Cracks in the armor.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Kindt
Art: Doug Braithwaite
Colors: Diego Rodriguez
Letters: Dave Sharpe
What They Say:
The price of victory!
From the bloodied battlefields to the highest seat of imperial power, there is something rotten in Aric of Dacia’s new home… With an entire planet in turmoil, the mighty warrior once known as X-O Manowar can trust no one, especially those he holds dearest. But will the former hero of Earth rise and become the champion of his adopted planet…or will his growing horde of enemies crush him where he stands?
“GENERAL” comes to its unrelenting finale here as New York Times best-selling writer Matt Kindt (DIVINITY, Mind MGMT) and superstar artist Doug Braithwaite (BLOODSHOT U.S.A.) ready Valiant’s unstoppable hero for his greatest challenge to power yet!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
It’s been building up since issue one. From the moment Aric first met the Azurian general, we all knew that it was going to come down to one killing the other. Considering that the title of the comic is X-O Manowar and not Azurian General Whose Name No One Remembers, I’m betting on Aric.
Strange, powerful monoliths appeared in the skies above the Burnt territories, destroying villages and driving refugees to the borders of the Azurian Empire. The Azurian Emperor wants nothing to do with the refugees and sends his favored Captain Aric to eradicate the fleeing Burnt. Instead of following orders, Aric meets with the Burnt’s leader to see if a peaceful solution can be found. Not surprisingly, everyone involved sees the Emperor’s hand working behind the scenes.
The situation finally reached critical mass and the issue begins with Aric meeting with his most trusted lieutenants in an isolated location to air his suspicions and ask for their aid for when the time comes. His soldiers pledge to follow him to hell and back, and that may be where he takes them.
Aric then goes to meet with several politicians to see if they would support his bid for peace with the Burnt. Their answer is drowned in vomit and cries of pain as they succumb to poison placed in their food. Aric and his lieutenant (whose name I can’t remember for the life of me) by luck or providence avoided the poisoned food and drink, but find themselves in a fight for their lives against a group of Azurian assassins. Aric manages to capture one of them and learns that the general ordered the attack.
You can imagine where he went from there.
Once again, X-O Manowar moves at breakneck speed. Events tumble after the other with no time for rest or reflection between them for both the characters and the readers. The book is bold and exciting and Aric is a tragic, complex character, but six issues in, the cracks have appeared.
One crack is that the comic is repeating itself a bit too much. Six issues of Aric vocally deal with his love/hate relationship with the X-O suit has gotten old. The story tries to make his inevitable acceptance of it a tragic, almost fated decision, but the more he protests, the more I don’t buy it, and the more I just want him to put on the damn suit and get over it. There comes a point when tragedy devolves into self-pity and whining, and Aric’s reached that point for me.
Another crack comes with the side characters. I wasn’t kidding when I said I couldn’t name the lieutenant that accompanied Aric, or the name of the general that Aric kills at the end. They possess no real life or history and leave no impression whatsoever. In fact, every other character in this book, except for Schon, is two-dimensional and lifeless, and Schon isn’t even in the story that much anymore. Her role is simply to worry about Aric and make meaningful looks at the armor. The only characters that possess any sort of life and history are Aric and the armor. Perhaps that’s the point—Aric’s bond with the suit is all-encompassing, so naturally every other person in the world would come off flat and lifeless in comparison. Regardless if it’s intentional or not, it takes away from the story. It isolates Aric—making his whining all the worse because of it—and it misses prime opportunities to build the world and create a greater sense of verisimilitude.
The art also suffers a bit. Doug Braithwaite and Deigo Rodriguez still create rich backgrounds, believable characters, and exciting action scenes, but there must have been some kind of miscommunication because they draw Aric wearing his armor even though he actually isn’t. At the very beginning of the story, it looks like Aric is wearing the X-O suit, minus the helmet and sleeves, but five pages later, when he and his lieutenants leave, the scene lingers on Schon looking pensive and talking to the full armor. It’s visually confusing. Is Aric wearing the underarmor, but not the full set? Did he have pants made to look like the bottom of his suit? His ability to access the armor’s power while away from it has always been ill-defined, but this issue takes it too far.
So far, the cracks aren’t wide enough to ruin the structural integrity of the comic, but they do stand as warning signs for what’s to come. Although I’m still enjoying the title, it’s beginning to get a bit too recursive. Hopefully the big event at the end of the issue will herald a change in the status quo and shake things up a bit.
In Summary:
X-O Manowar #6 is a fun issue, but the cracks in the armor are starting to show. The story is too recursive, the supporting characters thinner than the paper they’re printed on, and a key element of the art was very confusing. I’ll be back of issue seven, though, and with any luck, these problems will be sorted by then. Dr. J gives this a…
Grade: B
Age Rating: T+
Released By: Valiant Comics
Release Date: 23 August 2017
MSRP: $3.99
