As tired as 8-bit homages can feel sometimes, it’s great when really clever nods to old-school video games make you chuckle. Take these recent covers from various Valiant Entertainment comic books. They’re great.

The capes. The gadgets. The weird interpersonal relationships. The goats. Superheroes are straight-up absurd when you think about it. In 1997, a series called Quantum & Woody put that absurdity in the spotlight and won the hearts of, well, hundreds. Probably thousands. Definitely not millions, or else it wouldn't…

Who was expecting the relaunch of 1990s comics imprint Valiant Comics to be one of the best things to happen to Wednesdays in a good long time? Oh, you were? And you? And you? Okay, good. The reborn publisher's managed to attract great talent who have delivered sharp updates to the Valiant universe and its metahumans.

If you're here in the Panel Discussion programming block, you might be a lapsed comics reader, trying to find a way back to the JLA Satellite. Or you might someone killing time until you pick up your weekly Wednesday pull list. Or maybe you've said goodbye to dozens of longboxes to embrace the promise of digital…