Two weeks into the month of June, and Valiant’s really beginning to ramp up for their big summer goings-on. This means that, of course, they have debuted their second big summer event in the new Valiant continuity, a series that, this year, ties into X-O Manowar. It’s been teased and hinted at for a couple of months now, and the prelude to Armor Hunters has populated the pages of X-O Manowar for about two months now. In the two issue story that built up to this, series writer Robert Venditti introduced readers to the main conflict, with a brief stinger at the end of the last issue of X-O, revealing the Armor Hunters, an intergalactic organization that hunts down and kills individuals in command of a set of X-O armor.
And now, they’ve showed up in orbit around Earth. After a quick attack against a Russian installation containing a half dozen sets of the armor, they manage to find Aric, and deliver their ultimatum to the US military. That’s essentially the gist of this issue, and in between we get a lot of set up for the next three issues of the event, and it seems like a much longer, denser issue than it actually is. Inherently, this isn’t an issue, because that set up will be needed for the rest of the event. Unfortunately, after an explosive opening sequence, there’s a lot of nothing that goes on until the last few pages. Much of this issue is subtly masked exposition, both among the humans on Earth, and the Armor Hunters in their giant robot spaceship. For now, this is excusable, and not just on the grounds that this is the start of an event.
Unfortunately, this is the only action sequence in the book.
No, it’s excusable because it’s nearly impossible to criticize writing that is so darn good. The great thing about this exposition is that, as with all other Valiant titles, it’s so interesting, simply because it works as world building, fleshing out the universe in which these stories take place. The dialogue contains hints at best events in the universe that make it feel lived in, and that is possibly this issue’s greatest strength, is building that sense of a lived in universe. Nothing needs to be over explained, and details don’t need to be given for every little thing. References to events that we, as readers, have never seen can be made because the characters believe it, and in the bets fiction, that’s enough. If the characters are written well, and readers have some type of tangible connection to them, then that shows two things. First, it shows that the book has strong characters, and second, it shows that the book has built out a strong world.
Sure, this is the first issue of a series, but Armor Hunters, like all of the greatest events, is a natural extension of X-O Manowar. In fact, Armor Hunters might as well take place within the pages of X-O Manowar, if the stakes weren’t as high as they were. As with last year’s Harbinger Wars, Armor Hunters feels like another X-O Manowar story line , except with stakes being higher than ever before. Initially, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Sure, the Armor Hunters are dangerous, but they haven’t gone into battle with Aric yet, so we really don’t know what they’re truly capable of. That is, until the complete bombshell of an ending that this issue had, which was explosive, to say the least.
Told you it was awesome.
I think that, considering that many people probably won’t have read this issue yet, that it would be inappropriate to spoil this ending. Suffice to say, the Armor Hunters deliver and ultimatum to the humans, and they deliver on their ultimatum, and it’s a huge, world changing event that will have massive ramifications for Aric as a character, but this is something that will likely resonate throughout the entire Valiant universe. That being said, it kind of seems like it was done for pure shock value right now. Venditti still has time to change that, and I get the feeling that he will. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case with the way this issue ends.
When all’s said and done, Armor Hunters #1 is a solid start to Valiant’s second event. As of right now, it’s only point of comparison is Harbinger Wars, and as of the release of this issue, it isn’t quite as good as Harbinger Wars was. Of course, this is just the first issue, and so it’s largest weakness, the lack of actual plot progression, can be attested to that. This is an issue of introductions rather than resolutions. Right now, that’s fine. But if the entire event ends up feeling like this, then it could end up being a problem. But I’ll leave you on a positive note: The Armor Hunters have an awesome space robot. No, I’m being completely serious. It’s a giant robot that they fly around the galaxy in, and it is bad@$$.
You must be logged in to post a comment.