X-O Manowar #27 (Armor Hunters)

By Robert Venditti, Diego Bernard and Brian Reber

After two main installments and a handful of tie-ins, including the fantastic Armor Hunters: Bloodshot, Armor Hunters mastermind Robert Venditti has chosen to take a step back from the story and continue his look at how the Armor Hunters came to be.

Not only did Venditti choose to spend an entire issue of X-O Manowar looking back at the beginnings of the Armor Hunters, but he almost adds little pieces to the puzzle that answer questions about what exactly the armor is. It’s almost an origin within an origin, and twenty-seven issues into ­X-O it’s great to finally start uncovering some things about the armor. This is Venditti’s world, and he continues to craft it and mould it as he sees fit, and everything he does continues to be fantastic. This big time event is undoubtedly going to change the way we look at the X-O armor and it’ll no doubt affect the entire Valiant Universe as we know it.

Speaking of fantastic things, the art team of Diego Bernard and Brian Reber knock this one out of the park. With every issue, Bernard gets better and better and cements himself as one of the best to every handle Aric and the X-O armor. Everything is just flawlessly crafted; from characters to scenery to the battle scenes. You’d be hard pressed to find even one flaw with his line work or Brian Reber’s color work. There’s a reason this guy is exclusive to Valiant, folks. He’s just brings work, like Bernard’s flawless lines, to another level, particularly the scene of their first hunt. The colors just make these sequences jump off the page; you can almost hear the crackle of the electricity (for lack of a better description) as the Hunters attack the armor and its host.

From day one, X-O Manowar has been something special. It’s something hard to describe, but it’s seemingly got a little bit of everything for everybody; warriors, space, alien race, sci-fi, heart, death, humor and more. If it’s been said once, it’s been said in every review for this event and series: you need to be buying X-O Manowar it’s an absolute must if you love comics. Venditti, Bernard and Reber can do no wrong and lately, it seems, neither can Valiant.