Reviews

X-O Manowar, Volume 5: At War with Unity by Vicente Cifuentes, Robert Venditti, Cary Nord

rltinha's review against another edition

3.0

É na arte de Cary Nord que a trade conhece o seu ponto alto, bem diversa do habitualmente presente na «BD de Super-Heróis».
Perdoando-se a confusão Atlântico/Pacífico que surge no crossover com o Vol. 1 de Unity, X-O Manowar goza de boa saúde e recomenda-se.

crookedtreehouse's review against another edition

3.0

One of my least favorite editorial decisions in comic reading is when a crossover is collected across multiple titles, and isn't collected in a logical reading order. This volume of X-O Manowar is intended to be read in tandem with [b:Unity, Volume 1: To Kill a King|20313289|Unity, Volume 1 To Kill a King|Matt Kindt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1392028211l/20313289._SY75_.jpg|28147960]. I think you're intended to start with Unity #1, then read X-O Manowar #19, then go back and forth until the conclusion of this trade. It's a hassle. But if you read just this collection, there are huge gaps in the story that would make it a frustrating read.

The art in the first issue of this collection, by [a:Cary Nord|18832|Cary Nord|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] is the most beautiful art of any Valiant book so far. The thick lines, white backgrounds, and watercolor motif is perfect, and it's a shame that it doesn't appear at any other point in the crossover.

Vendetti's writing and plotting, while not quite on par with [a:Matt Kindt|10179|Matt Kindt|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1205036445p2/10179.jpg]'s, is still very enjoyable here. His slow evolution of Airic was off-putting in the previous volume but starts to level out here as he goes from anti-hero making bad decisions to antagonist making bad decisions on what will hopefully be a journey back to anti-hero.

I certainly wouldn't recommend this as a jumping on point for Valiant, or for X-O Manowar. Nor do I recommend this be read without also reading [b:Unity, Volume 1: To Kill a King|20313289|Unity, Volume 1 To Kill a King|Matt Kindt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1392028211l/20313289._SY75_.jpg|28147960]. But as a combo, this is a fun crossover worth your reading time.

grilledcheesesamurai's review against another edition

2.0

First off, I have really been loving this series. It's a great comic and the story has been wonderfully told alongside which we have been getting some spectacular art to help drive everything along.

Really, up to this point I have had nothing but good things to say.

That said - this fifth book really fumbled the ball.

I hate crossovers. Anyone who reads my reviews knows that I am constantly cursing out Marvel for all their stupid ass crossover events. I thought Valiant, being a smaller publisher, I would be safe from being forced to go out and buy comics I wouldn't normally buy just so I could understand the comic I wanted to be reading.

I was wrong. This whole volume is a Unity tie-in. The only way I was able to wrap my head around what was going on (I didn't read Unity) was by the little 'previously' blurb they attached at the beginning of each issue.

Now sure, I could have read this alongside the Unity comic and everything probably meshed perfectly. The thing is, I didn't want to read Unity. So fuck you very much.

The other big problem I had, and we're getting into spoiler territory here, so be warned, was that everything Aric and his Visigoths were fighting for, in the end, didn't even matter. They wanted their homeland back and for 20(ish) issues they were standing their ground and refused to budge. By the end of this volume, they end up claiming some territory in Nebraska and were completely okay with that. They had some strange new food called cheese, and isn't it delicious? We are all so happy now. On that same note, at the start of the volume Aric loses his Manowar armour. Then at the end, the same people that stole his armour give it back to him with an 'oop's our bad, here, have it back now.'

What the fuck?

So really, I could have just skipped this whole volume and gone into the next one without even missing a beat. All I needed to know was that Aric is now fighting for the yanks, and they now live in Nebraska and love cheese.

Meh.

I dunno. It was just so hard to swallow. Maybe had I read Unity it would have been easier to accept.

Also - the art in the first issue was freaking hooooorrible. I have enjoyed Cary Nord's art before in this series - but this go around (especially issue 19) the art really hurt the book (IMO). Issue 20-22 were a little bit better, but it really felt like Nord was just rushing through his lines and didn't really give a fuck.

Anyways, with Unity now out of the way, I am hoping that we can get back into everything good that I love about this book.