X-O MANOWAR #4, available from Valiant Entertainment on January 27th, 2021, pits Aric in his newly upgraded suit against Yakiov for the last time. Before he gets too comfy, another enemy shows up to push his new armor to the limit. Dennis Hopeless’ story mixes Invasion USA (1985) with the Blob (1988) and a sprinkle of #FakeNews to raise the stakes on our armored Visigoth.
The Details
- Written By: Dennis Hopeless
- Art By: Emilio Laiso
- Colors By: Ruth Redmond
- Letters By: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
- Cover Price: #3.99
Was It Good?
It was good. Not as good as the prior issues but still very good. Hopeless wraps up the Yakiov conflict with a neat and tidy bait-n-switch that didn’t quite satisfy. Then the story completely switches gears to an attack from another enemy on Whitaker’s boat that, while well done, made the overall issue feel tonally inconsistent. Again, still very good but not the best of the series.
Credit where credit is due, the art is outstanding. I’d venture this book has some of best, visually engaging art of any monthly title on the market right now. Kudos to Laiso, Redmond, and Otsmane-Elhaou.
Short Story Long
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
Yakiov has taken Harlem and Aric’s adoptive family hostage and pre-emptively gloats over his expected victory. Yakiov assumes Aric will charge in guns ablazin’ and will either be destroyed by his monster machines or will become hated for destroying Harlem in his zeal to get Yakiov.
Surprise! Neither happens. Aric uses Whitaker’s androids as decoys while he stealthily takes out all the guards. Yakiov is defeated without firing a single shot. Aric intends to let him go to live with his humiliating defeat, rather than becoming a prisoner to rally his followers or be killed and become martyr.
It’s a moral plan and a psychologically clever plan, but Yakiov doesn’t take the offer and threatens to kill Desmond. His hand forced, Aric kills Yakiov.
This wraps up the Yakiov plot thread pretty efficiently, but it felt too quick. Maybe Aric was a little too cool-headed about the final confrontation. I would’ve liked to see a little more emotion from Aric to really project how much he wanted to avoid killing Yakiov, or at least see him fighting the urge to kill Yakiov.
In a small and amusing scene of #FakeNews schadenfreude, the news crews filming the exchange try to paint Aric as a reckless vigilante that lives above the law. Almost immediately, the local police call out the reporters on live TV for misrepresenting what happened, and the police extend a offer to work together or at least except Aric’s presence can be a good thing.
The police’s public putdown of the news narrative sends Aric’s popularity through the roof, pleasing Whitaker immensely. Aric and Whitaker regroup on Whitaker’s yacht to make plans for leveraging the public’s good will.
While they talk, a new nanite blob, similar to the one in issue X-O Manowar #2 but much bigger, attacks the yacht. Whitaker is injured in the attack but escapes in a “escape pod” that looks like a giant T-sphere.
Rather than escape in his armor, Aric stubbornly stays behind to fight. The size and power of the nanite blob is overwhelming, and we end the issue with Aric slowly being crushed by the blob at the bottom of the sea.
The art is consistently great all the way through, but the energy level goes up and down like a yo-yo. That said, it’s a solid issue.
Final Thoughts
X-O MANOWAR #4, available from Valiant Entertainment on January 27th, 2021, raises the threat level while concluding the Yakiov storyline neatly. With the strongest art in any monthly comic right now and an action-packed story, this series remains one of our favorite series of 2021 so far.