X-O Manowar: Black, White & Gold #1 Review | Four Stories, One Armored Legend

Aric of Dacia has been swinging that sword and making alien empires regret their life choices for decades, and X-O Manowar: Black, White & Gold #1 proves the big man still has plenty of fight left in him! Valiant gives us four different stories, four creative teams, and one of the most beautifully ridiculous color gimmicks in comics. Black, white, and gold. That’s it. No rainbow explosion, no endless digital fireworks, just artists going absolutely nuts with contrast and the occasional golden punch to the eyeballs. This is the kind of anthology that reminds me why I love seeing different creators get their hands on the same character. Everybody has their own flavor, and Aric? That stubborn Visigoth is still Aric.

First up is Visigoth Therapy from Peter Milligan and Sebastián Cabrol, and this one knows exactly who it’s dealing with. Aric is a warrior from another age, a man who’s been dragged through alien captivity, unimaginable violence, and centuries of history he never asked to experience. You can’t just hand that dude a fancy suit of armor and expect him to become emotionally well-adjusted overnight. Milligan leans into the clash between the savage instincts that kept Aric alive and the burden of carrying something as powerful as Shanhara. The action is muscular, sure, but there’s a wounded, angry man underneath all that metal. Cabrol gives the confrontations plenty of weight, using chunky shadows and sharp golden accents to make every impact feel personal. The emotional angle could’ve used more room, but I dig the ambition.

Then Kevin Roditeli and Javier Ortiz roll in with The Day Off, and fam, the title alone should tell you somebody’s about to have a VERY bad afternoon. The story drops Aric into a much more ordinary environment, where the idea of a peaceful break runs headfirst into trouble. It’s got that wonderful superhero-comic joke baked right into the premise: the one day a powerhouse tries to live like a regular person is the day everything goes sideways. Ortiz plays with crowded city spaces, movement, and exaggerated reactions, while the gold practically jumps off the black-and-white pages. I enjoyed the change in tempo after the first story. It’s playful, but it never forgets that Aric is a walking tank with the temperament of a guy who’d rather solve a problem with a sword.

Dan Abnett and Sid Kotian take us somewhere much bigger with Routine Containment Operations. Now THIS is some cosmic X-O business! We’re talking space, alien machinery, and the sort of impossible odds that make you wonder whether anybody in the galaxy has learned not to mess with this man. Abnett understands the grand scale of the character, while Kotian makes those armored silhouettes and enormous science-fiction environments sing. The page layouts shift between vast, lonely imagery and explosive close-quarters conflict, with gold lighting up the technology and armor like a warning flare. There are moments where the exposition gets a little heavy, and the story moves quickly through its setup, but the sheer visual spectacle is worth the ride. Papo, these are pages you stop and stare at.

The fourth story, Memento, comes from Ron Marz and Bart Sears, and seeing those two names on an X-O comic ought to make longtime Valiant readers grin. This one reaches for the character’s legacy, with Aric’s warrior identity and the weight of his past coming back into focus. Marz has a knack for giving big superhero mythology a human pulse, and Sears brings that unmistakable larger-than-life anatomy, intense expressions, and old-school action energy. The figures practically burst out of their panels. I grew up on comics that weren’t afraid to look like COMICS, baby, and Sears still understands the assignment. Some of the poses are exaggerated enough to make a chiropractor cry, but that raw visual personality is exactly why his work sticks in your head.

Across the whole issue, the black-white-gold presentation is more than a gimmick. It forces every artist to make choices about shape, shadow, texture, and where the reader’s eye lands. Gold becomes a weapon, a flash of movement, a piece of technology, or a reminder that the armor itself is something extraordinary. The styles don’t all blend seamlessly, and that’s actually part of the fun. Cabrol’s grit, Ortiz’s energetic city action, Kotian’s cosmic staging, and Sears’s heavy-metal superhero attitude each give Aric a different stage. Camila Jorge’s lettering holds the anthology together, keeping the dialogue and action readable even when the pages get crowded. Respect to the people who make the words work, because beautiful art ain’t helping anybody if you can’t follow the damn story.

Now here’s where I gotta give Valiant a little grief. Four stories in one issue means four openings, four ideas, and four endings competing for the same limited real estate. Some concepts feel like the beginning of a larger adventure rather than a fully satisfying short story. A few conversations do more explaining than they need to, and there are places where another couple of pages would’ve helped the emotional beats land. The anthology also benefits from the introductory armor-history page, especially for readers who haven’t kept up with Aric’s more recent adventures. I appreciate the context, but don’t mistake this for a comprehensive starting point to every version of X-O Manowar. It’s a celebration of the character’s range, not a substitute for his whole history.

X-O Manowar: Black, White & Gold #1 is a handsome, energetic showcase for one of Valiant’s most enduring heroes. Milligan and Cabrol bring the psychological bruises, Roditeli and Ortiz bring the street-level mayhem, Abnett and Kotian take us into cosmic territory, and Marz and Sears deliver that old-school superhero thunder. Not every story has enough room to hit its full potential, but the artwork, creative variety, and clever use of gold make this a damn enjoyable package. Four different flavors of Aric, one big armored headache for his enemies. That’s a good day at the comic shop, fam.

Crusaders Score:
4/5

Visigoth Therapy: Peter Milligan (writer), Sebastián Cabrol (artist)
The Day Off: Kevin Roditeli (writer), Javier Ortiz (artist)
Routine Containment Operations: Dan Abnett (writer), Sid Kotian (artist)
Memento: Ron Marz (writer), Bart Sears (artist)
Letterer: Camila Jorge
Main Cover: Guillermo Fajardo
Editor: Clara Bartolozzi
Editor-in-Chief: Matías Timarchi
Publisher: Valiant / Alien Books