Editing Prince Valiant (section)

==Characters and story==
[[File:Princevaliant022650.jpg|right|thumb|Hal Foster's ''Prince Valiant'' (February 26, 1950)]]
The setting is Arthurian. Valiant (Val) is a [[Norsemen|Nordic]] prince from [[Thule]], located near present-day [[Trondheim]] on the Norwegian coast. Early in the story Valiant arrives at [[Camelot]] where he becomes friends with Sir [[Gawain]] and Sir [[Tristan|Tristram]]. Earning the respect of [[King Arthur]] and [[Merlin (wizard)|Merlin]], he becomes a Knight of the [[Round Table (Camelot)|Round Table]]. On a Mediterranean island he meets the love of his life, Aleta, Queen of the Misty Isles, whom he later marries. He fights the [[Hun]]s with his powerful Singing Sword, which, in a 1939 strip, a witch identifies with the legendary sword [[Flamberge]],<ref>[http://weareallus.com/pv/pv1.html Foster, Hal. ''Prince Valiant'', Page 92, panel 7. Prince Valiant Annotations.]</ref> a magical blade apparently created by the same enchanter who forged Arthur's [[Excalibur]]. Val travels to Africa and America and later helps his father regain his lost throne of Thule, which has been usurped by the tyrant Sligon.<ref name=mark>[http://www.toonopedia.com/val.htm Markstein, Don. Toonopedia: ''Prince Valiant'']</ref>

When the strip starts in 1937, Val is five years old. The first episodes follow the youth through the wild Fens district of Britain with his father, the deposed King Aguar of Thule. When Val encounters the witch Horrit, she predicts he will have a life of adventure, but he will never be happy or content. Arriving home, Val discovers that his mother has died. Not long after this come encounters with Gawain, with gigantic creatures and with the glory of Camelot. Steve Donoghue comments:

{{bquote|At first, in the earliest months of ''Prince Valiant'', Foster's Arthurian England might easily be confused with the [[Cimmeria (Conan)|Cimmeria]] of ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'': monsters abound. As a boy, Val fights a 'dragon' that looks a lot like a plesiosaur, and he fires his arrows at a rampaging swamp-turtle the size of a [[Ice resurfacer|Zamboni]]. But only a few installments later, this has sublimated somewhat into history: when Val saves his new friend Sir Gawain from a robber knight and Gawain decides to take the villain to Camelot for summary judgement from King Arthur, the whole party is at one point attacked by another enormous beast—only this time it's a salt water crocodile!... When they all at length succeed in killing the beast, Val is outraged that Gawain still seeks to have the man tried before King Arthur. The young prince naturally speaks up in his outrage before the great king, his queen Guinevere and his feared wizard Merlin—and so a career at Camelot is born. Val becomes Gawain's squire and almost immediately accompanies him on a quest, during which Gawain is captured and Val must use his wits—smiling and laughing the whole time—to free his mentor. On the trip, Gawain is seriously wounded, and the large panel where Val finally gets him back to Camelot is Foster’s first genuine visual show-stopper in the strip.<ref name=donoghue/>}}

Val acquires the Singing Sword in strips from 1938. The original owner of the Singing Sword is Prince Arn of Ord, Valiant's rival for the maid Ilene. The two men put aside their differences when Ilene is kidnapped by Viking raiders on her way to Ord. Arn hands Valiant the charmed sword to help him hold back their pursuers while he himself rides ahead to free Ilene. The pair continue in their efforts to rescue Ilene, eventually discovering that she has been killed in a shipwreck. Arn gives the Singing Sword to Valiant after that adventure and the two part as friends. Later in the series it is mentioned that the Singing Sword is a sister to King Arthur's Excalibur.<ref name=mark/><ref name=donoghue>{{Cite web |url=http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/book-review-prince-valiant-vol-hal-foster/ |title=Donoghue, Steve. Open Letters Monthly, "Prince of a Lost Realm". |access-date=2010-09-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190323231920/http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/book-review-prince-valiant-vol-hal-foster/ |archive-date=2019-03-23 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In the strips from 1939 Val is knighted by King Arthur, and the following year, he helps to restore his father as King of Thule. Moving across Britain, Europe, and the Holy Land, Val fights invading Goths, Huns and Saxons. In 1946, shortly after Val marries Aleta, she is kidnapped by the Viking raider Ulfran. Val's pursuit takes him past the [[Shetland|Shetland Islands]], the [[Faroe Islands]], [[Iceland]], [[Greenland]], [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]] and the [[Saint Lawrence River]], arriving at [[Niagara Falls]] 1,000 years before Columbus. Defeating Ulfran, Val is reunited with Aleta, and the couple spend that winter with friendly Native Americans.<ref name=mark/><ref name=bayly>[http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2010/08/valiant-first-effort-wouldnt-you-say.html Bayly, Michael. "Valiant Prince Turns Fifty". ''Canberra Times'', April 1987.]</ref>

In the strip dated August 31, 1947, Prince Arn, their first son, is born in America, and Val celebrates by getting drunk. The infant Arn is named after Val's old friend, Prince Arn of Ord, who likewise named his own son after Valiant. Val and Aleta's other children are the twins, Karen and Valeta (born 1951), Galan (1962) and Prince Nathan (1979). Agents of the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] Emperor [[Justinian I|Justinian]] abduct Nathan shortly after his birth, and he is eventually rescued by Arn. Earlier, in strips from 1964, Arn leads an expedition to America. In strips from 1987 Val becomes a grandfather when Arn and his wife, Maeve, daughter of the traitorous [[Mordred]], give birth to Ingrid.<ref name=mark/><ref name=bayly/><ref>[http://users.skynet.be/fb352790/PV/Intro/charac.html The Characters]</ref>