X-O Manowar Issue 22

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 22

X-O Manowar Issue 22
Published: November 1993
Cover Artists: Paris T. Karounos, Jorge Gonzalez
Writer: Jorge Gonzalez
Penciler: Paris T. Karounos
Inkers: Tom Ryder, Rodney Ramos
Colorists: Andrew Covalt, Stu Suchit & Knob Row
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Bob Layton

Title: White Kings and Black Knights Part 1
Synopsis: Aric chooses to live with the Yanomama people in a remote village in Peru. Randy Cartier, his head of security, uses her power to wield Shanhara, the sentient armor, to solidify her position as head of Orb Industries in Aric's absence. While he uses his natural fighting skills to defend them against the attacks of a nearby tribe, Randy flies through space, and into the heart of a volcano, to learn the test Shanhara's limits.

X-O Manowar Issue 21

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 21

X-O Manowar Issue 21
Published: October 1993
Cover Artists: Jim Calafiori, Bob Layton, Jorge Gonzalez
Writer: Jorge Gonzalez
Penciler: Paris T. Karounos
Inker: Tom Ryder, Phyllis Novin & Peter Palmiotti
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Bob Layton

Title: Strange Bedfellows
Synopsis: Aric's old foe Ax has recently broken out of custody at the Harbinger Foundation. When he learns that Aric has left Orb Industries, he ambushes Ken, Aric's second-in-command, and then Randy Cartier, his Head of Security. Randy has been troubled by the easy affinity she's formed with Shanhara, the sentient armor. But when Ax shows up wearing his less powerful Hunter Armor, she dons the X-O Manowar armor, and shows him she won't give it up without a fight.

X-O Manowar Issue 20

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 20

X-O Manowar Issue 20
Published: September 1993
Cover Artists: Paris T. Karounos, Tom Ryder & Jorge Gonzalez
Writer: Jorge Gonzalez
Penciler: Paris T. Karounos
Inker: Tom Ryder
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Letterer: Rob Johnson, Ken Lopez
Editor: Bob Layton

Title: Operation Deep Freeze Part 3: The Consequences
Synopsis: Aric's been buried before, but this time he's not content to lay down and die. While he blasts his way out of the ice, snow and debris, and takes on the U.S. Government forces outside the Amundsen-Scott research station, his Head of Security, Randy, takes on the troops inside. The two return to the states, where Aric calls in a favor from Harada, the head of the powerful Harbinger Foundation, to call off the military. Aric uses the information Shanhara, the sentient X-O Manowar armor, gleaned from the computer systems in Antarctica to insure that the Internal Revenue Service keep out of Orb Industries' affairs. Then, disgusted with our "modern" world, he hands the X-O control ring to Randy, and tells her he's going away. Maybe forever.

X-O Manowar Issue 19

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 19

X-O Manowar Issue 19
Published: August 1993
Cover Artists: Jim Calafiore, Tom Ryder, Jorge Gonzalez
Writer: Jorge Gonzalez
Penciler: Jim Calafiore
Inker: Tom Ryder
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Letterers: Tony Bedard, Ken Lopez
Editor: Bob Layton

Title: Operation Deep Freeze Part 2: Gentlemen's Agreement
Synopsis: When the Feds surround Aric, and point a gun at Randy's head, Aric surrenders his X-O Manowar armor to save the life of Orb Industries' Head of Security. The Feds then transport them to the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole. The Feds plan to test the armor inside a fortified bunker. What they don't realize is that Aric still possesses the control ring. When he and Randy are locked inside a cell, her life is no longer in jeopardy, and they realize the Feds still plan to kill them, Aric calls the armor to him. But then, in the process of escaping his cell and battling the Feds, Aric sets off an avalanche that buries him beneath snow, ice, and debris.

X-O Manowar Issue 0

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 0

X-O Manowar Issue 0
Published: August 1993
Cover Artists: Joe Quesada, Jimmy Palmiotti, & John Cebollero
Writers: Bob Layton & Jorge Gonzalez
Penciler: Joe Quesada
Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colorist: John Cebollero
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Kevin VanHook

Title: Retribution Prologue
Synopsis: This origin story transports us to 399AD, when we meet Aric as a boy, and watch an event that prompts him to become a leader in the Dacians fight against the Romans. Then it jumps forward a decade, when he meets Diedre, who will become the love of his life. Months later, the Spider-Aliens attack Aric's group, and imprison him in their spaceship. Ultimately, we learn how Aric found the X-O ring which gave him control of the X-O Manowar armor, as well as the involvement of Solar, Man of the Atom, who unknowingly provided the Aric the opportunity to do so.

X-O Manowar Issue 18

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 18

X-O Manowar Issue 18
Published: July 1993
Cover Artists: Jim Calafiore, Tom Ryder, Jorge Gonzalez
Writer: Jorge Gonzalez
Penciler: Jim Calafiore
Inker: Tom Ryder
Colorists: David Chlystek, Knob Row
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Bob Layton

Title: Operation: Deep Freeze Part 1: Ultimatums
Synopsis: Aric's armor, and his battles, have not gone unnoticed by the United States government. A Senator on the Appropriations committee, and a member of the Internal Revenue Service, meet quietly with Aric. When he refuses to hand the armor over, they send representatives to Orb Industries. Ken, Aric's second-in-command, refuses to help them, and Aric throws them out before they can intimidate more staff. So they hold Randy, Aric's Head of Security, hostage in her own home, and order him to meet them at a prearranged location and hand over the armor or they will kill her. After the phone call, Randy's friend bursts in and frees her. The villains flee, but they take with them a tracking device. Randy and her friend follow the signal to King George Island (the largest of the Shetland Islands lying 75 miles off Antarctica's coast). Then Aric appears, and a battle between the X-O Manowar armor, and the U. S. Government, commences.

X-O Manowar Issue 17

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 17

X-O Manowar Issue 17
Published: June 1993
Cover Artists: Jim Calafiore, Bob Layton, Jorge Gonzalez
Writer: Jorge Gonzalez
Penciler: Jim Calafiore
Inker: Rodney Ramos
Colorists: Knob Row
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Bob Layton

Title: Push And Shove
Synopsis: When the mob learns that Orb Industries plans to develop an area in which they've buried bodies, they threaten Ken Clarkson, Aric's second-in-command, to leave the land alone. Aric meets with them to discuss the situation rationally, and they try to kill him. So he calls on the X-O Manowar armor and attacks them. Later, upon reflection, the mob decides to dig up the bodies, and allow Orb Industries to develop their land.

X-O Manowar Issue 16

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 16

X-O Manowar Issue 16
Published: May 1993
Cover Artists: Ted Halsted, Rom Ryder
Writer: Jorge Gonzalez
Penciler: Jose Delbo
Inker: Andrew Pepoy
Colorist: Eric Lusk
Editor: Mark Moretti

Title: Family Matters
Synopsis: When Ken, his second-in-command at Orb Industries, is kidnapped by gun runners, Aric must put a stop to a thriving trade in alien weaponry.

X-O Manowar Issue 15

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 15

X-O Manowar Issue 15

Published: April 1993

Cover Artist: Bart Sears

Writer: Bob Layton

Penciler: Bart Sears

Inker: Randy Elliot

Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez

Letterer: Ken Lopez

Editor: Kevin VanHook

Title: Concrete Jungle

Synopsis: When a Con Edison crew is killed, Aric and Turok battle bionisaurs in the tunnels, and eventually the parks of New York.

X-O Manowar Issue 14

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 14

X-O Manowar Issue 14
Published: March 1993
Cover Artists: Bob Layton, Bart Sears, and Jorge Gonzalez
Plot: Bob Layton and Jon Hartz
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciler: Bart Sears
Inker: Randy Elliot
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Kevin VanHook

Title: The Coming of Turok Dinosaur Hunter
Synopsis: One minute, Turok is fighting the bionisaurs amid the Unity War in the Lost Land. The next, he is transported to Columbia, South America on June 10, 1987. In New York, on September 14, 1992, Aric returns from the moon to Orb Industries headquarters. After consulting with Ken Clarkson, his second-in-command, and Randy Cartier, his chief of security, the three fly to a corporate lab in Orlando Florida. Researchers there have discovered infant dinosaurs. Aric travels to South America to investigate where the young Bionisaurs were found. He meets Turok, who helps him wipe out the smuggling operation selling the dinosaurs that were transported through the Time-Rift along with Turok.  

X-O Manowar Issue 13

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 13

X-O Manowar Issue 13
Published: February 1993
Cover Artists: Tom Ryder,Jorge Gonzalez
Writer: Bob Layton
Layouts: Mike Leeke
Finished Art: Tom Ryder
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Kevin Vanhook

Title: The Darkside To Victory
Synopsis: The Spider-Aliens have stripped Aric of Shanhara, his sentient armor. He fights their champion in an arena on their moon base. Solar, Man of the Atom is there as an observer, but cannot interfere. But when Aric defeats their champion, the Spider-Aliens attack him again. So Solar throws him his control ring, and Shanhara flies to him. Together, they kill the Spider-Aliens, and destroy their base. Then Aric destroys the seed Shanhara has produced to ensure that the aliens can never gain control of another set of X-O Manowar armor.

X-O Manowar Issue 12

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 12

X-O Manowar Issue 12
Published: January 1993
Cover Artists: Mike Leeke, Tom Ryder
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciller: Mike Leeke
Inker: Tom Ryder
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Kevin VanHook

Title: Moonstruck: Seed of Destruction Part 2
Synopsis: The armor takes him to the moon, where Aric finds a base filled with 67,000 Spider-Aliens. The armor informs him that it reproduces every two thousand years, and as it put him to sleep for so many centuries to return him to the present day, it is returning to its own kind to birth a new set of armor. At the base he meets Rexo, a soldier crippled in Vietnam. The Spider-Aliens befriended him, and gave him his own set of armor. Rexo tells him that his armor is not only sentient, but it has a name: Shanhara. He shows Aric an arena filled with human hostages, and demands Aric give up the X-O armor. When Aric refuses, Rexo kills the hostages. Aric fights for his life, kills Rexo and many Spider-Aliens, but he is outnumbered. He flees back to space, but the Spider-Aliens follow. Even in their less powerful armor, they capture him.

X-O Manowar Issue 11

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 11

X-O Manowar Issue 11
Published: December 1992
Cover Artists: Mike Leeke, Tom Ryder, Jorge Gonzalez
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciler: Howard Simpson
Inker: Katheryn Bolinger
Colorist: Maria Beccari
Additional Colorists: Knob Row
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Kevin Vanhook

Title: Alien Whispers: Seed of Destruction Part 1
Synopsis: Aric fights the Spider Aliens that have invaded his house. His armor produces a sword, a weapon he often used while fighting the Romans. After vanquishing the aliens, he (and Ken, his 2nd in Command at Orb Industries) suffers recurring dreams of fighting Spider Aliens in an arena. Then he awakens from one, and finds himself clad in his armor, floating in orbit around Earth.

X-O Manowar Issue 10

Cover for X-O Manowar Issue 10

Published: November 1992
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciler: Mike Leeke (Issue & Cover)
Inker: Tom Ryder (Issue & Cover)
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez (Issue & Cover)
Additional Colorists: Mike Cavallaro, David Chlystek & Maria Beccari
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Barry Windsor-Smith

Title: Homecoming Part 2: Takeover
Synopsis: On May 8, 1992, a tree falls on the grounds of Orb Industries. Aric's 2nd in Command, Ken Clarkson, helps him out of the hole. After two months of rest and physical therapy, the Spider-Aliens invade Aric's mansion. But when he calls the armor to him, it looks different than before.

X-O Manowar Issue 9

Cover of X-O Manowar Issue 9

X-O Manowar Issue 9
Published: October 1992
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciler: Mike Leeke (Issue & Cover)
Inker: Tom Ryder (Issue & Cover)
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Barry Windsor-Smith

Title: Besieged: Homecoming Part 1
Synopsis: Aric is transported to Earth in 408AD, and aids his Visigoth tribe in fighting the Romans. But they fear his power, and conspire with the Romans to kill him. His love Dierdre dies amid the fighting. Heartbroken, Aric blasts a hole deep in the ground, and buries himself in dirt and darkness.

X-O Manowar Issue 8

Cover of X-O Manowar Issue 8

Published: September 1992
Cover Artist: Walt Simonson
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciller: Mike Leeke
Inker: Tom Ryder
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Additional Colorists: Mark Csaszar, Maurice Fontenot
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Jim Shooter

Title: Unity Chapter 13: Crossroads
Summary: Aric leads his army of Skammrs in an assault on the Mother God's fortress. After the battle, a dinosaur catches him without his armor and bites him in half. The X-O armor envelops him, and puts him to sleep. He awakes amid the bodies of his devastated army, and the X-O armor informs him that years have passed while it knitted his body back together.

X-O Manowar Issue 7

Cover of X-O Manowar Issue 7

Published: August 1992
Cover Artist: Frank Miller
Writer: Bob Layton
Penciller: Michael Leeke
Inker: Tom Ryder
Colorist: Jorge Gonzalez
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Editor: Jim Shooter

Title: A Call To Arms (Chapter 5 of the Unity crossover event)
Summary: With the help of some renegade Harbinger kids, young Geoff McHenry (a Geomancer), and a hand from Solar, Man of the Atom, Aric is transported to the Lost Land. There he faces cybernetic-enhanced pterodactyls, rescues prisoners from being eaten by dinosaurs, and wrests the leadership of a barbarian race of warriors called Skammrs from the Mother God who oversees the world out of space and time. 

Ninjak, Armorines, and Kris Hathaway

This year, the Valiant group on Facebook has been holding a weekly art competition. It took me awhile to get around to competing, but three weeks ago I finally got started. The first week we were given a theme: The Fist and the Steel. This was the title of a recent four-part story in Ninjak. This is the recent series written by Matt Kindt. Ninjak is Colin King, a British mercenary who often works with MI-6. I drew a picture of the four major characters in the story sitting down and playing poker to achieve their goals, rather than fighting for it. It was fun, and interesting to draw all four characters. Of course, we'd all rather see them fight, right? Isn't that the fun of comic books?

The following week's theme was Space. I had just read X-O Manowar Issue 25, from the classic 1990s series. This issue contained an inserted edition of Armorines Issue 0. The two formed a complete story about a group of American soldiers recruited by the military to form an elite fighting unit. They wore armor specially designed by a brilliant scientist, and their first mission was to attack Aric of Dacia, and capture his X-O armor. Once the higher-ups realize that these orders were faked, the Armorines are recalled. But not before a spectacular fight in which we see the potential of the Armorines' armor.

This week we were not given a theme. So I chose to do a portrait of one of the characters from the recent Harbinger books, written by Joshua Dysart. This character was Kris Hathaway. As the former girlfriend of team-leader Peter Stanchek, the evil Toyo Harada's people follow her, and continually read her mind to discover clues to Peter's whereabouts. So she reluctantly joins the Harbingers and goes on the run from Harada's people, but only after she uses Peter's abilities to rob a bank in order to pay off her parents crippling debt, and save them from bankruptcy, due to her father's medical bills.

It's my first attempt a portrait. I based it on several drawings in two issues of Harbinger by two different pencilers. It got a few Likes on Facebook, and even a compliment on the hair texture. I'm reasonably pleased with the result. It'll be interesting to see how the process of making a portrait from a photo differs from one based on a comic book drawing, when I get that far.