like the problem with a lot of Valiant titles is that if you haven't read other titles you feel pretty lost and for some reason i keep forgetting that and trying to read them anyway. This one sounded kind of interesting from the summary but I just wasn't into it while reading.

Thank you Netgalley and Publishers for granting me early access to "The Life and Death of Toyo Harada".

I'm currently in the middle of a major move, and will definitely come back at a later time and write out a full review and rating.

Thank you so much!

Toyo Harada was nine when his world in Hiroshima Japan was blown apart by an atom bomb. His father died during the war and his mother died in the bombing. Harada was somehow saved. But he came back changed in the Life and Death of Toyo Harada.

Harada has new powers of flight and bewitchery. Initially, he uses his powers for good to prevent future wars. Unfortunately, wars and acts of terrorism continue—but who is behind it?

At the beginning, I was slightly confused about the timeline because of a multitude of unlabeled flashbacks. However, if you persist, you will be rewarded with a twisty plot. The amount of research is intense. Space elevators are real technology. There is an orbit of space junk around the earth—no word from our government whether some if it might be alien.

The best part is the artwork. It’s gritty when the plotting reflects it. It’s pretty when it needs to be like in the cosmos parts. The shading and coloring are excellent. The art is always clear and adds meaning to the story.

Overall, I really enjoyed both the plot and the artwork within the Life and Death of Toyo Harada. I believe you will too. 5 stars!

Thanks to Valiant Entertainment and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Toyo Harada is someone that can very well shake the world in whatever page he is in. To his followers, he's the closest person to a god as anyone can get. To the rest of the world, he is a threat to their sovereignty. He genuinely wants to help people after seeing tragedies. He even takes action to ensure a more stable world comes out. But he also has one of the biggest self-preserving egos in comic books. People definitely compare him to Professor X in how he gathers his army, even Magneto for his militant train of thought. But if anyone can actually compare to Toyo Harada, it would be Dr. Victor Von Doom; they are dictators who vie to save the world from itself and are more than willing to manipulate any angle.

His life story gives any first-timers a look into how much of a force of nature he wants to be, how much of it he accomplishes too. For any continuing readers who follow his adventures, there is a genuine sense of character development from this series. He releases his private army from his shackles and allows them to do whatever they want. At all times, he treats them and his most devoted followers as tools that are means to an end for him. At the same time, Harada never drags them down with him.

How his actions affect other is also on full display. Those followers including Stronghold, wholeheartedly believe in him; but they witness the atrocities he's committed even to his own family. That is a full display on how much of a powerful force he is. Harada knows that he's powerful but not immortal and he even uses this in conjunction to outsmart even the most terrifying. He's so complex that people can't help but look at him with awe, myself included.

And Now for Something Almost Completely Different

Instead of franchised, rebooted, proprietary universe heroes of the standard variety this standalone story, (originally a six-issue limited series), tries something a bit different, and, while it's a bit of a crazy quilt, I thought it was fun, cleverly imagined and structured, and nicely balanced.

Our "hero", Toyo Harada, who is also a megalomaniacal jerk, comes complete with an origin story, a plan for world domination, (but well intentioned), almost infinite powers, and a hybrid sort of Eastern/hippie/Zen/Nietzchean mellow peacenik uberman vibe that sort of works. He has a tremendous set of psiot sidekicks, most of whom, (including an alien killing machine, LV-99, who speaks mangled formal English, a dryly witty and gentle mechanical man who likes to be called "Sunlight on Snow", and a soulless psycho alien intelligence who operates through a stolen human body), are way more interesting than he is. (Because he is, you know, pre-occupied by world domination and things like that.) The bad guy is a corporate tool who has built an entire security conglomerate, Rising Spirit, around the task of defeating Toyo and taking over his tech. He's one of those deadpan funny corporate faceman types, so he's a nice counterbalance to Toyo's complete lack of a sense of humor about anything, (because Toyo is, you know, pre-occupied by world domination and saving humanity).

The origin story is fun and doesn't get too heavy, (or plausible). The first arc follows Toyo growing up after being superpowered. The first real plot just involves Toyo's plans to improve the world under his guidance. The second level gets us to the organization that opposes him and involves various skirmishes. On a third level we have a traitor and a final assault on Toyo and his Foundation. MILD SPOILER, BUT IT'S IN THE TITLE. Once things get rolling, Toyo is killed and the team is dispersed. We then follow each team member's fate and we wait to see if Toyo has pulled off one final great stunt.

There are lots of action scenes that work perfectly well, but they aren't at all the point or the focus of the story. Toyo's vision of a perfect, peaceful world is fine, but not very novel. The most gripping part, for me, was the exploration of why people were loyal to Toyo and how they coped when it was clear that the dream was escaping their grasp.

At least seven Valiant artists contributed to the book, and that wasn't as disorienting as you might suspect. While there were different styles at play, you always knew who was who and the differences weren't so jarring that they took you out of the story. All of the artwork complemented and supported the tale, which is maybe the most you could ask for in a book in which character and dialogue is really the center of attention.

So, I liked the ideas here and the execution. The pacing was medium fast, without too much monologuing or hero navel gazing, and the author did an excellent job of juggling all of the things he was trying to do while still being entertaining. This was a good, solid, enjoyable standalone.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

A book that if nothing else shows what Valiant might be able to do if they continue to throw off their self-imposed shackles of their own incomprehensible universe, and the four-episode visits to it. This is a sci-fi drama that throws back almost as much as Vertigo ever did to the head comics of old. We're led initially to believe it is the story of a person who was a boy when the Hiroshima bomb struck, and as a result grew up using immense super-powers in an effort to flood the world with peace, equanimity and a good life for all. Of course nothing of the sort has happened, but the book actually proves itself to be a more comic-friendly battle than the discussion of the whys and wherefores of how badly he failed. For our title character is not alone – he has a 2IC of an attractive female psychic, he has a Venom-styled demon who has swallowed a dictionary, he has a funky robot, some other people under his control, and a rival in the shape of – well, that would be telling.

So yes, it does devolve a little into weird power fighting weird power, when it could so easily have looked into how humanity is so opposed to peace, equality and prosperity. If you interrogated it on that question the answer would like as not be "American business – d'uh!", which helps nobody. But there were really good beats here, and diversions for our seemingly ageless title character into the hippy world. It's hard to quantify, but bits here, tropes there and elements elsewhere made me consider this an update of the kind of thing Bryan Talbot may have done decades ago, looking at a hedonism deferred by constant military activity, and a welter of ridiculous super-powers based around mental activity. It has autonomy and self-representation as a theme, as well as bashy-smashy bits, and it's one of of the rare mainstream titles that can make you think, and absorb its content for much longer than usual. Here's hoping four and a half stars act as encouragement to the publishers for more of this kind of thing – and an end to the blacking out of cusses.

I enjoyed the premise of The Life and Death of Toyo Haruda as it raised some interesting points on the use/abuse of power and whether one person's idea of right and wrong can gel with that of another. Overall, I liked the artwork, and the story was detailed without being excessively convoluted. I thought the ending perhaps a tad rushed compared to the pacing of the rest, but that was a minor gripe. My only real wish is that I could have connected with the characters a little more on an emotional level as well as an intellectual. As such, I am giving this book 3.5 stars (which I will round up to a four).

An amazing visual experience with a strong science fiction story (horror elements included), and art that is pristine, clear, and eye-catching. This is the kind of book that can be a convincing invitation to new graphic novel readers.