The New Secret Weapons Model Sheets by George Saravia & Bob Layton

Back in 1994, just as the collectors’ market was beginning to take a nose dive, Valiant’s management had a cost-cutting meeting to determine which titles we should cut from our line-up.  The original Secret Weapons title was supposed to have been the V1 answer to the Justice League or the Avengers, serving as a team-up book for our more popular super-hero characters.  However, as Editor-In-Chief and creative mentor to many of the young, talented newcomers in Knob Row, I felt it was just as important to allow Joe St. Pierre (who was the writer/artist of the series) to have a free rein in developing the series as he saw it.  Joe had decided to focus the main storyline on the supporting characters, namely Geomancer and the two Harbinger runaways, and what he came up with was very entertaining.  Unfortunately, without the mainstream heroes like X-O and Solar directly involved on a regular basis, fan interest eventually waned. 

In order to bolster the title, whose sale numbers was on the cusp of cancellation, Steve Massarsky and Jon Hartz suggested that I should keep the name Secret Weapons (which was fairly cool, after all) but develop an all-new line-up of characters with a different concept, to boot.

At the time, a young intern by the name of George Saravia came to work at Valiant and I was impressed with his boundless enthusiasm.  George had just graduated from art school and was eager to impress me with his design skills.  After coming up with the new Secret Weapons story concept, I enlisted George (as his first Valiant assignment) to design the four, new characters that would be the stars of the relaunch.  George did a terrific job and it wasn’t long afterwards that I gave him the assignment as the regular penciller of Magnus:Robot Fighter.

Eventually, George decided to leave Valiant. But before he departed, he presented me with these full-color model sheets as a gift for giving him his first break into the comics industry. 

These beautiful 81/2” x 11” pages, mounted on heavy, black presentation board, languished in my warehouse until a month ago, when I uncovered them purely by accident.

Code Name: TANK
Unlike the other cast members of Secret Weapons, Joe doesn’t rely on technology to given him enhanced abilities.

During a job as a bodyguard in 1984, Joe got trapped in a burning house. He escaped almost without any injuries. As it turned out, he was a harbinger--gifted with the ability to adapt to any applied force, making him nearly invulnerable.

Code Name: PARA-MAN
John Sinclair was a part of Neville Alcott's spy operation as an operative. He became part of Project: Secret Weapons but originally not as one of the Secret Weapons.

When the original Para-man, Richard Grant, died during an assignment, Sinclair donned the Para-Man suit in order to save the mission. Through the suit’s electronic wizardry, Para-Man can mimic various psionic powers (telekinesis, flight, etc.).

Code Name: SONAR
Carol was given this unique Sonar suit, whose surface can direct sound at any given frequency to vibrate, move or destroy an object.

(Excerpts from www.weirdspace.dk)