The flagship hero of the Valiant Universe is the time-displaced Visigoth X-O Manowar. Ironically, Valiant's greatest superhero team, Unity, was formed by its greatest villain to take him down.
Toyo Harada is considered the most dangerous man on Earth. He runs the multinational Harbinger Foundation, which shapes global change through economic, media, and political coercion, but his greatest powers come from being a psiot--someone gifted with incredible supernatural abilities. Harada is the world's strongest telepath and telekinetic, but even so, he fears the X-O Manowar's strength.
The first Unity story "To Kill A King," was written by Matt Kindt with art by Doug Braithwaite and Brian Weber. In the X-O Manowar comics, the Visigoth Aric of Dacia was abducted by aliens called the Vine, stole their sacred armor, and returned to Earth, only to arrive in the present due to time dilation. The stolen armor, called the X-O Manowar (from which Aric takes his nom-de-guerre), grants him incredible abilities. Aric discovers the Visigoths still alive on the Vine homeworld and saves them, returning his people to their native homeland of Dacia in modern-day Romania. But landing an alien spaceship on the border with NATO, Russia, and several major nuclear powers pushes them to the brink of a nuclear response.
Toyo Harada lived through the bombing of Hiroshima and has vowed never to let the world repeat such horrors. He sends Gilad Anni-Padda, the Eternal Warrior, to speak with Aric. Gilad, an immortal, fought the Romans with Aric, and explains much has changed since ancient times. But Aric's only concern is his returning his people to their homeland after millennia of suffering and displacement. Toyo sends an MI-6 operative called Ninjak to spy on Aric. At the same time, Toyo also has the paramilitary group Unity attack. But this is not the main Unity team that readers will come to know; it is a group of psiots trained by Harada's Harbinger Foundation. They drop out of an airplane, planning to kill Aric in a surprise attack, but the Visigoth uses his alien armor to rip through them before they even hit the ground. He then captures Ninjak, trapping him inside the Vine spaceship.
With the window to prevent nuclear conflict narrowing, Toyo responds immediately. He recruits a former member of his Foundation, a psiot called Livewire who has the ability to control machines. She joins Harada and the immortal Gilad Anni-Padda as they confront X-O Manowar and his fellow Visigoths. Meanwhile, Ninjak breaks free and joins them.
As they all battle aboard the Vine spaceship, it begins flying into the upper atmosphere. While Aric, Ninjak, and Toyo fight against Aric and his men, Livewire uses her power to hack into the X-O Manowar Armor, finally managing to take control of the armor for herself. The ship plummets back to Earth, crashing into the Black Sea. All of the main combatants survive and continue to fight, even as water pours in around them. But now that Livewire is connected to the armor, she sees all the Aric has lived through, as his consciousness has bonded with it. She finally understands all Aric has endured and that he is an honorable man trying to help his people. The X-O Armor also enhances Livewire's powers, allowing her to read wireless signals, and this to realize that an ICBM is en route to wipe them all out.
Livewire flies to the nuke and deactivates it with her powers. Meanwhile, Toyo saves his allies, using his telekinesis to form an air pocket around them and take them to the surface, even as he leaves the Visigoths to drown. But Livewire goes back to save Aric and his people. Back on the surface, Toyo Harada takes the X-O Manowar Armor for himself, while Aric and his people are detained by the US military. But Gilad, Livewire, and Ninjak do not trust Toyo, especially after he was willing to let the Visigoths die. They steal the armor back, ending their affiliation with him, and return the armor to Aric. The Visigoth negotiates freedom for his people and joins Unity, as the team remains together to keep the world safe.