I was around for the first time Valiant busted in, kicked ass and took names. I was around when Valiant crashed and burned in a hellacious fury. Sad times were had.

When I first heard about this summer of Valiant relaunch, my ears perked up. I was curious. I knew there are a lot of people who still view those old books fondly. Sure, editorial mistakes were made, among other things, but they were overall solid. I wanted this to succeed. I wanted this to be better than the dark times of Acclaim comics. I wanted this to work. I had high hopes.

High hopes, that were met, exceeded, and laughed at by Valiant saying “Is that ALL you could come up with?”

Conan getting ahold of the Iron Man armor. Simple concept, right? Could be cute, but hokey. Sure, fine. Lets throw it against the wall, and if it doesn’t stick, we cancel it and move on. That’s the way things work in comics.

Oh man, does this book stick to the wall. My expectations for a comic haven’t been blown away like this since OMAC, and man, did I love me some OMAC. Not only am I sold on X-O Manowar totally and completely, I am going to be grabbing every single Summer of Valiant relaunch book, and I am greatly looking forward to Rai and Eternal Warrior this winter.

This series has already, a mere two issues in, hit on some notes that can appeal to a lot of comics fans. There’s action, there’s SciFi, there’s some historical fiction. Venditti isn’t messing around here.

And Cary Nord…guys…guys, really. Where did this guy come from? Why was I not familiar with him before?

I urge you to give it a try. Whatever book you’re thinking about dropping, go ahead and skip it, and grab the two issues of X-O Manowar. Brown bag it instead of going out to lunch. Something. Spend the eight bucks on these. Comics fans are always clamoring for something new, while buying the same old redressed crap every month. This is a strong early contender for one of the best series of the year for me.