Publisher: Valiant Comics
Writer: Robert Venditti
Artist: Diego Bernard (pencils) Ryan Winn (inks)
Colourists: Brian Reber
Release date: May 13 2015
Price: $3.99

X-O Manowar has a fun premise: what if Conan was Iron Man? More specifically, what if a Visigoth barbarian king wore sentient armour?

Aric of Dacia, abducted by aliens, finding the robot suit and then escaping said aliens, is learning how that premise works pretty quickly. However, by the time Aric of Dacia returns to Earth centuries have passed and the world Dacia remembered is gone. Instead of the life Dacia wanted he finds himself thrust into a space opera involving extinct Armour Hunters and the drone robot army the Hunters deploy, the Dead Hand.

Writer Venditti lays out a simple yet compelling plot, and Aric’s dialogue befits a barbarian. Aric has no patience for fools or priests. Bernard’s designs of the other sentient armours and the aliens who don them are imaginatively drafted..

X-O Manowar is not exploring metaphysical ideas of science fiction. It’s more E.E. Smith than Philip K. Dick. It’s action and adventure and when it’s done this well that is no bad thing either. Sometimes belly button gazing does not cut the mustard but space opera does.

And in X-O Manowar, it always has.

Review: Joe (The King) Lovece
Reviews Editor: Steve (The Man) Hooker