Valiant Entertainment 2017
Written by Matt Kindt
Illustrated by Tomas Giorello
Coloured by Diego Rodriguez
Lettered by Dave Sharpe
Now, far from home on a strange and primitive new world, Aric has begun a new life. Liberated from his past, he tends to his crops. Free from war. Free from violence. Free from the armor. But the machinery of death marches his way once again. Conscripted into an alien army and thrown into an unforgiving conflict, the fury inside him finds voice as he is forced to embrace the armor once more. With it, he will decimate armies, topple empires and incite interplanetary warfare as he rises from SOLDIER to GENERAL to EMPEROR to VISIGOTH. They wanted a weapon. He will give them war!"
I don’t normally follow Aric’s adventures outside of group or company crossovers. But as with any first issue i’m always curious to see what’s new and welll let’s face it Matt writing something means you kind of automatically try it, right i’m not the only one who thinks that? There really is something kind of cool and different about this issue and the direction the series is going to take and yet at the same time it’s familiar and perfectly aligned with who Aric is at his core.
Tomas and Diego do some absolutely stunning work on the interiors here. I love an alien landscape and they certainly deliver that what with that planet being so close and the two suns in the sky. Then to bring us the housing structure and the harvesting of crops make it feel so completely normal. All visuals to really set the stage for where this is taking place. The utilisation of the page layouts through the angles, perspective and backgrounds here are so perfectly in tune with the story it’s amazing how easy the flow feels. There’s also something extra sexy about Aric here that comes from his face, facial expressions and that body he’s rockin that draw you in.
While I do not know why Aric left Earth, his people and his wife behind I can very well take a stab at why. Whether or not it’s true is not relevant since he’s at this place and time in his life on another world trying to leave his old life behind. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise then whether he likes it or not he’s being thrust back into the same kind of role he just left. Though I have to say he’s not wearing the suit, yet, and he’s doing this without a hand and it all comes across like some old Greek epic.
Conscripted into service against his will and then he rises up take control and eventually rule those around him, I mean that’s what we see happening here right it’s almost as if that writing is already on the wall. It’s kind of like no matter what Aric cannot get away from that life. It will be interesting to see how he handles the path of his destiny this time around and if he can change just enough so he’s not the same man he’s trying to forget about.
This is bold, daring and sexy as hell and it has all the makings of what we’ve seen throughout history in how legends were made.