X-O Manowar Part 36: X-O Manowar #20 (September, 1993)

Aric takes care of business, and then goes on walkabout.

I have this issue.

Aric wakes up to find himself buried under two-hundred tons of ice and rock. He blasts free and goes after Randy – who according to the X-O’s remote eye is in trouble. He rescues her, and as she takes a chopper to where she can make her way back to the states, Aric finds the Deep Freeze Project – a C.I.A. funded plan to bury the X-O armor under ten miles of ice until they figured out how to use it – and destroys it.

Several days later, Aric has a meeting with Toyo Harada regarding Senator Ackerman and calls in the life-debt of honor Harada owed him. That evening, Aric pays a visit to Ackerman’s house, and threatens to release all the data the X-O armor downloaded from the Amundsen-Scott Station to the press unless ownership of Orb Industries returns to him. The next day, Aric returns to Orb Industries and informs I.R.S. agent Ms. Mandrake that the Senator is on line one and kicks her out of his building.

Aric’s learns later that evening from Randy that Harada honored his debt and Aric is now officially an American citizen. Then he tells her that he’s grown tired of the “civilized” world and is leaving for the foreseeable future. Aric gives her the X-O command ring, telling her that she’s the only one he can trust to look after the armor while he’s gone, and walks out.

Notes of Interest:

1) This issue takes place immediately after X-O Manowar #19.

2) The “life-debt” Harada owes Aric was made back in X-O Manowar #4 when Aric rescued him from Harbinger.

3) We learn that the X-O armor, while immensely powerful, isn’t able to lift two-hundred tons of ice and rock, forcing Aric to use the armor’s ion cannons to get free.

WTF? Moment: Ion Cannons? Whatever happened to “fire-light”?