I had fond memories of the original X-O series from Valiant Comics back in the early 90s. It was an intriguing concept of what would happen if you give a primitive warrior an alien Iron Man armor type artifact and dropped him into the modern world.

This collection of the first four issues didn’t really live up to those memories. The central concept is still an interesting one and it’s full of potential, but the execution of the original set up leaves something to be desired. It’s very uneven in pacing and tone, not helped by having three different creative teams in just four issues. Distractingly other members of the growing Valiant Universe of characters are suddenly shoe-horned in without adding to the plot.

Not sure it was worth the revisit in the end. ( )

Valiant Comics was one of those great indy comic companies that started up in the 90s. It contained a few characters from the old Gold Key Comics, and some new creations. X-O Manowar was one of them.

This trade collects the first four issues of the first X-O Manowar series. Here we meet Aric, the Visigoth taken from the 4th century by spider-alien invaders wanting to study humans. The story opens as he finally makes his efforts to revenge himself on his jailers and free himself of their capture by getting a hold of a very special suit of armor, called x-o by the aliens, manowar class (hence the comic name).

Aric's origins are explained in this collection. We also see his earliest interactions with Solar (one of the Gold Key characters Valiant picked up) and the group of heroes known as the Harbingers.

I really enjoyed Valiant's early days, before Acclaim bought them out. They really had something going with their universe. This trade is proof of that. ( )