This issue of X-O Manowar is a story of a guy with alien powered weaponry carrying out incredibly violent, often unnecessarily nasty acts. Oh, and the villains seem to be doing something similar too.

We open the issue with a confrontation on a beach, being covertly witnessed by a young woman. Hispanic mobsters bloodily take a guy out using energy weapons of extraterrestrial origin, and the woman escapes with the criminals in hot pursuit.

Through some odd corporate shenanigans, X-O Manowar is soon on the case, almost accidentally, and takes on the villains without any hesitation or holding back on maiming and murdering them.

It’s odd that X-O Manowar takes such a hardline stance with its ‘hero’, who’s more in line with an ultraviolent vigilante like The Punisher than, say, Iron Man. The Punisher wouldn’t take down a union of workers on strike though, offscreen or not, and it’s things like this which makes X-O Manowar feel less badass, and more asshole.

As does his bloody removal of a criminal’s finger after he gets exactly what he needs from him. I get that this was the 90s, and that comics were awkwardly trying to grow up by being super edgy, ‘mature’ and unbelievably violent, but it still leaves a very poor taste in the mouth, given that the unlikeable X-O is supposed to be the character you’re rooting for. Here, he’s little more than a corporate stooge with an unchecked temper.

Hi! I’m Jason, and I write for midlifegamergeek.com, every single day. If you’re interested in supporting original, regularly published, human created content (which has never been plagiarised or otherwise copied from the hard work of other writers), you can donate and help me to keep this site running.

Not only do I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages; as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from these links), but it seems that my work has, at times, been stolen and re-used by lazy, morally bankrupt idiots.

There’s no pressure of course, but I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi.com/geekmid or PayPal.

Any donations are truly appreciated – and I also appreciate you taking the time to read my articles. Remember: this whole article was by Jason Brown, and appeared on midlifegamergeek.com. Take that, Skynet!