I took advantage of the Comixology sale on Valiant's X-O Manowar sale where the 1st 11 issues are $0.99 apiece. First off, it is a fantastic story. However, as I was reading it, it seemed like the character was an amalgamation from the Big Three Avengers. The main character, Aric, is a brash, arrogant warrior like Thor. He is a man out of time like Captain America. He also has a highly advanced suit of armor like Iron Man.

After reading the book, I did a little research on the title and saw that he was created by Jim Shooter who was the Editor in Chief at Marvel for a while. Has it ever been stated where his inspiration for the character came from? Also, as I have not read any of the original series (just the wiki page on here), can anyone confirm that his personality is similar to how it was originally conceived?

@cap10nate: hey a little late on the response but yeah I noticed those similarities as well. But as a reader of X-O, it's not a rip off IMO (and no offense by that, as Im not saying that's your point at all). I mean he's similar to IM just because of having a super powerful suit. But its a conpletely different premise as the Manowar armor is alien tech, also its sentient. And as for Cap, he's like him in that he's a man out of time, but its not like he was even frozen. Also, Cap doesnt have some copyright on the man out of time concept, thats been around in storytelling pretty much forever. And like Thor, he's definitely brash, but its too easy to compare him to Thor, being a blond warrior heir. Personality wise he's much different. The brash warrior character is also another popular character concept so he's really no more like Thor than any other brash warrior.

But yeah I can see what you mean. People who read Marvel would be more likely to typecast Aric as such an amalgamation, but lets not forget hes his own unique chracter (and a great one at that). It's really a testament to how awesome X-O is that he can represent the coolest aspects of marvel's 3 biggest properties, at any rate.

In a short answer to your question: It could be a little homage to those characters. But Aric is really a VERY different character from any of them.

Huh. I never saw the comparison, to be honest, but I can definitely see it now. I don't know if it's intentional though, but Aric is still a pretty cool character regardless. Seems to be a problem of any non-Big Two superhero character, they're immediately compared to DC/Marvel ones.