X-O Manowar Part 19: Unity – The Lost Chapter #1 (February, 1994)

We learn what happens with Aric after losing his army to Mothergod

I have this issue.

After leaving the battleground from X-O Manowar #8, Aric finds that some of his Skammr army were on a different raid and missed Mothergod’s invasion. They regroup, and the next morning Aric leads an attack on the dinosaurs that took part in his defeat.

Meanwhile, a smaller Skammr party finds another of Mothergod’s weapon caches and brings back to camp a war machine. Aric decides to use it and launches an attack on Mothergod’s tower. The opposing army is stronger, and all of Aric’s remaining Skammr army is killed.

Aric reaches Mothergod’s tower, and Solar tells him to focus his attack on the core of her Unity Machine while the Man of the Atom deals directly with her. Aric does so, and Solar succeeds in defeating Mothergod once and for all.

The Lost Land is destroyed, and Solar sends Aric back to his respective time.

Notes of Interest:

1) This issue came out seventeen months after X-O Manowar #8, but continues the events that took place there.

2) Even though the X-O armor will need ten years to heal him, it’s clear that Aric isn’t going to spend that time sitting out the war.

3) I find it touching that Aric remembers Cayla’s name and claims revenge in her honor.

WTF? Moment: Nit-pick note to comic artists everywhere – if you’re going to re-tell specific events from a previous story, keep those visuals the same as the source material. I understand why an artist would take his/her own spin on things, but if the X-O armor and Mothergod’s outfit look the same, the clothing worn by everyone else should be the same as well.

WTF? Moment #2: It’s established in the story that all of the Skammrs were killed. So why is there a panel showing Aric, his Skammr army laid out dead on the battlefield…and one Skammr with eyes open looking directly at the reader?

I love Mike Bair’s art, and thought he did a great job both on his Alpha Flight run and with this issue, but it’s these inconsistencies that throw off the overall visual of this book. My hope is that there was some miscommunication between Bair and writer Kevin Vanhook.

WTF? Moment #3: In the end, was this issue really necessary? My answer is no, it wasn’t. Filling in some “blank moments” of the Unity storyline was a good idea, but it would have been better if we learned that it was during Aric’s battle with the dinosaurs here that he broke his way into…and out of…the prison cell holding Archer and Armstrong from Archer & Armstrong #2. This issue doesn’t say that, but I’ll infer that it does and move on.