X-O Manowar Number 3 from Valliant Comics

Edited by Jody LeHeup

Cover by Mico Suayan

Written by Robert Venditti

Inks by Stefano Gaudiano

This is about the time that this comic book starts picking up pace and becoming interesting. The first two issues were good for basic understanding of what the story line was going to be about, and introducing the main characters. But now that Aric has the X-O Manowar armor he is getting to be a lot more interesting right now. The setup is starting to become interesting as well with the priestly class trying to understand why a slave can use the armor of Shanhara, and killing aliens at the same time, there is going to be a disconnect in how the priest class and the warrior class are going to deal with one really pissed off human being. You simply don’t kidnap people, treat them as slaves, and not expect a little rebellion here and there. Odds of a rebellion are more likely if one of the humans can get his hands on and successfully operate the X-O Manowar armor. The final battle between Commander Trill is pretty awesome, with some interesting flashbacks as Airc wins, loses, wins, and then gets attacked again and again during this scene. Sometimes you need to remember why you want to go home, and flashing back to your wife is a good thing.

As far as rebellions go, this one is ok, a ship full of prisoners or slaves, one man with super armor who can just about kick everyone’s butt, and some excellent drawing are making this revival series much more interesting than the original one back in the 1990’s when I first read the series.

There are always interesting ideas that crop out between an original series, and the reboot. It is good to see X-O Manowar starting to pick up the pace and coming into its own with this third installment of the series. Well written if a little hard to read at times, nice use of color, linking and lettering overall though. More to the point though is that the updates work here in ways that other reboots sometimes don’t work out the way that you might think they should. I am going to rate this one 4 of 5 stars, again I had a little problem reading it at times, but overall I did get into the story and it is good to see this story line finally picking up the pace.