Aric of Dacia was a Visigoth born in the 5th century AD under Roman rule. As a young boy, Aric witnessed the slaughter of his parents at the hands of Roman soldiers. Henceforth, he dedicated himself to destroying the Roman oppressors, with the help of his Uncle, Alaric I.

Some years later, Aric took a Celtic slave, Deidre, to be his consort. He grew to love her, and worshipped her god, Lugh. One evening, he saw demons attacking members of his tribe. Aric attacked them, but was quickly subdued and taken aboard their alien spacecraft.

For the next seven years, Aric was held prisoner in the slave pens of the spacecraft. At a refuelling station several light years from Earth, he befriended a man known as the "Map Giver," who looked similar to Elvis Presley. The "Map Giver" used a discarded bone shard to carve a map into Aric’s palm that would lead him to the alien’s armory. Aric fought his way to the X-O Manowar class armor and donned the control ring. It later became clear that the "manufacturing" process of the X-O Manowar armor, which not only self-repaired, but also reproduced, involved the absorption of a sentient intelligence that then became the armor's own sentience. With this living armor he was able to escape from the alien ship and return to Earth.

Due to time dilation, as Aric had been traveling at the speed of light, although only a few years had passed on board, sixteen centuries had passed on Earth. Aric thus found himself in the unfamiliar world of the 20th century. At first, Aric struggled to adjust to late-20th-century Earth. He encountered a number of Valiant Universe heroes, befriending some and alienating others. He eventually gained control of Orb Industries, a multi-national corporation formerly controlled by the Spider Aliens.

X-O Manowar played a major role in Valiant's successful Unity crossover event. In this storyline, Aric chose not to help the other Valiant heroes defeat Mothergod (Erica Pierce), and instead built a small empire in the "lost land." Eventually, he was tricked by Mothergod and his people were slaughtered. Aric was eviscerated by a cyborg-tyrannosaurus and became trapped within the X-O Manowar armor for ten years to heal.

Aric and the X-O Manowar armor were sent back to Aric's own time by Solar at the end of Unity. Aric tried to convince his uncle, Alaric, to help him destroy the Romans. However, Alaric was concerned about the power that Aric had gained through the armor. Alaric and the Romans joined forces to fight Aric, but failed to defeat him.

In issue #28, the X-O Manowar armor (known as Shanhara) was destroyed. Solar went to Saturn to recover the armor left there, after defeating the alien he battled in Solar #7. This armor chose to remain with its deceased wearer, but had sprouted a seed, which Solar took. These seeds could be used to create a new Manowar armor, but only through the sacrifice of a sentient being. Aric's friend, Paul Bouvier, who was dying from spider alien poison, consented to be sacrificed so that Aric could continue his battles with the Spider Aliens.

In the X-O Manowar Yearbook, it was explained how Gilad Anni-Padda, the Eternal Warrior, earned the eternal enmity of Aric. Gilad was rescued from bandits by Aric, but he betrayed the location of Aric's Visigoth Camp to Roman soldiers, whose attack led Deidre to miscarry Aric's child. However, Gilad had betrayed the Visigoths as part of a conspiracy that led to the downfall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Alaric. [source: Wikipedia]


I was in college when I first became interested in superhero comics. At the time I was an avid baseball card collector, acquiring many 1950s Topps cards with stars such as Mantle and Mays. When I finally read a superhero comic, it was Wolverine...what a great story, I was hooked. I amassed a rather large collection at the time, delving into other titles like Harbinger and X-O Manowar until the comic industry began to saturate the market with too many variants and I eventually lost interest. Flash forward to 2015..... I ended up buying a Wolverine 1988 series issue #1 graded CGC 9.8. I hadn’t really thought about it much up to that point, but the collecting bug was rekindled. I dug out my collection that had been stored away and decided to start submitting my back issues. I looked online to fill gaps in my various collections and thousands of dollars later I’ve acquired quite a few comics and am trying to avoid collecting too many series at a time! My favorites at this point are the Wolverine 1988 series, Alias 2005 and Harbinger’s 1992 series. I have collected a few odds and ends in between and will eventually fill out my Rai 1992, Shadowman 1992 and now X-O Manowar 1992 series. I also like to collect covers I find appealing (see Incredible Hulk 340) and 1st appearances here and there. It’s all a labor of love!