X-O Manowar Deluxe Edition, Book 1

I was excited to hear Valiant comics was going to begin publishing again; not only because I was a fan of a lot of the original series, but also because I think that it's good for the comics industry to have people other than the “big two” creating within the superhero genre. So I was predisposed to liking this series, but I wasn't expecting how much I would like it.

Robert Venditti and Cary Nord tell a simplified version of X-O's origin - aliens kidnap a group of Visigoth warriors to work as slaves, and one of them steals an advanced suit of armor and escapes in it, unaware that relativistic speeds and space travel means he returns to an Earth 1600 years apart from the one he left. It's a story that contains a lot of standard pulp/superhero tropes, but it doesn't really feel like a superhero story at all; rather, it's a sci-fi story that just happens to be set in a larger world that contains people with superheroic abilities, if that makes any sense.

There's still some superhero-type content here; I mean, when Aric begins to fight the Vine aliens that have infiltrated MI-5, they send their best ninja (~!) after him in response. It's a minor element, and it keeps the story from getting too “grim and gritty”. I'm looking forward to seeing what Aric does next.