Since its launch in 2012, “X-O Manowar” has been the book that spearheaded the Valiant relaunch into the 21st century. But all stories must come to an end, as we have a chat with series scribe, Robert Venditti, on what is to come for King Aric in the grand finale along with some exclusive art from the upcoming “X-O Manowar” #47 by Roberto de la Torre & Dean White”.
With the conclusion of “The Kill List” in issue #46, we have the fight being brought literally to Aric’s doorstep. As the stage for the finale has been set, how has it been charting this character’s development for so long?
RV: I feel so fortunate to have been writing a character for this span of time and to be able to start out with an origin story and really do a long-form arc. It’s not something you get a chance to do very often. I see Aric’s story at a macro level. It’s about his adjustment from being a time-displaced Visigoth warrior to adjusting to the modern world. Sub-textually, looking behind that, I see it as his journey—about how he has evolved as a hero. In his own time, a hero was defined as somebody who could be quite merciless, who ran out on the battlefield and hacked apart as many enemies as he could. When Aric came to the modern day, he certainly behaved that way. But over time he has become much more of a peacekeeper. I think it has been interesting to see that develop, and to see him grow. It even surprised me as the writer to see how much he changed.
With the Finale comes a group known as “The Torment”, which has been seeded for a while now in the culture of the Vine. Have they always been the endgame you had in mind?
RV: Not from day one. But for quite a while now we knew that the story was going to end this way, and that we were going to use the Torment, who I think readers believed were mythological up to this point—a religious fable. This is where we would discover that they’re real, what they’re all about, and unravel the final mysteries about how they’re connected to the X-O Manowar armor and why they’ve come to Earth.
Joining you on art duties for the finale is two very good -and very different- artists, Joe Bennett and Roberto de la Torre. How is this going to impact the story structure of the final arc?
RV: Joe is going to handle most of what I would call the “A story,” which would be the stuff that is happening in the present – the battles, the fight scenes, the Valiant Universe marshalling their forces – as they find themselves facing this nigh-omnipotent adversary, the Torment. Roberto is going to handle a different section of each issue that I’m almost reticent to talk about, because I don’t want to reveal too much. The Torment are here for a specific reason that’s tied to Aric and the armor, and there will be a visual component to it that Roberto will be drawing.
You’ve been teamed with so many great artists in the past, from Cary Nord and Lee Garbett to Clay Mann and Robert Gill. If you could have just one more issue with any of them, who would it be?
RV: It’s an impossible choice. They’re all such great artists, and they all have such unique voices. And there are so many who you’ve left off the list, whether it’s Diego Bernard or Doug Braithwaite or Rafa Sandoval. The list goes on and on, the number of talented artists that I have been blessed to collaborate with on this book. So I’ll just say, wouldn’t it be neat if I got to work with a bunch of them on the same issue?
As the flagship book, “X-O” saw the reintroduction of many concepts (Ninjak and the Armorines) and the introduction of new ones (Armor Hunters). I am always curious as to how much change goes between the original plans and final production. What were some ideas that saw the most change between conception and completion?
Continued belowRV: It’s hard to say because it’s not like these things were conceived in a vacuum. Whether it was the introduction of Ninjak or the Armorines, or the creation Armor Hunters, there was always me working with [Valiant Editor-in-Chief] Warren [Simons] and other editors, and planning that stuff out from the beginning. It’s hard to define a start point and an end point. I don’t know that any of them are vastly different from when they were conceived. But that’s because we conceived them in order to accomplish certain things, so they stayed true to that in order to accomplish what we needed to accomplish.
Before The End begins, you and Clayton Henry are going to take us to the future with the “4001 A.D.: X-O Manowar” one-shot. How did it feel to play in the–up until now–kind of isolated part of the Valiant sandbox that is 4001?
RV: Those kinds of issues are always so much fun to write because when you’re writing a run that has—I think we’re going to be at 56 issues by the time it’s all over with—there’s a lot of continuity inherent there. So when you get the chance to do something like The Fall of X-O Manowar for Book of Death or this issue for 4001 A.D., where you really get to go out and do something different, it’s always a nice break from the more long-form plotting. Even with the X-O Manowar Annual that’s coming up, the main story that Pere Perez and I did, that’s set in the past. We were able to step back from the continuity, and do something more freestanding.
You have been at Valiant since this gamble of a relaunch began. As the book continued and success garnered, how did the working relationship change?
RV: Warren was the guy who hired me and brought me in at the beginning, and from day one I could tell that we were going to be friends. We’ve always gotten along really well in terms of just joking with each other and having fun with it. And comics should be fun. It’s an industry that can be difficult, especially with monthly comics. Every 28 days a book has to go, and it can be really hard to do that month in and month out. For me, I wouldn’t want to do it if I didn’t enjoy the people I was working with. I could go do something else and be miserable, you know? But even beyond that, whether it’s Dinesh Shamdasani, Fred Pierce, Josh Johns, Hunter Gorinson, or Atom Freeman—all people who’ve been there from the beginning—plus all the new people they’ve brought in since, it’s always been real family environment. That’s never changed.
“X-O” is ending, but you will still be at Valiant with “Wrath of the Eternal Warrior” (with the “Labyrinth” arc starting soon). Any teases on any other upcoming work you’d like to give?
RV: You never know what the future holds!
“Long Live The King” Begins in “X-O Manowar #47” on Sale June 29th.
