The Ultimate/Absolute-style relaunch of the Valiant line continues with Valiant Beyond: The X-O Manowar #1. Written by Steve Orlando and the art department consisting of Guillermo Fajardo (artist), Lautaro Ftuli (color), Ludwig Olimba (flats), and Ezezuiel Inverni (letters), the series has the right mix of big names and consistent Valiant talent on the book.
Issue #1 focuses on Aric of Dacia, the X-O Manowar, traveling the wasteland where he is forced into conflict while defending a family. His interference places him right in the middle of a larger battle within the Red Steppe.
Valiant
After the consistent positive reviews from the other Valiant Beyond #1 relaunch titles (All-New Harbinger, Bloodshot, Tales of the Shadowman), with a common theme that they are really pushing the boundaries of the reboot and introducing a lot of fresh new ideas into this universe, The X-O Manowar #1 doesn’t quite hit the same mark.
So what went wrong? It is more that not much went right. The wasteland setting is uninspiring and features the expected “good guy” counter group battling the big, bad, Mad Max-style, violent roving gang. Issue #1 was played very seriously for the first half, then switched with the character reveal of Doctor Demolition. A definite tonal shift occurred with the new character introduction, and I just don’t know what to do with the world after reading the entire issue.
Valiant
With how much has been made about seeing what you’ve never seen before with this relaunch, so much of the book was a rehash of the expected…until the final three pages. And those final three pages, with the full reveal of the big bad Typhon, is what gives me hope. Typhon has interesting powers and a cool tease of where his powers come from, and the saving grace of this first arc will be how they handle the continuation of his story.
Fajardo on art was a mixed bag. I loved the still panels and the dynamic poses of the characters. There is a two-page spread in the middle of the book that is almost worth the price of admission alone. His action scenes were in your face, and you can feel the impact. Where the art struggled was on the transitional panels – there wasn’t enough movement between panels, which caused pages to become disjointed and confusing to navigate. That could potentially fall on the script if there wasn’t ample enough pacing created to allow scenes to breathe, but I had multiple moments where I had to re-read a page because I didn’t understand how I got to the final panel or who was attacking whom.
So in the end, solid art is hampered by inconsistent pacing, and a tight script that did as much showing, not telling as it could. The X-O Manowar #1 doesn’t know what it wants to be – it’s part ’90s comic camp, part stoic and serious, part ’80s one-man army action movie. The genre gumbo isn’t quite working yet, but if you’re a fan of the X-O Manowar character and the overall Valiant Beyond relaunch, I wouldn’t give up on this series after the opener.
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