X-O Manowar

Sigh, Much better!

Rai #10 which I recently had a chance to read and review for The Comic Book Community on Google+ is an a gorgeous, visual spectacle that is a joy to look at. The drawings throughout the book are excellent with some of the panels being of such quality that I would gladly mount them on my wall & would in fact blow them up to poster size! I made a point of mentioning one panel specifically in my review & while I can’t show you the whole book here, you’ll probably see in the capture below some of what I mean? The color’s are vivid and beautiful and draw you in to the story in a way that X-O Manowar #40 (reviewed here) simply did not. While X-O was in some ways more graphic and realistic, Rai by contrast is art & I think the difference in styles between these books does nothing more than further emphasize the difference between the East and the West.

Now while the art was superlative, the story … well that was a bit disjointed. Not that it was bad … on the contrary, it was quite interesting, the problem was that it was not complete and seemed to jump from place to place without any real reason and justification. Some of the best parts of the book were impacted by this pattern in fact with huge battle sequences starting on one panel and seemingly being completed elsewhere with no sight of the action which is what we all buy comics for!

I’m sure that you too are a comic book fan (otherwise you would not be reading this review) and overall I think Valiant has done an excellent job in the two books I’ve recently had an opportunity to look at. Their characters are interesting and have a decent back story, but they each still have some bugs to work out. While a story is absolutely the most important thing in a book, with comics, its probably the art – both the cover and the interior and in this case, that’s been the deciding factor in pushing Rai ahead of X-O. If they could hit it out of the park on both fronts though, then I think they’d be in a much better place overall and could reasonably challenge some of the big boys on the block.

I’d love to see stories that match some of the classics from the 90s, ones that are like Days of Future Past or the Mutant Massacre from Uncanny X-Men. These series not only had an amazing story, but they had the art to go with it and it matched what was in the story. There were some amazing action sequences and set piece battles and Marvel Comics wasn’t afraid to share these stories with us. If Valiant expects to get to the next level they are going to have to start writing AND drawing books that match.

I’ve recently joined an excellent community where I can share my passion of comics and comic books and one of the first titles I had the pleasure of reviewing for them was X-O Manowar #40 which you can read on the CBC Google + page here. X-O Manowar is a man literally out of his time. Captured by an alien race (the Vine) prior to the birth of Christ, X-O after his escape and return to Earth finds a world and people very different to the world he left. Overall lots happening in this issue with X-O forced to mediate between Humanity and the Vine while at the same time a parallel story is occurring with some loyalist Vine infiltrators.

It’s been a long time since I last read X-O Manowar (probably over 10 years) but it was surprisingly easy to get back into this book and I think that’s for a couple of key reasons!

The interior art of the book is really, really good. I wouldn’t put it at the same level as Jim Lee or John Bryne (my personal fan favorites) but its clean, crisp and neat with some extremely good shots and sequences that not only pull you into the action, they help make it real.
The initial recap and precis at the beginning of the book is short and to the point, but it gives you just the right amount of detail to help you know what’s going on, who the key characters are and why they are fighting or helping each other. I’ve read many novels that are nowhere near this concise or clear and its a real pleasure when you are exposed to a book that gets right to the point.

While I’ve made a point of mentioning the interior artwork, one particular scene definitely jumped out at me and that was when one of the Vine infiltrators dressed as a police officer removes a civilian from her way. When I saw that sequence I realized that comics had definitely come a long way and the independent books like Valiant are more than willing to go that extra mile to show the story.

Unfortunately while the interior is excellent the exterior cover of this book is nothing less than extremely boring. By itself I probably would have given this title a pass if that’s all I’d seen of the book, but fortunately I had the chance to see what else this title had to offer and I’m extremely glad that I did. There are many other sequences in the book that could have been used instead of the one they selected and I’m quite disappointed that the cover selected was the one that they used.

That being said the story itself was quite intriguing and while I wouldn’t say that its unique (this isn’t Days of Future Past or anything that completely changes the whole Universe) it was interesting and I’d be interested in seeing where this one goes next.

Rai #10 – how a comic should look!

X-O Manowar #40 (Exodus)