Welcome to Unifying VALIANT, our celebration of the 25-year anniversary of VALIANT’s companywide crossover ‘Unity.’ A precursor to the now omnipresent annual comic event, ‘Unity’ and VALIANT changed the face of the comic industry in the early ‘90’s. In each entry we’ll be focusing on one of the company’s storylines until culminating at ‘Unity.’ Follow along as we dig deep and rediscover what made VALIANT the innovative and revolutionary company it was.
This week we’re coming face-to-face with VALIANT’s time displaced anti-hero, the killing machine known as X-O Manowar, as he makes his first appearance in ‘Retribution.’
It’s Place within VALIANT:
“X-O Manowar” is very much a part of the ’90s comic landscape. Not only in its popularity or its long-standing presence, but in its styling and storytelling. Representing VALIANT’s third major new character introduction, X-O was instantly popular based on the comic’s ruthless violence and over the top storytelling. The story of a barbarian in modern times with alien technology and a chip on his shoulder could only really go in one direction, and VALIANT did not disappoint.
Written through a collaboration between Jim Shooter and Steve Englehart, the story told through the first 4 issues is mostly Englehart’s, as his agreement had been to do the first four issues in a “Shooter” style before moving on to his own character in “Shadowman.” How much direction was provided by Shooter is unknown, although there has been some turmoil between Shooter and Englehart regarding these four particular issues in the past. Regardless of the backstory involving this instance, the net result is that Englehart only worked on these four particular “X-O Manowar” issues. The credits also include Bob Layton’s writing contributions for issue #4. Layton had a heavy hand in the creation of the character and would become the series regular writer from issue #5 – #16.
From a creative standpoint the initial storyline features a large number of contributors. Barry Windsor-Smith and Bob Layton provided art duties for the initial issue, with Sal Velluto handling the majority of the remainder. Layton would also assist by inking issue #2, with a menagerie of creators rounding out the last two issues. The same hodgepodge of creative teams would hold true on the coloring and lettering side of things. This should come as no surprise as it is well known that VALIANT was stretched extremely thin at the time and was trying to maximize their creators’ outputs.
In a departure from VALIANT’s marketing formula, “X-O Manowar” did not feature any coupons, flipbooks, inserts, or any other such marketing paraphernalia. However, in true VALIANT fashion the story did not begin with a proper origin. Instead we jump into the character already into his adventure. Aric of Dacia’s origin would later be told in “X-O Manowar” #0, which would be released in August 1993, and sell over 800,000 issues. A testament to the character’s popularity, issues #1-4 would later be collected into a trade paperback format, selling an additional 150,000 copies. These four initial issues though did not enjoy such voluminous distribution highpoints. Issue #1 featured a print run of 70,000 units, while issues #2-#4 had print runs between 40,000 and 45,000 units.
Storyline Summary:
“X-O Manowar” #1-4
Publication dates: February 1992 – May 1992
Written by Jim Shooter, Steve Englehart & Bob Layton
Penciled by Barry Windsor-Smith, Sal Velluto, Bob Layton, John Holdredge & Mike Manley
Inked by Bob Layton, Tom Ryder, Kathryn Bolinger, Ted Halsted & Ralph Reese
Colored by Jorge Gonzalez & Paul Autio
Lettered by Jade Moede & Ken Lopez
Aric of Dacia, a Visigoth from 5th century Europe, rips through a cadre of Spider-Aliens. A longtime prisoner of the grotesque arachnoids, Aric has seized an opportunity to make his escape. Armed with only a rudimentary pickax he eviscerates the hard-skinned foes. Making his way through their spaceship he comes across an empty Manowar class X-O armor. Knowing it to be a form of armor, he dons it, and is amazed at its power. Quickly he destroys the vessel and escapes back to Earth. Unbeknownst to him, his body has been dormant for over a thousand years, and he finds himself in modern day South America. Integrating amongst a local village, it’s not long before the Spider-Aliens track him down and kill everyone he knows.
Continued belowUtilizing the armor and an informant, Aric tracks the Spider-Aliens to New York. Ambushed by the creatures, it makes little difference. Aric is virtually unstoppable in the armor. The informant, Ken, realizes this and switches sides. With Ken’s help Aric is able to track down every Spider-Alien in the vicinity and kill them all. Aric, with Ken at his side, overtakes the Spider-Alien’s operation. Controlling their businesses, operations, offices and bank accounts.
It’s not long before Aric’s success against the Spider-Aliens brings him to the attention of Toyo Harada. Thinking him a threat, Harada sends an assassin to hunt Aric down. Catching Aric by surprise the assassin is able to hurt the X-O armor. Ultimately though, Aric is victorious, and through the actions of the fight Harada realizes that Aric is not working with the Spider-Aliens, but against them.
Thinking it’d be best to have Aric as an ally, Harada arranges a meeting with him and Ken. The meeting would serve a dual purpose; recruiting Aric as an ally by apologizing for the assassin, as well as gauging his strength and manipulability. They meet in New Orleans and hit it off. As they drink Harada is ambushed by the Harbinger kids. Not knowing their intentions Aric comes to Harada’s aid. As Aric, Harada and the Harbinger kids battle back and forth, ultimately all sides disengage and retreat. Leaving Harada confident that he can manipulate Aric when the time comes.
Review:
While “X-O Manowar” has generally been regarded as a highpoint for VALIANT comics, and its popularity is a testament to that, it’s been difficult to get a clear pulse for this storyline. There is such a wild swing in quality and presentation regarding the artwork that it throws you off if you’re reading the entire arc in one sitting. It is quite a testament to the various creators that the story has as much fluidity as it does. Nevertheless, while this is a knock on the comic, it is not a significant one. The series is utterly charismatic, and draws you in with its violence and no nonsense storyline. It is easy to see why X-O would become one of the darlings of the 90’s, as he ticked off almost all the boxes for a riveting character during the decade of Image, Jim Lee & Lobo.
First and foremost the highpoint, as with all the VALIANT comics reviewed up to now, is the writing. However, unlike all the VALIANT issues written up till now, this instance would feature Jim Shooter only acting as a collaborator. Steve Englehart and Bob Layton would provide the majority of the scripting duties. Yet, they did so in a very Shooter-esque style, as the casual reader would be hard-pressed to pick out the variations. Within the arc the issue that is easiest to pinpoint as being written by someone other than Shooter is issue #4. There is a certain degree of playfulness that comes across which hadn’t been present in the first three issues. Similarly, without knowing for certain, I’d venture that issue #1 had the most Shooter contributions. There is a certain cadence to the issue, not to mention that killing of Aric’s interest, Maria, that ring out with Shooter’s risqué writing style at the time.
While the writing and plotting are the true stars of “X-O Manowar,” the artwork holds its own, with a varying degree of detail. Issue #1 is nothing short of gorgeous, which really should come as no surprise given it featured Barry Windsor-Smith and Bob Layton. Sal Velluto’s work on issue #2 & #3 is very respectable as well. While there is nothing overly flashy about his style, it is crisp and pleasing. A highpoint of the Velluto issues is one particular panel where the female Spider-Alien is trying to seduce Aric. Aric shuns her away and tosses her out the window where she shows her true form. The whole sequence is rather disturbing as Aric himself cannot believe he was being seduced by such a grotesque being.
This leads us to the Spider-Aliens, which are of course the main antagonists of the series. It’s a tad peculiar to read so many consecutive issues spanning a variety of characters and even timelines where you have a single recurring antagonist. Clearly the Spider-Aliens are great bad-guys. They are unapologetically evil with a cultural perspective that justifies their invading of our planet and their use of humans as a food source. In effect they are the perfect foil to our heroes, as killing them, even by the thousands, would cause no moral quandary. Yet, if you take the timeframes in which they have appeared thus far you basically have them established on Earth, and their eventual final defeat in the year 4001 A.D. While this leaves us with an origin that can still be explored, it also leaves us with potential lack of resolution. We know in essence that no matter what happens within the pages of any VALIANT comic that the Spider-Aliens will survive and be back by the year 4001 A.D. Does this take anything away from their presence within these pages? It very well could if not treated correctly. However, it also opens us up to interesting opportunities, as they always need to be able to come back.
Coming up Next:
Next up we go back and visit the good doctor, as “Solar, Man of the Atom” has some cleaning up to and loose ends to tie up revolving his rebirth. It’ll be our last visit with Phil Seleski before VALIANT jumps into full crossover mode. Go out and read “Solar, Man of the Atom” #8 – #11 as we inch closer to ‘Unity.’
