X-O Manowar Volume 6: Prelude to Armor Hunters (X-O MANOWAR (VU) TP)

Great story and art. The Armor Hunters story looks to be the best story yet. A lot of interesting characters and developments.

Where we left off: After losing the X-O Manowar armor to Toyo Harada and the fledgling Unity team, Aric and his clan of Visigoths were imprisoned by the United States Military Extraterrestrial Reconnaissance Outpost (M.E.R.O). However, Unity quickly realized the unspoken threat of Harada having such power under his control, and promptly stole the armor back. Returning it to Aric, a deal was established – Aric would be an ally of Unity and, as a price for the freedom and security of his people, work at the behest of M.E.R.O.Volume 6 of X-O Manowar can best be described two books in one. The first gives us our first glimpse into Aric’s new paradigm with M.E.R.O and setting up the Armor Hunters event, and the second is supplemental material that was included as part of the 25th anniversary issue.The supplemental material was nice stuff, but not really my jam. It establishes the tradition Valiant has employed for all its titles reaching issue #25 – a shorter “main story”, and then several small tales that can range from a canonical story about the title to the very ridiculous.The main meat of this volume, though, is the introduction of the Armor Hunters. While Aric is attacked by the insane Malgam amidst the Vine wreckage orbiting Earth, we get glimpses of events occurring deeper in space, revelations about the true nature of the armor, and realization of the threat that is coming.All in all, I would judge this volume as a mixed bag. Regardless, I consider it essential reading for any fan of X-O Manowar or anyone interested in reading the Armor Hunters event.

Reprinting X-O Manowar [2012 ongoing series] #s 23-25, X-O Manowar Volume 6: Prelude To Armor Hunters definitely isn't a collection that should be skipped over because it's "only" a prelude/lead-up and not the big event itself.Ever since the title and the Valiant Universe relaunched in 2012, there's been an unspoken assumption by all the characters that the living Shanhara armor is unique, one of a kind. In Prelude To Armor Hunters, this turns out to have been a mistaken assumption when a team of Chinese astronauts working on salvage in the ruins of the Vine fleet in orbit around Earth come face to face with an unknown alien. The population of Earth is still new enough to the knowledge that aliens are among us that this is a big deal, both to the Chinese space crew and to M.E.R.O., the Military Extraterrestrial Recon Outpost that is, theoretically, loosely in charge of Aric and his X-O Manowar armor (aka Shanhara). When M.E.R.O. picks up a commotion in the Vine wreckage around Earth, Aric is dispatched and ends up face to face with an unknown species wearing what appears to be a twisted, mangled version of his own Shanhara armor. This is just a taste of the revelations to come late in X-O Manowar # 24 and in # 25. The twenty-fifth issue presents a set of short stories, the first one giving us a fuller introduction to the Armor Hunters who get their own Valiant-wide crossover with the next round of trade paperbacks after this one. The 1-page "Bar Fight" tale has Aric meeting up with Shadowman in a little snippet that I suspect isn't official Valiant continuity (but I could be wrong). We get a brief look at Visigoth history in the "Fate Of Kings" and "Battle For The Ages". In between those two, we get the most unlikely story of the bunch, a great tale called "Owly & Wormy In...Shanhara's Day Off.". Yes, in one of the least expected intercompany crossovers in comics history, the sentient Shanhara armor meets up with Owly and Wormy, two of the loveable characters from Andy Runton's great all-ages Owly books. The trade paperback wraps up with some file entries on key characters, shortened versions of the kind of files you see in Official Handbook To The Marvel Universe or DC's Who's Who and Secret Files books, plus not only a cover gallery of all the variant covers for X-O #s 23-25 but also a whole slew of the covers from the complete X-O Manowar issues from Valiant's two previous incarnations, out of continuity now but getting a nice nod of respect in here.All in all, another indispensable volume. I will never understand why Valiant's titles don't sell on par with the topsellers from Marvel, DC, et al.

This collection is good for what it was, but I wanted more. The art is great and Robert Venditi continues his reign as Valiant's longest running continuous writer with more great story material.We get a glimpse of the Armor Hunters themselves and see glimpses of what is coming in the near future for Valiant's Earth and her heroes. The issue is really a bridge between the Unity crossover and the upcomming Armor Hunters event. The fight with Malgam was interesting, but I was bothered by the seeming technical glitches. Malgam not just vaporizing when half of his body is exposed naked in the vacuum of space? I could just about overlook it as the Manowar armor somehow protecting him. But Aric and Malgam talking to each other verbally in a pure vacuum? That just bugged me. At least make the word baloons so that they seem to be transmitting through the armors or something.The 25th issue was good, but I would have rather had all those extra pages devoted to more of the same story about Aric, his people, and everything else happening. No judgement on those who loved the Owly story and some of the other additions, but they just aren't my thing and I would have preferred an issue full of just more of Venditti's great storytelling. Although I didn't mind as much the story about Aric finding his father's burial place. The connection of past and present is an intregal part of this character though, so I like that kind of story more than the Owly type of stuff that doesn't seem connected or part of the actual continuity.Overall though, X-O continues to be one of the best (and most consistently good) titles in Valiants stable of mostly wonderful books. I highly recommend this title and almost all of their other books as well. If you're not already reading all of the titles Valiant is putting out, then you should read more!

Enjoyable! I think that it sets the stage for the Valiant crossover of the armour wars quite nicely. We get to see Aric decide actions as a leader and hero, not as a King. Good reading.