Pretty straightforward. Not bad but not particularly great either. Still the pulpy premise--space Conan!--has always intrigued me about X-O. BTW, the art is great, there just isn't a lot more than a by the numbers origin story here. ( )

This has been described as Conan the Barbarian meets the Iron Man armour, and well, I can't really argue with that.

This was a promising start. Aric comes off a bit too stupid to live in some places, but I assume his character is going to have some growth. The Vine are an interesting villain, although they veer into evil caricatures sometimes. They story is mostly set up, but it was interesting set up, that left lots of questions I'm desperate to have answered.

As for the art, I didn't really have any strong opinions one way or another. There wasn't any panels I hated, and there were a couple I quite liked, so I'd say it's more a strength than a weakness. ( )

X-O Manowar is being relaunched as the flagship title for the newly revamped Valiant Comics. Back in the 90s, Valiant was one of the stronger of the influx of new independent publishers that were popping up due to the strong stories they were producing, but as with all good things, their time came to an end. Last year, Valiant was rekindled and started fresh, rebooting some of their more popular titles from the 90s, and my local comic shop was running a deal for the first volume of X-O Manowar and Harbinger for $5 each, so I thought I'd give them both a try.

Aric, heir to the Visigoth throne, has been battling against the armies of the Roman Empire until he and his men are captured by an alien race to be used as slaves. After years of being subjugated by the alien race, Aric leads an uprising on their ship which leads him to accidentally activating the aliens' greatest weapon, the X-O Manowar armor, which they have yet to successfully harness. After he destroys the alien ship, he uses the armor to fly back to Earth, where he lands in modern times. And that's basically all that happens.

Don't get me wrong. It was a good start to a story, but to be using this as the flagship title for their reboot was a poor choice, in my opinion. There just wasn't much to this story. I'll be picking up the next collected edition when it is released, because there is definitely the potential for some great storytelling here, what with Aric having to come to terms with being out of his own time as well as learning how the armor operates. ( )

I wanted to like this, the story is neat. Old roman warriors are imprisoned on an alien spacecraft and are praying for the day they catch their big break and escape. The main character is chosen to use the special suit the aliens have been looking for a suitor for, and thus super warrior. Great concept, quick read, but definitely for hardcore space/sci-fi fans. ( )