By Robert Venditti, Trevor Hairsine, Cary Nord & Vincente Fuentes
The Valiant universe has continuity down. The events happening in Unity have a direct correlation to what is going on in X-O Manowar. It’s great to see a comic line so tight and connected, unlike other companies that continually ignore the history of some of their stories.
This issue picks up where Unity left off. Aric is in an undisclosed prison with his people. He has to find a way to get his people free without his armor. He meets with the head of extraterrestrial affairs, Jamie Capshaw, and they have a nice long talk. Aric tries to escape and is sedated, but there seems to a bit more going on with all of this.
Robert Venditti has been great on this title, and he does a pretty decent job of keeping this issue interesting, even though it wasn’t very action packed. The relationship between Volo and Aric is really one of more fun parts of this series. Venditti has done a nice job of building that up since their confrontation earlier in the series. There are also some interesting new elements added to the connection between Aric and the armor, which will be expanded on in later issues. This was a pretty wordy issue, which was necessary, but is hurt by how much action this book normally gets.
There were a few artists working on this issue. Trevor Hairsine did pages 1-6, and Cary Nord and Vincente Fuentes did the rest. Hairsine handles the flash back scenes in the beginning of the book, and they are a bit off. Some panels, like the war scenes, are fine but young Aric has a distorted face in a few panels which ruins it. Nord and Fuentes take over with the modern parts of the story and they knock it out of the park. Characters faces look great, there is a ton of detail in every panel, things just look wonderful. The colors on Nord and Fuentes’ art really helps to make it look so astounding as well. This is Nord’s finest issue to date. He really made this issue work and pop. Cary Nord’s art makes this issue fun.
This is kind of a dull issue, but Robert Venditti has brought up some things that will be built on in future issues. The art is the strongest it has been yet, and will hopefully continue to stay that way. Not a great or action packed issue, but a relevant one.
