Review: X-O Manowar #13
Creative Team:
Writer: Robert Venditti
Artist: Cary Nord
Color Artist: Moose Bauman
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Cover Art: Trevor Hairsine, & Ryan Sook
How We Got Here: Aric of Dacia was the hotheaded heir to the Visigoth Empire. When his uncle, King Alaric, lead the Visigoths in battle vs. the Romans he saw a disadvantage and ordered his men to retreat. Refusing to escape, Aric charged forward. Respecting his courage and ability in combat caused the Visigoths to follow him.
His action was one of fearlessness, and stupidity. His father was one of many to lose his life because of this. When Aric returned to the Visigoth camp he discovered many of the women and children were kidnapped. Seeking revenge he took a small group to sneak attack the Romans. Instead of Roman Centurions they walked into the path of an alien invasion.
After rushing into another bad situation, Aric and his fellow Visigoths were captured and taken onto the alien’s space ship. When he awakened he realized he was now a slave along with other humans who had the task of tending to the fruit. There were deaths as a result of lack of hunger and exhaustion. Unwilling to simply live out the rest of his years, Aric once again refused to go down without a fight.
Escaping from his cell he came upon a religious ceremony of the alien race the Vine. They had a special suit called Shanhara that killed every member of the Vine who was deemed worthy. Aric approached Shanhara and the suit bonded with him. To the surprise of the Vine it accepted him.
Aric blew up the ship and returned to Earth only to discover that 1600 years have passed since he was abducted. The entire world around him was different. A warrior out of his time and with a suit beyond anything known to man, Aric has a difficult time adjusting and finds conflict with the armies of Earth.
With his presence on Earth he endangered the rest of society, and instead of allowing things just happen he, again, decided to take the battle into his own hands. Aric decides to take the fight to the Vine and returns to their home planet to try and defeat them.
The Issue: On the Vine homeworld, Loam, Aric is without the Shanhara armor. It is explained to him that Shanhara is the god of the Vine and the knowledge of the armor bonding with him has split their people. While some see him as some religious figure others look at this as a valid reason to hunt down and kill him. He takes sanctuary with the few who are friendly, as well as a group of Visigoths he found who were slaves on Loam.
The Vine locates Aric and sends in soldiers to kill him. Without armor it appears that he will be an easy kill. Aric charges forward and discovers that he can call the armor to him. Reunited with the armor, Aric finds himself more than enough to fend off the Vine soldiers. As the people celebrate their freedom, Aric is made aware of the other planets the Vine has visited. He vows to free them all and destroy the Vine empire.
What I Liked: The strongest parts of X-O Manowar emphasize how he’s a man out of time. Not only that but he’s a man out of time with the most sophisticated armor in the world at his fingertips. He is the bull in a china shop as was pointed out when he crossed paths with Ninjak. We’ve seen a great deal of that since the character first came in contact with the people of the 21st century. The Planet Earth storyline takes him away from that.
In Planet Earth he is the closest thing to being the Aric of old. He’s in space, but grounded by the planet he is fighting in with conflict. He is still getting used to his armor, but is able to simply battle the Vine. Which provides some interesting moments.
What I Didn’t Like: This was the first time since before he bonded with the Shanhara that we get to see Aric without the armor. This was the perfect chance to show how much of his warrior instincts are left now that he didn’t have the armor. Would he still be as reckless with a numbers and power disadvantage? Or would he change his methods? This challenge would give Aric a chance to learn and grow.
It was a cool moment to see that he was able to call the Shanhara back to him. This establishes how strong his connection with the armor is, but it came too easy. It was as if he already knew it and didn’t have to earn that knowledge. I would have rather had him earn it back. So this was a short cut that didn’t benefit the story.
Grade:
Coatesvillain
Just a guy who was into this nerd stuff before it's popular. Now that is I'm just happy I have people to talk about it with.
