X-O Manowar (VEI) #1 pgs. 5 & 6 w/patches 2012 (1st VEI appearances Aric and The Eternal Warrior)

This ranks up there with one of my all time favorite pieces! Mr. Nerd Boss himself Dinesh Shamdasani was amazing enough to to help me and let me get this amazing page. I can’t explain how excited I am. I now have pages with Gilad in all his 1st appearances. Then on top of that, this also has Aric’s 1st appearance in modern Valiant.

This piece is interesting to me in that it is two pages in one. The original page 5 pencils is the main image then in the extra pictures is the inks to it. As you can see it is not the published page we are use to (although if memory serves me correctly it was used for the Valiant preview book). The patch is the image with Gilad’s first appearance that goes at the bottom of page 5. Page 6 is the bottom 3 panels and the gorgeous patch of Aric. I asked about the 2 Visigoths flanking Aric and Mr. Shamdasani told me this is the piece used for the page (so I’m not sure about where they came from).

The final patch is from page 29 and it’s of Gafti and another prisoner of the Spider-Aliens.

This book was amazing as I’m sure each and every one of you know. Dinesh and Robert Venditti and Warren Simons crafted the greatest universe of the 2010’s. The run from 2012 until DMG bought them is possible the only rivals of universe building that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee or Jim Shooter and the original Valiant knobs have (in my humble opinion).