REVIEW: X-O MANOWAR #2

Over the last couple years I have not been enthused by the efforts of some larger publishing companies to regurgitate stories over and over again and recycling the same old villains while ignoring current events and the current state of the worldÂ Here comes a title by Valiant to show that there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future of technology and global politics.

X-O ManOWar #2 clearly is inspired by many of the technologies that are evident in contemporary life. The normalization of surveillance, swarm technology, hive intelligence, and the emergence of technology into global events. X-O ManOWar #2 creates a position on the future that is very convincing that this may be the future we are heading toward a future based on a miniaturization of technologies designed to protect us.

The interesting thing is that there are so many similar comic book stories out there , but whereas other stories bring us a dystopian vision of the future that includes technology X-O ManOWar #2 Â presents us with a positive vision of the future. Another concept that is presented is that the X-O ManOWar technology will make the world transparent in a way that will make it harder to hide crimes wherever these events occur on this planet from war zones to street corner to the playground. Â

XO MANOWAR Volume 5 threatens to be a powerful expression of what could happen when a person with a suit that endows him with god-like superpowers person is confronted with the negativity of global politics. In his mind he must continue to invest in the propaganda of perfection through progress.Â That a perfect all-knowing divinity will come through and finally deal with humanity’s violence and imperfections through the proliferation technology.Â But overall through reading this the writer gives us the impression that we should be more cautious that the technologies that we want to use to liberate us from our histories of violence will also create new problems in already troubled places in the world.

The art by Emilio Laiso Was absolutely fantastic the copy that I got seem to maybe have been ashcan version but I’m hoping that it was not because the line worked was absolutely amazing and it showed a lot of the intensity and detail that goes into this type of work .

While other publishers had been working diligently on regurgitating the same old superhero or the same old villain or the next new honeypot for simps to salivate over, Dennis Hallam skillfully brought us panels that details what’s happening in front of our eyes and over the horizon. Trust me, this shook out much better than issue #1(So, nobody is going to talk about the big old burnin Batplane on the cover of issue number one?).

SCORE: 5 / 5

XO MANOWAR Volume 5 #2 will have covers by multiple artists: Francesco Francavilla as the main cover artist; Doug Braithwaite for Cover B; Netho Diaz for Cover C. Either one of these covers would be good to grab for reader copies however the speculation market most likely will concentrate on issue number one which had a bronze brushed metal Alan cover which was a 1 out of 250. Â

(W) Dennis Hallum
(A) Emilio Laiso
(C) Ruth Redmond
(L) Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
(CA) Christian Ward

Cover Artists:Â Francesco Francavilla
Variant Cover Artist: Doug Braithwaite
Variant Cover Artist: Netho Diaz