TPB winners 03

X-O Manowar Retribution

Art by Barry Windsor-smith,Sal Velluto,and Mike Manley

Story by Bob Layton,Jim Shooter,and Steve Englehart

X-O Manowar is the title that got me into the Valiant Universe. X-O is a barbarian who aquires a alien suit of armor,kinda a Conan in Iron Man's suit type of hero. This trade reprints the first 4 issues of the original X-O run. It also included a X-O Database comic that had various diagrams of X-O's armor. Kidnapped many years ago by a race of spider aliens,Aric lives for a few years as a slave on the alien mothership. But thanks to the help of another slave he gets a map to the spider aliens ultimate weapon. This is the X-O Manowar class armor. Aric manages to get the armor and escapes the ship and heads back to Earth,but it turns out he is now in the year 1993. Somehow even though only 2 or 3 years have passed while he was on the mothership,in realtime many decades have passed. So he is a man out of his time.Using his armor he fights back against the spider aliens and various other threats. Aric finds out that the spider aliens have been hiding on Earth for many years and have started up a multi-national company, Orb Industries. Aric with the help of a kinda sleazy weasel of a man manages to take over Orb and through this he slowly becomes used to the modern world.When I started reading X-O it was with issue 4,but thanks to not having a comic shop near me,I didn't manage to get issues with any regularity until around issue 15. And back in the early to mid 90's most Valiant back issues cost way more than I wanted to pay. The previously mentioned issue 4,which was the first appearnce of the Shadowman,I ended up selling for around $40.So when I finally got this trade sometime last year,it was the first time I got to read the first 3 issues of this series. And I was very impressed at how well written these issues are. One complaint about the various Valiant series back in the 90's was that the stories were great but the artwork wasn't that good. Well these 4 issues are proof of how wrong that was. Issue 1 has layouts by Barry Windsor-smith,finishes by Bob Layton and John Holdredge. The story in this issue is by Jim Shooter and Steve Englehart. And has a amazing Barry Windsor-smith cover that I would love a poster sized version of. The second issue has another very nice Barry Windsor-smith cover,and is penciled by Sal Velluto,inks by Bob Layton,Tom Ryder,and Kathryn Bolinger. Now this issue the art isn't as good as the first,but really there is few artist out there that can come close to BWS. Issue 3 has a cover by David Lapham,and is gotta be one of his earliest published pieces of comic art. The interior has again Shooter and Englehart doing the writing chores,and Sal on the pencils. The inks are by Tom Ryder and Ted Halsted. And the final issue reprinted in this trade,issue 4.Though there is no credit to who did the cover to my eyes it looks like another good Barry Windsor-smith cover.The writers are Bob Layton and Steve Englehart,with Mike Manley doing the pencils,and Ralph Reese and Tom Ryder slinging the ink. Issue 4 I have already mentioned has the cameo first appearance of Shadowman,but it also has a very early appearance of the Harbinger kids. Overall the art work while not as flashy as alot of the art coming out from Image and Marvel at the time is still very solid and to me at least more appealing. One nice thing is now you can find this trade on various auction sites for less than cover price,I think I paid about $3 with shipping for my copy. X-O Manowar Retribution trade paperback gets a B+.