Possibly the biggest news to come from the announcement, outside of Lemire teaming with longtime friend Kindt on writing duties — with Rivera doing interior artwork for Valiant — was that Lemire is no longer being exclusive to DC Comics/Vertigo. Lemire’s reimagining of Green Arrow has been one of the highlights of DC’s New 52 era, and his creator-owned works “Sweet Tooth” (on which he briefly collaborated with Kindt) and “Trillium” for Vertigo have been well-received.

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“After four years of DC Comics, I had to decide if I was going to stay exclusive or not,” Lemire told The Post’s Comic Riffs. “It just seemed to be a lot of opportunities for me at this point in my career. [Now] seemed like a good time to spread out and work with some new people and try some new things.”

Lemire says that The Valiant — featuring Bloodshot, the Eternal Warrior, Geomancer and almost everyone who is anyone in the Valiant universe — wasn’t intended to have such a universal impact on Valiant as a whole, but that the story naturally continued to grow after continued conversations with Kindt.

“When Matt and I first talked about doing something together at Valiant, it wasn’t with this idea of doing a big event — it was more … like it would just be a fun, little project,” Lemire told Comic Riffs. “Our ideas sort of expanded and grew and became something bigger. It wasn’t [Valiant] coming to us asking us to write this sort of universalized thing — it was more something that grew out of us coming up with the coolest thing that we could.”

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With more than two years of new titles, both writers realize that some readers might be hesitant to give The Valiant a try if they are not caught up on other Valiant titles. But Kindt and Lemire say that the forthcoming miniseries will be as friendly to new readers as possible.

“If you’ve heard about Valiant and you’re curious, you can pick this up and you’re going to get a good story — and you’re going to get a taste of everybody in the universe in addition to that story,” Kindt said. “It’s a tricky thing to write something that is accessible to the [brand-new] reader … and also something that satisfies people who have been following Valiant forever, but I think we did a good job.”

Lemire echoed that idea. “Me being new to the [Valiant] universe, I was very conscious of trying to understand the core concepts of each character and then relaying that to a new reader,” he said. “Matt and I were also very conscious of creating a story that is satisfying for long-term readers. The priority, outside from telling a great story, was to make something that was a perfect entry point for people who had maybe been curious about Valiant, but hadn’t picked anything up yet.”

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When Lemire and Kindt were talking with Valiant Executive Editor Warren Simons about art duties on The Valiant, Rivera’s name shot to the top of their wish-list.

“Paolo kind of became the dream artist for the project. I never thought we could actually get him,” Lemire said. “In my mind, Paolo is one of the top cartoonists working in comics today. His storytelling skills are impeccable. The first issue is so gorgeous to look at; he just brings so much life and emotion to these characters. It’s pretty amazing.”

Kindt was so impressed with Rivera’s initial layout art that he was convinced it was the final product. “I thought that was the finished art,” Kindt said. “I said, ‘Let’s publish this.’ ”

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Simons had been trying to persuade Rivera to sign with Valiant since their relaunch. “I knew Warren back when he used to work at Marvel,” Rivera told Comic Riffs. “In 2012, that’s when I came off of Daredevil. Me and my dad went to Baltimore Comic Con [that year and Simons] tried to convince me to come to Valiant. I’ve done covers for them [before], but this will be the first interior work I’ve done for them.”

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“I always change a little bit [visually] from book to book,” Rivera noted. For The Valiant, “especially with the opening sequence with the Eternal Warrior, it’s sort of…not sorcery, but it’s a very different tone than what I’m used to [drawing.]”

Neither Lemire or Kindt (who will continue writing Unity and Rai ) were ready to talk about future projects after The Valiant, but both hinted at major announcements.