CTDB: X-O Manowar 1

Shaun reviews Valiant Comic's X-O Manowar #1!


Based entirely off of my enjoyment of Valiant Comics’ Free Comic Book Day offering, I picked up their relaunch of X-O Manowar, the 1993 creation by Marvel Comics alums Jim Shooter and Bob Layton.  Robert Venditti the writer/creator of the comic mini-series The Surrogates turns in a solid if not by the numbers script.  The real star of the comic however is penciler Cary Nord and inker Stefano Gaudino’s art.  While not overly lush or eye-popping their work effectively tells the story being crafted by Venditti.  Fans of old-school sharp line work will probably highly enjoy this tag-teams’ style.

I have never read a single Valiant Comics offering from the 1990s.  My only knowledge of them came through ads in Wizard magazines from my childhood.  Wow, I am only 28 and yet that sentence makes me sound ancient.  In any case, the basic plot of X-O Manowar is a fun one.  Aric is the headstrong nephew of King Alaric, the leader of the Visigoths who are at war with the Roman Empire in 402 A.D.  The story begins at the Battle of Pollentia where the Visigoths are thoroughly whipped in open combat against the genius of Roman military strategy.  Fans of history will no doubt find the opening ten pages of this comic to be some of the most enjoyable.  I also really liked the “Hickman-esque” inset statistical breakdown of the two armies’ capabilities at the beginning.

After their defeat at the battle, Aric leads a group of soldiers to raid a Roman camp because he has been told that his wife and other Visigoth women were captured during the army’s retreat.  But along the way things take a decidedly sci-fi turn.  Aric and his companions mistake an alien spacecraft for a Roman caravan and foolishly attack a technologically superior force.  Meanwhile back at the Visigoth camp a group of these aliens, for reasons unknown, swap out a human child for one of their own (whose genetic make-up is spliced with that of the infant and takes on human appearance).  Aric however is taken captive, and imprisoned on an alien space colony (the aliens are called the Vine and revere plants).  He breaks free and witnesses the Vine attempt to bind one of their soldiers to “The Armor of Shanhara.”  The armor rejects its’ host killing the alien in the process.  The issue ends with Aric getting recaptured, but in his cell with other human companions plots to escape again and steal said armor.

So yeah, a lot happens in this first issue but it reads really quickly and never lingers to long on any particular event.  I’m definitely intrigued, but I may wait for the trade.  It was solid, but the scripting by Venditti lacked any gripping moments.  I do know from solicitations that Aric does get the armor (I mean like he wouldn’t), but when he makes it back to Earth it is 1600 years into the future.  The prospect of mixing a man-out-of-time with futuristic technology sounds like an entertaining one, so I’ll keep my eyes open.