X-O Manowar Part 0: X-O Manowar #0 (August, 1993)

We learn about Aric’s life before he took possession of the X-O armor.

I have this issue.

It’s 399 A.D., and in the Province of Dacia in Southern Europe, we find Aric, a boy, watching his father finish making a great sword intended for Alaric, leader of the tribe and Aric’s uncle. Romans attack the village, and Aric witnesses the deaths of both of his parents. Enraged, Aric picks up his father’s sword and kills his first Roman – his father’s murderer – and vows to kill all Romans.

Years later, 408 A.D. in fact, Aric is in Northern Italy on a supply raid led by his uncle when he finds a Roman temple. Believing it to be full of riches that can be sold for supplies, Aric enters to find a young slave woman about to be killed by a Roman captain. Aric kills the captain, as well as the priest in charge of the temple, and takes the slave as his captive. He learns that her name is Deidre from Brittany, and was taken prisoner by the Romans two years earlier. She tells Aric that she is in his debt and offers herself as payment…which Aric accepts.

Aric later joins with Deidre in the eyes of Lugh, Deidre’s god, in part to remove himself further from the Romans who believe in the same god the Goths worship. Several months later, Aric is on night patrol, protecting the camp from Romans, when he comes upon a group of demons feeding on his some of his people. Aric attacks, and managed to kill one of them before getting knocked unconscious and dragged away.

He awakens to find himself a prisoner of what he calls Hard-Skins. While working at a slave labor camp, Aric meets another slave, speaking to him in Goth, who calls himself the Map-Giver. The two finish their work together as the Map-Giver tells Aric about an ultimate weapon that could bring destruction to the Hard-Skins. Aric tells him that if shown the way, he would get to the weapon and make the Hard-Skins pay. Not long afterwards, the Map-Giver carves the location of the weapon into Aric’s right hand.

A Hard-Skin arrives and tells Aric that he is to be fed to the First-Among-Equals, but as Aric is dragged away, there’s an explosion as the Hard-Skins fall under attack. Using the confusion to his advantage, Aric follows the map he was given and reaches his destination. He pulls the ring the Map-Giver described and finds himself covered by a good skin able to protect him from the Hard-Skins’ fire-light. Aric uses the Good-Skin to destroy the Hard-Skin’s house and return home.

Notes of Interest:

1) This issue was written as a prelude to, and published eighteen months after, X-O Manowar #1.

2) The last few pages depict the same events from X-O Manowar #1 in a somewhat different way.

3) Aric kills his first Roman the very first time he picks up a sword.

4) We learn that Aric’s hatred of and desire to kill all Hard-Skins is connected to his deep resentment of the Romans.

5) Aric accepts that what he initially thought were demons are actually aliens.

6) His affinity for languages is brought up here as he tries to learn the “damn alien tongue”.

7) We also learn how Aric became a believer in Lugh - an Irish God.

8) And we meet the Map-Giver Aric mentions in X-O Manowar #1, who looks an awful lot like…

WTF? Moment: …Elvis? Really? This would be funny if Aric looked through some old record albums at some point and said “This musician looks strangely familiar…”

WTF? Moment #2: I find it interesting that Aric doesn’t try to communicate with other prisoners. He wants to understand his captors, but isn’t interested in getting an army of fellow slaves together to overthrow them?

WTF? Moment #3: Origin stories are a headache on a good day, especially when they come out after a character’s first appearance. More often than not, the origin is told through flashbacks - meaning the character is telling his story to someone or remembering it. Here, Aric's origin is told as a separate story, placing it before issue #1. I can't call it a WTF appearance and I despise the use of negative numbers, so that's why this is appearance number 0.