X-O Manowar completely passed me by when the character, and his series, debuted back in the early 90s. I was already drifting away from comics, partly because they were already becoming more gimmick-led, as well as being style-over-substance, faux-mature, edgy exercises in excess.

Yet Valiant Comics, who I dismissed back then, seemed to buck the industry trends altogether. Sure, their material could veer on the edgy and unnecessarily violent at times, but for the most part they were solidly written as well as looking great from the point of view of the artwork.

Of course, I know that now. And, having been catching up on tons of Valiant Comics that I’ve previously missed, there’s a few that have really stood out to me as ‘new’ favourites.

X-O Manowar is one of them. It’s the tale of Aric of Dacia, an ancient Visigoth warrior who’s abducted by aliens. Escaping their clutches using one of their own suits of biomechanical armour against them, through a bit of timey-wimeyness, he returns to Earth in the then-present day of the 1990s.

This Omnibus collects just under half of the original X-O Manowar series, along with some extra material for context and continuity purposes. As I mentioned in my review of X-O Manowar #1, the series gets off to an odd start by starting at the escape, with little in the way of useful detail, but starting a read with issue #0 (also included in the Omnibus, but published much later, gives everything much more context.

With so many issues included, there’s a really good sense of progression here, and the long form storytelling is really compelling.

Though Aric’s business associate, Ken Clarkson, is treated fairly harshly and (disappointingly) with an unfortunate amount of homophobia rearing its head, the fact that the series has such a prominent gay character given the era it hails from feels particularly unique. It’s a shame he’s shown to be untrustworthy and disloyal so early on, though he does start to become a more positively portrayed character later on.

Much more positive, however, are elements such as the well-handled anti-corporate subsidiary storyline, a brief switch to a female X-O Manowar (and the fallout from that), Aric’s bromance with Native American dinosaur hunter, Turok, and the ongoing battle against the aliens.

Oh, and let’s not forget some truly horrific body horror, as I mentioned in my review of X-O Manowar #30.

There’s a few weird diversions into the Unity crossover which are pretty unsatisfying without the rest of the saga to go on, and this is something that unfortunately afflicts most collections of early Valiant. Especially as Unity ends up not being the most compelling of crossovers anyway.

That said, this is a genuinely excellent book to dive into, and the character’s unusual fish-out-of-water nature, coupled with the sometimes-intergalactic, but often fairly grounded Iron Man-style action, makes for a great basis for a series. The succession of writers and artists all seem to do a great job of writing the protagonist and his extended cast too, with guest appearances not just from Turok, but other denizens of the Valiant Universe too. The Armorines also make their debut here, before their own series launched.

If you’re a fan of comics who never got around to reading any Valiant back in the day, I found this to be the perfect way in, really playing to the strengths of the shared universe but putting the main character front and centre. I loved this, and I’ve continued to read past the thirtieth issue thanks to the fact that the entire run is now available for GlobalComix, for no extra cost if you have a Gold subscription.

Not that I’m looking to turn this into a GlobalComix ad or anything, but the fact that so many complete Valiant series, from multiple eras, are available as part of a Gold sub makes the service incredibly good value for money.

Anyway, X-O Manowar: it’s great, this Omnibus is fantastic reading, and I’m glad I’m finally catching up with it after more than three decades. Better late than never, as I’m sure I’ve said before somewhere…

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