Personally for a quick visual read I think #1 works best. If you are going to keep the medallion the focus is nice. Just really watch the negative space circled in red. Those create visual traps and minor distractions. You want them balanced or cleaned up. Maybe even fade out the medallion in those area so you don't have competing lines.
The swish of the ring around the planet (yellow) is doing a great job leading the eye to the middle and providing some asymmetry. Don't lose that. The gap behind the first person head (red) creates a visual stop for the eye from that swish of the ring, could shift it to fill that area in and not have a shift on contrast. Or pull the person out or back a little. It's at this not enough or too little of negative space that causes a focus unfortunately at the very start of the visual line aiming toward the middle.
The line should not go all the way across and shouldn't be that thick. You want it to not "trap" the two lines of text. Also the line from one person to another creates a visual relationship that cuts the design in half when it should flow through.
These are all minor suggestions. I'd say the biggest is really watch the negative space between and the competing lines of the shape (medallion) behind the text. Makes it harder to read with all the visual static. All the lines, border of the medallion and the line through are equal thickness to the text. It lacks separation between elements. You need to modify the widths.
