The second Valiant trade-paperback collection I picked up was Archer & Armstrong, about which I knew almost nothing except that the concept amused me.
One is a young protege assassin raised by a religious cult based out of a Creationist theme park. The other is a hard drinking immortal who has swaggered and staggered his way through the centuries. Together they fight... Well, more or less everyone.
Yeah, amusing is about right.
Archer & Armstrong tackles religious indoctrination, faith versus dogma and the burden of eternity with all the subtlety of a hammer... And I really enjoyed it! Fred Van Lente writes the story like it is a buddy cop movie, except that the straight-laced cop is genuinely trying to murder his slob of a partner. The vastly different characters play off each other well. Armstrong has seen it all, would rather not get involved but can't help finding himself in the middle of trouble. Archer was raised by the 1% religious right, sees the world in black and white and overreacts to everything.
With archetypes so broadly drawn, it would be hard not to get a couple of laughs out of this. Thankfully, there is more to The Michelangelo Code than just two mismatched anti-heroes. The book is part of the new Valiant Universe, though it has no connection to X-O Manowar just yet.
It moves at quite a pace too, something of a jet-setting adventure around the world, racing against Archer's lunatic parents' cult who want bad things to happen. Including a lot of bad things to Armstrong!
Clayton Henry's art is good stuff too, clean and detailed, but not overburdened with the latter. All the covers are funny to see, including the variants added to the back of the book.
Is Archer & Armstrong perfect? No. It is maybe a little too broad at times, the pace is somewhat uneven, and Archer takes a while to get into since he's been brainwashed for so long. On the other hand, The Michelangelo Code works as an introduction to the characters and is as good a starting point for the Valiant Universe as any of the relaunch titles, maybe more so for you if you prefer a more light-hearted read than the other darker books offer.