Re-Reading: X-O Manowar #21

[xoken]

I thought we could do a book a day (that way people can read one every day or catch up on weekends), talk about it on its own, in the context of whats next, in regards to what expectations it creates and vote on how good it is. I don't have to be the one that posts everyday. If I miss a day or if someone wants to take over please do

For voting think of your single favourite comic book (not just VALIANT) as the benchmark - thats a 10 - and grade according to that.

Make sure to mention what you like'd about the book, what you didn't, what you wish they would have done, your favourite panels, lines of dialogue, little bits of trivia etc.

X-O Manowar #21

[magnusr]

So Ax's armor is hunter-class. We were wondering about that earlier on. What is hunter-class? This issue doesn't have Aric in the armor, but Randy has almost turned into an Aric-clone, so it's not really anything new going on. Just a repeat of earlier stories.

/Magnus

[Todd Luck]

Ironically even though developing characters over time is one his strong suits, the hight point of Ganzalez's writing is usually self-contained issues like this one.

With limited space to do both story and action he actually has to focus on important things and can't let just let characters fly around for several pages without really accomplishing anything.

He handles this issue beautifully. The armor has just the right balance of creepiness and fascination. it's fun to see how Randy reacts to it so completely different than Aric, who was mainly unfazed by the armor and uninterested in its more technical and complicated aspects.

Then we get a replay of Ax's attack in X-O 5 and 6 (you didn't think they swiped the cover of X-O 5 for nothing did you?) to set up how Randy deals with the situation differently. It works (the force field was a nice "duh why didn't Aric think of that?" moment) but it does push believability a little bit (Ken is drunk off his a$$ EVERY time Ax tries to steal the armor?) The look of terror on Ax's face before Randy clobbered him was priceless

One minor complaint. It seems very out of character for Ax to not be spouting out homophobic insults at Ken. He calls him a "pansy" one time but that seems too mild for Ax. i got the impression that by this point they really didn't want to mention Ken's sexuality (probably afraid it would scare off all those readers they finally got).

But only a minor problem with a fun issue. An 8.

[Todd Luck]

So Ax's armor is hunter-class. We were wondering about that earlier on. What is hunter-class?

/Magnus

Well you were wondering about that earlier on

I assume since we've never heard of or seen a Hunter class before Ax used one in X-O 6 that Ax must have made it using the alien technology he found just like he did all his other gizmos.

[xoken]

So Ax's armor is hunter-class. We were wondering about that earlier on. What is hunter-class?

/Magnus

Well you were wondering about that earlier on

I assume since we've never heard of or seen a Hunter class before Ax used one in X-O 6 that Ax must have made it using the alien technology he found just like he did all his other gizmos.

But if Ax made it where did the name come from? It sounds to me like hunter class is an offcial type of armor but its not in the XO database....maybe cliff van meter knows

[Todd Luck]

So Ax's armor is hunter-class. We were wondering about that earlier on. What is hunter-class?

/Magnus

Well you were wondering about that earlier on

I assume since we've never heard of or seen a Hunter class before Ax used one in X-O 6 that Ax must have made it using the alien technology he found just like he did all his other gizmos.

But if Ax made it where did the name come from? It sounds to me like hunter class is an offcial type of armor but its not in the XO database....maybe cliff van meter knows

What do want him to call it? An "Ax class armor" ? An "Axomarine armor" ?

The fact no one but Ax has it makes it seem very unlikely the spider aliens made it. What would it be...a factory reject?

I think there's a reason why Ax's robot body in Rai 0 looks like a Manowar armor. They're playing off a theme started with his first imitation armor...

[xoken]

So Ax's armor is hunter-class. We were wondering about that earlier on. What is hunter-class?

/Magnus

Well you were wondering about that earlier on

I assume since we've never heard of or seen a Hunter class before Ax used one in X-O 6 that Ax must have made it using the alien technology he found just like he did all his other gizmos.

But if Ax made it where did the name come from? It sounds to me like hunter class is an offcial type of armor but its not in the XO database....maybe cliff van meter knows

What do want him to call it? An "Ax class armor" ? An "Axomarine armor" ?

The fact no one but Ax has it makes it seem very unlikely the spider aliens made it. What would it be...a factory reject?

I think there's a reason why Ax's robot body in Rai 0 looks like a Manowar armor. They're playing off a theme started with his first imitation armor...

I agree I just wish they had let us know in the books, one way or the other. Btw its a good thing there weren't message boards back then or Axomarine might have been a real title...I can see it now, they'd even do a VVSS with like 100 copies

[Daniel Jackson]

This wasn't too bad of a story, I like the books with Ax in them. It's just kinda funny how Randy is able beat him in a flash, but Aric almost got his clock cleaned by him.

[jedimarley]

This wasn't too bad of a story, I like the books with Ax in them. It's just kinda funny how Randy is able beat him in a flash, but Aric almost got his clock cleaned by him.

The armor is adapting/changing to Rany's personality.

[Todd Luck]

This wasn't too bad of a story, I like the books with Ax in them. It's just kinda funny how Randy is able beat him in a flash, but Aric almost got his clock cleaned by him.

The armor is adapting/changing to Rany's personality.

Actually I'm confused about what part Ax nearly cleaned Aric's clock in. The majority X-O 6, Ax is one good his away from getting his armor shattered, basically delaying Aric while his gizmo worked. Then when his gizmo does deactivate the armor, Aric destroys the Ax's armor with a hand blade. The only thing Aric didn't do right was figure out that he needed to get Ax's gizmo off the armor but he also didn't have luxury of having Ax explain his villianious plan to him before the armor deactived...

[Daniel Jackson]

This wasn't too bad of a story, I like the books with Ax in them. It's just kinda funny how Randy is able beat him in a flash, but Aric almost got his clock cleaned by him.

The armor is adapting/changing to Rany's personality.

Actually I'm confused about what part Ax nearly cleaned Aric's clock in. The majority X-O 6, Ax is one good his away from getting his armor shattered, basically delaying Aric while his gizmo worked. Then when his gizmo does deactivate the armor, Aric destroys the Ax's armor with a hand blade. The only thing Aric didn't do right was figure out that he needed to get Ax's gizmo off the armor but he also didn't have luxury of having Ax explain his villianious plan to him before the armor deactived...

Well, here is how I compare the two battles. Aric had enough problems with just one scrambler. Ax throws a whole handful on a complete novice to the suit and yet she flakes them off in one panel. Aric has only one on him and "the good skin screams in pain". Aric is almost helpless for several panels, as the suit will not respond. Aric finally has to shed the suit so he can deal with Ax "Barbarian style". In the end we all know who triumphs, but it took Aric the entire book to battle Ax. Randy took less than 6 pages. So I would say that Ax did a much better job against Aric than he did against Randy. I just find that a little absurd.

[Todd Luck]

This wasn't too bad of a story, I like the books with Ax in them. It's just kinda funny how Randy is able beat him in a flash, but Aric almost got his clock cleaned by him.

The armor is adapting/changing to Rany's personality.

Actually I'm confused about what part Ax nearly cleaned Aric's clock in. The majority X-O 6, Ax is one good his away from getting his armor shattered, basically delaying Aric while his gizmo worked. Then when his gizmo does deactivate the armor, Aric destroys the Ax's armor with a hand blade. The only thing Aric didn't do right was figure out that he needed to get Ax's gizmo off the armor but he also didn't have luxury of having Ax explain his villianious plan to him before the armor deactived...

Well, here is how I compare the two battles. Aric had enough problems with just one scrambler. Ax throws a whole handful on a complete novice to the suit and yet she flakes them off in one panel. Aric has only one on him and "the good skin screams in pain". Aric is almost helpless for several panels, as the suit will not respond. Aric finally has to shed the suit so he can deal with Ax "Barbarian style". In the end we all know who triumphs, but it took Aric the entire book to battle Ax. Randy took less than 6 pages. So I would say that Ax did a much better job against Aric than he did against Randy. I just find that a little absurd.

The little gizmos had all issue to work on Aric. I think they had, what, a couple panels to work on Randy? But that was the plan. Ax figured he could end the fight quickly (which makes since since he probably assumed he'ld be facing a more experienced Aric who would tear him a new one quickly this time) and that using a whole slew of them would overwhelm the armor much, much quicker. He was right but he didn't count on the forcefield thing and well you know they say about all your chickens in one basket...

[CACTVS]

I haven't read this in a few weeks but didn't she have the armor access the file of Aric's previous battle with Ax and then activate the force field? I don't remember. The suit would have learned and adapted from the past encounter. Plus being a more evolved human on top of the fact that she was employed by a government agency probably trained for years in the art of combat she'd be more used to exploiting every avenue of a piece of technology than would a barbarian of with whom its totally new.

[Daniel Jackson]

I haven't read this in a few weeks but didn't she have the armor access the file of Aric's previous battle with Ax and then activate the force field? I don't remember. The suit would have learned and adapted from the past encounter. Plus being a more evolved human on top of the fact that she was employed by a government agency probably trained for years in the art of combat she'd be more used to exploiting every avenue of a piece of technology than would a barbarian of with whom its totally new.

That's not a bad theory, but at the same time are we supposed to believe that a guy like Ax wouldn't be more prepared as well? The part that bothers me the most is that Aric has given Solar a run for his money with the suit, but at the same time it takes him an entire book to win the battle with Ax in a lesser class suit. That tells me that Valiant wants us to believe that Ax can be a formidable adversary (even if he did pee on himself in the end). It's then disappointing to see Randy dispatch him so easily. I would have preferred to see a much longer battle to make it more believable.